Travel Sketches: Oaxaca

While I have lightly touched a few other locales in the vastness of Mexico, since 1996 I seem to return to Oaxaca nearly every year. This Colonial city in the mountains of Southern Mexico is a very special place: rich, poor, modern, ancient, troubled, calm, artisitic, kitschy, crass, subtle, all at the same time. It is a very deep culture, with the pre-Hispanic elements very close to the surface under the Spanish Colonial veneer. The old gods are still very close, though they mostly now have the names of Saints.