Templo y Ex Convento de San Juan Bautista

Western Oaxaca


The Coixtlahuaca church's white-stone western and northern facades have wonderful detailed carving, including rose windows, and inside is a particularly magnificent main retablo (altarpiece) of finely sculpted wood with gold highlights and 20 large niches holding statuary and 16th-century paintings. On one side of the church is a pretty two-story cloister; on the other, the graceful, partly ruined capilla abierta (open chapel) bears Mixtec religious symbols, notably serpents and eagles, on its main arch.

The village is 3.5km east off Hwy 135D, about 30km north of Nochixtlán.


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Yanhuitlán's church towers above Hwy 190, 14km northwest of Nochixtlán. Built over an old Mixtec religious site, it has beautiful carving on its north and…