Things to do in Oaxaca State
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Amigos del Sol
Professional, good-value school popular with travelers. Begin classes any weekday – call the director ( [tel] cell phone 951-1968039) between 8am and 9am, 3pm and 4pm, or after 8pm, or send an email the day before you want to start. No minimum duration and no registration charge. Students starting on Monday should arrive at the office at 8:30am.
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Instituto Cultural Oaxaca
ICO's popular seven-hour-a-day program includes intercambios and workshops in arts, crafts and culture; many classes are held in the school's spacious gardens and terraces. There's a US$55 registration fee.
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La Providencia
Zipolite's most suave dining option has an open-air lounge area where you can sip a drink while you peruse the menu and place your order. The flavorsome and well presented food is a nuevo mexicano treat, from cold beetroot and ginger soup to chicken breast in blue-cheese-and-pumpkin-flower sauce.
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Restaurante Los Danzantes
Delicious Mexican fusion food and a spectacular architect-designed setting make Los Danzantes one of Oaxaca’s most special dining spots. An old colonial patio now sports high patterned walls of adobe brick and cool pools of water in a highly contemporary configuration, half open to the sky. Welcoming young staff serve up a small but first-class selection of food: try one of the excellent duck dishes. The only gripe is that servings are not on the generous side. Desserts are very good too, and the restaurant has its own brand of mezcal.
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La Brújula
This is a great stop for good coffee; fruit smoothies; breakfasts (including waffles with fruit); salads; and home-baked bread, cakes and cookies. It is rightly popular among artists and expats.
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Deep Blue Dive
Based in Beach Hotel Inés; the instructor here is also PADI-certified.
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Guadua
There’s nothing quite like Guadua on the Oaxaca coast. A solid wooden deck sits about halfway along Zicatela beach, its thick palapa roof supported by bamboo poles. The delicious and attractively presented food is a Pacific-Mediterranean-Asian–Middle Eastern fusion with dishes like shrimp coconut curry, cashew couscous and seared tuna with teriyaki sauce. Guadua is also a hip beach lounge, with a good bar, music from bossa nova to dub to electronica (live Wednesday to Saturday evenings), and quirkily constructed loungers out on the sands in front. And it recycles waste water and trash.
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Café Central
The social hub of Oaxaca’s artsy, bohemian, alternative scene, the Café (or Bar or Colectivo) Central is owned by one of Oaxaca’s innovative painters, Guillermo Olguín. It hosts rarely seen live-music acts (often on Thursday), dance and independent films, and uses its wall space as an alternative gallery for celebrated and unheard-of artists. On Friday and Saturday it leans toward being a nightclub with an unpredictable, eclectic music mix. There are cover charges for a few events.
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Cenaduría Tlayudas Libres
Drivers double-park along the entire block to eat here. The filling, tasty tlayudas are large, light, crisp, hot tortillas folded over frijoles, quesillo and your choice of salsa. Half the fun is taking in the late-night scene as motherly cooks fan the streetside charcoal grills, raising showers of sparks. Sit on benches around the range or at tables in the adjacent building.
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María Bonita
Come here for economical and tasty traditional Oaxacan food. Precede your fish, steak or mole with a good appetizer or soup, such as the sopa Xóchitl (squash, squash blossom and sweet corn). There’s a good breakfast range too. The old building is on a noisy corner, but the tasteful art and relaxed service make it all OK.
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Oasis Surf Academy
Oasis Surf Academy, in the Rinconada area above Playa Carrizalillo, offers classes of 1½ to two hours with experienced and qualified local teachers for M$585, which includes the rental of a board. It’s associated with Oasis Surf Factory, run by local pro surfer and board maker Roger Ramírez.
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Academic Tours in Oaxaca
Academic Tours in Oaxaca offers recommended customized tours geared to clients’ personal interests, with full-day trips for two to four people typically costing M$3575 to M$4290. Particularly fascinating tours visit the religious sites in Yanhuitlán, Coixtlahuaca and San Pedro Teposcolula.
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Restaurante El Jardín
This palapa restaurant serves very good vegetarian dishes, from gado-gado (vegetables in peanut sauce) and many salad varieties to tempeh and tofu offerings. The menu also includes plenty of seafood, pizzas and pasta, and a good, long juice list.
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Instituto de Lenguajes Puerto Escondido
Offers good language classes taught by native Spanish speakers, with an emphasis on conversation skills, plus a variety of complementary activities, including surfing, cooking and salsa lessons.
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La Biznaga
Patrons jam the hippest of Oaxaca’s eateries for bold fusion dishes in an atmospheric courtyard. The nouveau-Oaxacan dishes in inventive preparations (tortilla horns stuffed with seasoned hibiscus, mushroom soup with chilies and bacon, mole with goat cheese) use local ingredients and are likely worth the dodgy service.
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Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca
The beautiful monastery buildings adjoining the Iglesia de Santo Domingo house, the not-to-be-missed Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca. One of the best regional museums in Mexico, this takes you right through the history and cultures of Oaxaca state up to the present day. Explanatory material is in Spanish, but you can rent good audio guides in English for around $50. Also here is a good book and souvenir shop.
A gorgeous green-stone cloister serves as antechamber to the museum proper. The museum emphasizes the direct lineage between Oaxaca's pre-Hispanic and contemporary indigenous cultures, illustrating continuity in such areas as crafts, medicine, food, drink and music. …
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Servicios Ecoturísticos La Ventanilla
Some 2.5km along the road west from Mazunte a sign points left to Playa Ventanilla, 1.2km down a dirt track. The small settlement here includes the palapa of Servicios Ecoturísticos La Ventanilla. Servicios Ecoturísticos is Ventanilla’s successful conservation and ecotourism cooperative. Most popular are its 10-passenger canoe trips on a mangrove-fringed lagoon where you’ll see endangered river crocodiles (there are about 1000 of these in the 230,000-sq-meter local protected area) and lots of water birds (most prolific from April to July). For the best wildlife-spotting, go in the early morning. Servicios Ecoturísticos also offers three-hour horseback rides (M$250), spec…
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Beaches
Huatulco's beaches are sandy with clear waters (though boats and jet skis leave an oily film here and there). Like the rest of Mexico, all beaches are under federal control, and anyone can use them - even when hotels appear to treat them as private property. Some have coral offshore and excellent snorkeling, though visibility can be poor in the rainy season.
Lanchas will whisk you out to most of the beaches from Santa Cruz Huatulco harbor any time between 08:00 and 17:00, and they'll return to collect you by dusk. Taxis can get you to most beaches for less money, but a boat ride is more fun. Round-trip lancha rates for up to 10 people from Santa Cruz: Playa La Entrega aro…
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La Casa de Mis Recuerdos
A marvelous, aesthetic décor prevails throughout this 10-room guesthouse. Old-style tiles, mirrors, masks and all sorts of other Mexican crafts adorn the walls and halls. The best rooms overlook a fragrant central garden; two have air-con and two have a shared bathroom. The large breakfast, a highlight, is served in a beautiful dining room. Host Nora Valencia also offers cultural tours and cooking classes. There’s a minimum stay of three nights. The owners also offer a B&B with similarly excellent breakfasts in two beautifully decorated smaller houses not much further from the center: Encanto Jalatlaco (Niños Héroes 115; singles/doubles including breakfast M$1170/1560; [n…
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Rancho Buenavista
Based at a ranch west of Monte Albán, Rancho Buenavista is perfect for active travelers interested in regional rock-climbing, mountaineering, hiking and mountain-biking expeditions, with varied grades of difficulty. Durations are from half a day up, and the guides are professional, friendly, qualified and experienced. There are accommodations for 20 people at the Rancho in ecocabins with private bathrooms and communal kitchen, costing M$300 per person including breakfast. Most half-day activities cost M$500 to M$600, one-day outings are around M$600 to M$800, and two days’ hiking, biking or climbing around Apoala is M$1100 to M$1400. The ranch also staffs a contact offic…
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Guiengola
This old hillside Zapotec stronghold, where King Cosijoeza rebuffed the Aztecs in 1496, is north of Hwy 190 from a turnoff 11km out of Tehuantepec. A sign at Puente Las Tejas bridge, just past the Km 240 marker, points to ‘Ruinas Guiengola.’ The unpaved 7km road is passable in dry weather, though the last kilometer or so (heading uphill) requires a high-clearance vehicle. The road ends at a signed trailhead, and about an hour’s sweaty walk uphill through tropical woodland gets you to the remains of two pyramids, a ball court, a 64-room complex and a thick defensive wall. Many more unexposed remains lie overgrown by the surrounding forest. You’ll also see interesting limes…
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Tierraventura
The very well-organized Tierraventura, run by a multilingual Swiss and German couple, offers a big variety of trips and activities focused on hiking, nature, meeting locals, traditional indigenous medicine and cooperating with local community tourism projects. Local guides accompany travelers wherever possible. Tierraventura can take the logistical work out of visiting places like the Pueblos Mancomunados. It also offers rare opportunities to learn about traditional medicine though a partnership with CECIPROC, an NGO working to improve health in indigenous communities, and the traditional medicine center at Capulálpam. On most trips prices range between M$700 and M$1100 p…
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Parque Nacional Huatulco
The Parque Nacional Huatulco protects 119 sq km of land, sea and shoreline west of Santa Cruz Huatulco, including some of Huatulco's most important coral reefs, which in the past have suffered some damage from fishing and touristic activities. Few visitors enter the national park except on guided or escorted trips, and the fee for entry to the land zone is normally taken care of by your tour operator: otherwise you can pay it from 09:00 to noon, Monday to Saturday, at the national park office.
The fee for the marine zone is collected at Santa Cruz harbor, along with another fee to enter the harbor itself. Use of non-biodegradable suntan lotions or sunscreen is prohibited …
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