Information about Oaxaca Oaxaca access Sergi Reboredo
The state of Oaxaca is located southeast of Mexico, bordered to the north by the states of Veracruz and Puebla, east of Chiapas, Guerrero and to the west by the Pacific Ocean to the south. The name comes from the Nahuatl Huayacac ??Oaxaca, whose roots are Huaxin (gourd) and Yacalt (top or nose tip or principle, translated as the nose or tip of the gourds). The city of Oaxaca was elevated to city status by Charles V in 1532. Currently a population of 244.727 inhabitants live statewide 3'224, 270 people. Its land area is 95.364 km2., Which corresponds to 4.85% of the Mexican Republic. Its population is more than 3 million inhabitants. Its height above sea level is 1,550 MTS. The annual average temperature is 29.3 ° C (maximum) and 12.5 ° C (minimum). It has a varied climate due to the ruggedness of its terrain, is hot dry Pacific coastal region, hot wet in the Pacific coast and the variants of the Sierra Madre, tempered in the rest of the state and cold at altitude locations more than 2,000 meters. above the sea level. The city of Oaxaca de Juarez, the state capital, is located in the center of the corresponding area in the downtown district, between parallels 15 ° 42 'and 18 ° 22' north latitude and 3 ° 42 'and 16 ° 14 'longitude east of Mexico. The celebration of the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca is a popular ceremony invoking the spirits of the ancestors to invite them to "live" in the underworld, so it seeks to entertain them in the most attentive. Your visit with us due to a permit obtained from the afterlife so that the souls of the departed to visit their relatives. The dead return to their home because they are attracted to their old belongings or for the love of their relatives. It has peaks of more than three thousand meters (almost ten thousand feet) high, caverns among the deepest in the world, pristine beaches, hidden jungles, and luminous valleys that house populations where they melt, as in a crucible, cultures of all people who have gone through their skin, Zapotec, Mixtec and fourteen other ethnic groups still maintain their culture and customs, to the Spanish. Anyway, Oaxaca is the most diverse state in Mexico. Mixtec Traditionally, a healthy person is someone who is happy, serene, wanting to work and eat, his eyes shine and has no problems with his family, neighbors or authorities. Any individual can attain such a state of health. The hard part is doing so far from Oaxaca, valleys, beaches, markets, festivals, languages??, and light the mysteries of Oaxaca. Arrive on its shores every year thousands of sea turtles, not far from the tourist resorts of Huatulco and Puerto Escondido, where tourists from around the world enjoy luxurious hotels in the warm waters of the Pacific. Oaxaca has two sites declared by UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity - the historic center and the archaeological site of Monte Alban - prehispanic and colonial treasures wealth unparalleled in Mesoamerica, enjoy all the features of progress - communications, transport, health - especially in its capital, and yet still has not lost that air of innocence that characterizes community anchored in a joyous time, it must, above all, the strong presence of indigenous populations : sixteen ethnic groups speaking more than a hundred dialects, proudly care of their traditions and ways of life and cultural diversity contribute to Oaxaca and most of their wealth: its people.
     
Near the capital, Oaxaca City, stands the oldest tree in the world: the Arbol del Tule, a sabino that measures 42 meters in diameter and exceeds 2. 000 years old. The tree has witnessed much of the history of Oaxaca. West was just beginning for the Christian era in Monte Alban and stood a leading cultural emporium, a city inhabited by sages, warriors, farmers and astronomers who ruled the destinies of the people of the clouds, later known in Nahuatl as Zapotec. The Zapotecs believed the world was ruled by a supreme force without beginning or end, unknown and powerful. The highest divinity, man and nature formed an indissoluble unity and relations should be based on mutual respect, balance and gratitude. A 365-day solar calendar marked the passage of years and seasons, while another calendar, ritual, of 260 days, coded keys of life and the periods in which the world was destroyed and renewed, as if shaken by a fire cosmic purifier. The decline of the Zapotec culture followed the rise of the Mixtec, displaced, in turn, by the thrust of the Aztecs, but none become extinct completely. When the Spanish arrived in Oaxaca came across a mosaic of cultures spread over a rugged terrain and inhabited by peoples whose life was given by the performance of their rites and traditions. In 1524, Hernán Cortés complaint letter to the King of Spain found in Oaxaca brake his efforts conqueror. "This land - says, referring to the valleys occupied by Mixtecs and Zapotecs - is so mountainous that can not be crossed even walk." As for the people, Cortés relates that twice sent troops against the Indians, "but were unable to find victory because his warriors were very fierce and well armed." A few years later, Cortés, bewitched by Oaxaca, confessed his passion for the same land that seemed rough and wild. "Blessed be God who allowed me to know these places," said the Spanish, who won the King, for himself, the Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. In colonial times, Oaxaca came to occupy a prominent place in the development of New Spain. Stays of wool cattle provided them to Puebla looms, haciendas cultivated sugarcane which were produced the most famous sweet viceroyalty, were bred the best horses on the continent, were exploited gold, silver and dyes arising from the use of cochineal, and ports of Huatulco and Salina Cruz arrived treasures of Peru, Guayaquil and Guatemala and silks, fabrics and spices loaded in the Philippines. The development of cities, ports, refineries and industries, implemented in parallel with the glories and miseries of evangelizing, not overthrow the system of beliefs and ways of life of indigenous communities, who integrated their old values??, with little modification, with the symbols and practices of the new faith. In 1577, the bishop of the diocese of Oaxaca, Fray Bernardo de Alburquerque, Philip II recounts the difficulties of his task in a land where the Indians speak 22 languages??, live "more spilled and scattered" in Vizcaya and Navarra "idolatries suck the breasts of their mothers. "
     
From father to son, the pre-Hispanic past has been transmitted over the centuries and survives and manifests itself in the fiestas, markets, music, clothes, speech and gastronomy in emphasis, yet, the communal work, rites of exchange, mutual aid, and the close relationship between daily life and rituals that reach the realm of the sacred. Tradition, ritual and magic are in the dances, the medium used secularly to propitiate and dominate the will of the mysterious powers, according to analysis conducted by researcher Dr. Margarita Dalton. In each community, the elders, the councils and people of wisdom have been concerned to maintain and nurture the customs related to the dances and music, which necessarily accompany the man when he has to act on the forces of the universe to bring rain, hunting or good harvests, when celebrating weddings, welcomes newborns and dismisses the dead. "The dancer - says Dr. Dalton - not dance for fun or for the public: the dance is a prayer invoking the support of the supreme forces he believes dominate the world." The dances, which vary in each region and in each community, evoke strange rhythms and deep, though often accompanied by music recognizable, born perhaps in Merida or Durango in Naples or in Zaragoza. The masks serve the dancer to take the personality of the bull, the tiger, the European or the devil himself. The costumes are the pride of its owner and the most colorful note, bright and distinctive no longer of the dancers, but all indigenous and Oaxaca itself. The traditional dresses surprise and captivate. In his designs, colors and textures are mixed colonial techniques, indigenous symbols and charm and colorful silks from the Orient. There flamenco ruffles, bobbin lace, fretwork with the mysteries of Mitla, embroidered batiste and linen worked in the Spanish fashion seventeenth century. Each stitch reveals an idea and a job. The colors are derived from nature: red, cochineal, an insect that lives in the cactus and that once crushed and boiled, provides up to sixteen shades of color, blue, indigo, born of fermentation of indigo , the black, the acacia, yellow, moss rock and purple, a type of sea snail that is captured, sorted, and once used its magical essence to get the color, is returned to the sea. The most appropriate scenario to look and observe, teach and share, is at parties. In Oaxaca are held all: Christmas, Easter, All Saints, the Constitution, Labor Day, the Day of the Virgin (each town has its Virgin) or local saint, national heroes, historical victories and defeats, the Easter and, of course, New Year. There are special days to celebrate teachers, postmen, doctors or journalists. To this must be added that each neighborhood has its communal celebration and every family has their births, baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals, as well as celebrate the quinceañera, which are decorated to appear in society upon reaching the age of change. The festival in Oaxaca, the Guelaguetza, is the institutional form of reciprocity. The first two Mondays after July 16, representatives from each community in Oaxaca celebrated a party whose name means gift or offering mutual manifest signs and clues of the Hispanic tradition and decorated with music and dances the time to share the crops and activities each region: copies of pineapples, mangoes, blankets, baskets, beverages, breads and coffee rain over the guests as a symbol of the general willingness to share, exchange and survive together.
     
The place is quintessential market exchange. The writer D. H. Lawrence, who lived in Oaxaca, Oaxaca markets understood as a space created for the communion of the people. "Men - writes in his book Market Day in Oaxaca - have invented two excuses for coming to communion heterogeneous mobs freely and without suspicion: religion and the market. An armful of wood, a blanket, a few eggs and tomatoes are enough to sell, buy, haggle and change. changing over all human contact. This is the reason for his love of bargaining, although the difference is 00,000 a penny. "Markets will happen and multiply. Sunday in Tlacolula, Monday Miahuatlán, Ayoquezco Tuesday, Wednesday and Zimatlán Etla, and Zaachila Ejutla Thursday, Friday in Ocotlan, Oaxaca Saturday. The positions are aligned and organized by unions, customs, families or simple chance. Women wrapped in their prodigious huipiles govern most positions dedicated to sell, each usually, a single range of products, so it takes the entire market go for a complete representation of the world. Cortés loved Oaxacan markets, whose origin may be found along with that of the first harvest, the first concern. The main area of Monte Alban is a place, a seat market. The Spanish built the city of Oaxaca on a shaft which organized the government, the religious power and markets. Buy, sell, trade and, above all, communicate. The colonial churches had to compete, on one side, with the explosion of life in the markets, and on the other, with an abundance of nature, whose colors and forms were not imaginable in the sober Spain. The temples should be higher than the juniper, biggest markets, richer than the best of mine. And so they are. Such was his madness. In 1546, Gonzalo de las Casas, a distant relative of Cortes, he brought from Spain to Francisco Becerra Trujillo, author of the first draft of the Dump, to direct the work of the church Yanhuitlán. Six thousand Indians worked tirelessly for twenty years in this building, of prodigious bill, topped with magnificent coffered inspiration Arabic Spanish leadership and indigenous development. The Spanish baroque found a perfect seat for your great excesses in Oaxaca. The ultimate example is perhaps the church of Santo Domingo, the capital, no wonder it was dedicated to the founder of the Order employer most distinguished by their evangelizing in these lands. The altarpiece, monumental, colonial gem among gems, gold is. The Dominicans extremaron constructor zeal throughout the lands of the Valley and especially in the Mixteca. In Cuilapan met every architectural style of Renaissance Europe. In Tlacolula reached the pulpit iron forge. In Teposcolula exists an open chapel, considered a masterpiece, bright and brilliant. It was also a Dominican, Friar Jordan de Santa Catalina, who founded the church Tlacochahuaya, which wanted the riches outside the rest of the Order and given entirely to meditation. Their cells are therefore murky, low and dark. They consumed 25 of its hundred years of Fray Juan de Córdoba, who is said never ever touched currency, only wore shoes to say Mass and wrote the first dictionary in Zapotec. The Indians of the region will continue to see a saint.
     
Oaxaca, land of visionaries, enlightened, artists, dreamers and poets. The philosopher Nietzsche wanted to live in Oaxaca. The French surrealist André Mandiargues Pieyre dreamed of, having loved women of Tehuantepec, a small female angel who appeared to him wrapped in a shining armor on a field of lilies. John Lennon visited Huautla the high peaks of the mountains of the mushrooms that connect with the divine and caverns that reach the center of the Earth. Benito Juarez was born in Guelatao, Ixtlan, Oaxaca, on March 21, 1806 and Porfirio Diaz, who was Governor of the State, asked every day to his wife, Doña Carmelita, in exile in Paris, which was new to Oaxaca, how was possible to live without light and sky of Oaxaca, but the holidays and markets of Oaxaca, Oaxaca without food. In Forest Avenue, in Paris, Don Porfirio detested French food and missed wealth, imagination, variety and poetics of Oaxacan cuisine. Oaxaca is the land of the seven moles, fresh cheese, meats cooked underground, the most delicious tamales from Mexico, most incredible sweets, chocolate atole, coffee pot, yellow bread and all kinds of imagined and imaginable corn. Anthropologist Kent Flannery suggests it may be the Valley of Oaxaca the first place in America where took place the domestication and cultivation of maize. The story goes that Oaxacan cuisine can only be explained from the crossbreeding of native indigenous traditions, the sumptuousness of the tables Aztecs, the colonial baroque, a complex technique and the addition of an essential ingredient that is becoming rare in the rest of the cuisines of the world: time. Each dish contains Oaxacan working long hours in front of the stove. The tamales, for example, require washing, roasting, soaking wrapper leaves, roast and grind the chiles, cook, and decapitate martajar corn, cook the stuffing, muddy, filling, prepare the container for cooking, folding, binding, accommodate, cook and eventually serve. The writer Italo Calvino explains only the luxuries of Oaxacan cuisine attributing to the nuns of the convents colonial paternity of such complicated recipes. "Entire lives - Calvin writes in Under the Jaguar Sun - dedicated to finding new concoctions of ingredients and dosage variations, combining the attentive patience, the transmission of knowledge thorough and timely." Guests of sacred architecture, specializing in excess and overflowing sensations, refined women, locked, with needs of all, just had to design the recipes dictated by the market potential and fantasy, while an army of maids working in their execution . "The burn - imagine Calvin - Of the hundreds of indigenous varieties of peppers wisely chosen for each dish, opening the prospect of a flaming ecstasy". There is nothing in Oaxaca that equals perfection , power, and greatness of the archeological site of Monte Alban. A walk in this place makes a big difference , we get the feeling of beauty and perfection of its streets and buildings, a sense of fascination which has made ??this site one of the most visited in all of Southeast Mexico . I see to my right , I see to my left , the panoramic view of the valley fills the senses ; stand on the north building , and feeling the air on your face, try to imagine the urban movement during the height of Monte Alban, its culture, its civilization , progress and religion. The Oaxacan mole requires at least 31 ingredients. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz took care of him in his time and prepared with toasted cilantro, four roasted garlic cloves, five nails, six grains of pepper, cinnamon and toasted pasilla chilies in butter, all very ground, since frying with pork, sausages and chicken and, once ready, seasoned with toasted sesame seeds. Great job for a sauce that has, today, about two hundred varieties. The Oaxacan also eats flowers: rose petals, in snow bean flowers in bulk, the pumpkin in pies, the cocoa, the tejate; canned carnations and bougainvillea in horchata. There can be no greater communion with nature, more poetic sense of existence.
     
Living in Oaxaca is an aesthetic experience. Travelers will quickly perceive the fascination of Oaxaca. The sky light. We recommend visiting Monte Alban at sunset, when the stones have a brownish red, clouds accelerate its passage through the mountain and increases the severity of the echo produced by the arrangement of the old temples. Art in nature and clothing, wood, canvas, stone and food. And people, the memory of centuries by the people. Magical Oaxaca. According to the old tradition that worships Mesoamerican Ometéotl, the god of duality, paradise has been given among men, but to conquer personal effort is needed. Sometimes one is already prepared: it is able to feel, perceive, discover, places like Oaxaca. Description These are two impressive waterfalls petrified (calcium carbonate) formed, for thousands of years, carbonated water runoff. From springs, water falls rugged cliffs over 50 meters (160 feet) high. The source area that gives rise to it, was tapped to create a large pool that has now become natural spa, warm water regularly. Boil Water has been recognized as a likely site of the ancient Zapotec sacred, which was located here due perhaps to their great natural contrasts, it is in the heart of a steep mountain range during the dry season is characterized by extreme aridity. In Boil Water have gathered many archaeologists, biologists and geologists, because it is a place where they built over 2,500 years ago a complex irrigation system which significant traces still exist. Thanks to this research has been to understand how construction and operation of the terraces and channels covering a large area around the amphitheater area, which is receiving visitors, has also been determined that it is an ancient irrigation system, unique in its kind in Mexico, where the ancient inhabitants developed intensive agriculture oriented optimization of spring water, on land with steep slopes. The water temperature is slightly higher than the environmental fluctuating between 22 and 25 degrees Celsius (71 and 77 ° F) and therefore by far below the boiling point. However, the natural beauty is not the only attraction Boil Water, which is mostly an important archaeological site whose long history has allowed us to study various aspects of the culture and lifestyle of the ancient inhabitants of the region. Currently has restrooms, locker rooms, palapas, pool and small eateries to eat. There are also fully equipped cabins for the night or a Tourist Y with essential services. • San Lorenzo Albarradas Location: Located east of Oaxaca City, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the highway 190 to the Isthmus, turn left at the km.39 about going Mitla follow the road leading to Ayutla Mixes until joining the deviation to the right that will take you to San Lorenzo Albarradas. Approximate travel time: [2:00] Boil Water is in the hamlet of Roeguía, which itself is 5 kilometers (3 miles) from San Lorenzo Albarradas.
     
Oaxaca, the state capital, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, owes its fame to the beauty and harmony of its architecture, its rich cultural traditions, the wide variety of its typical foods and its soft temperate climate, spring all year round. Its name is derived from Huaxyácal (the top of the gourds, a variety of acacia, Huaxin, gourds, and yacatl, top), the Aztec name applied to the top where they built a fort in 1486. Nothing more to reach these lands, the Spanish established along the old fort, the new Villa de Antequera, and a few years later, they returned to the Aztec to lift, at the very top of the gourds, which, in 1529 would be founded, built and inhabited as Villa de Oaxaca. The Spanish charge the layout of the city to one of the top planners of the Empire: Alonso Garcia Bravo, architect of Mexico City and Veracruz. Bravo Garcia drew the city line, from the creation of a central square or Zocalo, aligned according to the cardinal points and established according to symbology simple: on one side of the square, on the place of the dead to the Aztecs may lift the Cathedral of other municipal buildings, the foundations of civil power. Thus, it was thought, the square radiate throughout the city the balance between the earthly and the sacred, the Church and the civil power. The city flourished during the viceroyalty, was taken by Morelos in 1812, was held by the forces of General Bazaine was born in 1864 and the guerrilla uprising organized by Porfirio Diaz, Governor of the State. Except these episodes, Oaxaca has lived away from any military history. The Spanish designed without walls, without defenses, confident that the magic power of the Zocalo protect her from all evil, as indeed has been. The temples are the most lavish Oaxaca in southern Mexico. The image of the patron saint, the Virgin of Solitude, came to hold a crown of pure gold bearing, inlaid, six diamonds and emeralds. The Cathedral has fourteen side chapels of unique beauty. And then there's La Merced, San Augustine, San Francisco, the Church of the Blood of Christ, San Felipe, Santa Monica and many others it seems Salamanca city, by the profusion of churches. But the resemblance to the Castilian capital ends with the numbers. The uniqueness of Mexican baroque interiors add the original facades, cut for fear of earthquakes, erected mostly in green quarry stone, hence some have called Oaxaca city of temples green and everyone admires the marbled acquired by churches after a rainy afternoon, soon as the sun appears. Reflection of the state, the city's museums with many of the most valuable regional treasures, among which are the jewels of the Tomb 7 of Monte Alban. Counts also the best representation of Oaxacan paintings, renown because of the work of Rufino Tamayo, Rodolfo Morales, and Francisco Toledo, and, through its markets, exhibits and distributes one of the richest and most varied productions in Mexico .
     
From Oaxaca is easily large cities with prehispanic wonders (Monte Alban, Mitla, Yagul, Lambityeco), Santa María del Tule and its peoples and ancient tree where the magnificent former Dominican convents: Yanhuitlán Teposcolula Coixtlahuaca Tamazulapan , Tlacochahuaya or Tlacolula. Lines flight connects the city in just over half an hour, with the coast havens (Bays of Huatulco, Puerto Escondido) and the new highway Mexico D. F. in less than five hours. Oaxaca is the center of a state overflowing with attractions that expresses the best of all in its capital city, from the magic square formed around the Zócalo, the Plaza designed to live life and see the world, no more effort than choosing the right place at the right distance, accurate and balanced, the Government Palace and the Cathedral. When a journey not too many places I dare to recommend wholeheartedly, most of them are suitable for individuals and edges offer irresistible to others. Oaxaca is an exception. Can not imagine anyone halfway intelligent, fulfilling the conditions of normality required, for example, to obtain a driver's license, which is not necessarily caught by the magic of this colonial Mexican city. If you can, do not hesitate. Go to Oaxaca without delay. In Oaxaca, the crossing and blending of cultures draws the lines of its streets and everything evokes a nostalgia that is current in everyday life. In Oaxaca understood the magic realism of Garcia Marquez. This impostor was never anything Imagine writer. Its validity is capable of telling us the journalist's daily life that holds universes like Oaxaca. Do not know what attracts me more than this Mexican region, if the traces of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, remains alive and present of the Spanish conquistadors or irresistible colorful markets, its handicrafts and paintings. The Spanish Dominican friars planted the Mexican state of convents. In the sixteenth century up over fifty, most of them still standing, giving use to the faith of many Christians. Probably wanted converts to guarantee the control of a privileged universe. Still theories and conjectures are formulated to try to find out what prompted the former inhabitants of Oaxaca to build on the heights of Monte Alban hills, and what led to the decline of this unique city. One evening in Monte Alban is the closest thing I know to a beautiful dream. At a crossroads of routes from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Oaxaca stopped growing, for economic reasons, and that was the salvation of the city Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Straight streets that hide populated houses three Spanish patio; impossible glimmers sunsets and bustle of markets in other times. Of all the players in Oaxaca feel special tenderness that is nostalgia, for the cochineal. Displaced unfairly carcinogenic dyes, this parasite blessed, having the noble fabrics of cardinals, wealthy merchants and nobles, returns to the fore in the days when ecology drives intelligent consumption. For a long time this Mexican cactus parasite was mistaken for a seed. Only thanks to the discovery of the microscope was realized that the wealth that came from Mexico and was able to color fabrics nobles was a bug. They tried to copy the formula, but the cochineal, true to its American origins, refused to grow in Europe. Now the fields of Oaxaca are back cochineal villages, as a white powder, soft lands on the leaves of the cactus. If you can, do not hesitate. Move to the paradise of Oaxaca. Surely in the homeland of the cochineal understand many things now does not understand. If you got your driver's license or seeks to obtain, is eligible to be trapped forever by the magic of Oaxaca.
     
In Oaxaca territory exists an extraordinary variety of these deposits are characterized by the outbreak of water at ground either hot springs, sulfur springs and hot or cold water and freshwater limestone which in turn can be exploited to its full potential either for agricultural or recreational exploitation, some are widely known, others less important remain unknown due to their remoteness or because the location does not allow easy access. In this context we mention that in the state include natural spas that are close to the people that surround them. Among the most famous find those who are in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec precisely Laollaga Santiago and Magdalena Tlacotepec that being two freshwater springs, the facilities have been fully adapted for tourism, another important thing is the "Wellness Atonaltzin "that has a vein of sulfur water and Tamazulapan located in Villa del Progreso, Arroyo Blanco and others like Vega del Sol are part of the diversion of water from a nearby river that is clear, but for the location and landscape in a tropics are frequented throughout the year for visitors from different parts of the Republic. The Zócalo, remains, plus one of the most beautiful squares in Mexico, the center of life in Oaxaca. The arcades that the Government Palace and the buildings house restaurants, terraces, portals and cafes. From early in the morning and people are talking at the tables, in the shade of the enormous Indian laurels. The conversation can be accompanied, as far, with chocolate for dunking, café de olla (boiled with cinnamon and sugar cane), lemon and mezcal with worm salt, tequila, juice or beer excellent. It is not uncommon to stick out through the square herbalists, earworms, healers, vendors grasshoppers, various artisans or buttons. The herb basil offer, starfish and nutmeg healers to mitigate insomnia and pushers floripondio cure fright and soul loss. According to Elliot Weinberger, English translator of Octavio Paz, the Zocalo of Oaxaca is the place to do nothing. In the Zocalo, between the Government Palace and the Cathedral, stands surrounded by laurels and bougainvillea, the last European contribution to the balance of magic square: a romantic gazebo where on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sometimes other days, depending, playing tunes and melodies the band of the State Government. The Zócalo is prolonged, the Cathedral, the Alameda, and, conversely, to another small square. The original symmetry hardly breaks. The gaps have been filled by many small stalls offering fantastic colorful animals, amaranth seeds, sesame crowbars, Spanish steel, dyed with purple snail, cacao ground with sweet corn, chickpeas honey sandwiches, gruel granillo, grasshoppers with guacamole or fruity snows. From the Zocalo, the city streets orderly walk extremely clean, fluid traffic, animated by the fantasy that apply to traffic wardens to give music to their whistles. The main street is pedestrian; connects the Zocalo with the church of Santo Domingo and is known for Tourist Walkway. It is the stage of the Museum of Contemporary Art, many of the old colonial houses, various galleries, restaurants and the most distinguished jewelery and handicrafts. At the end of exceptional Boulevard stands the church of Santo Domingo, Mexican baroque splendor, with its altar covered with gold leaf, its impressive interior and the installations that include the Regional Museum of the State.
     
Of all the markets of the capital, the most popular is probably the November 20, specializing in food, much frequented by the Oaxacan and able to seduce, as Indian markets, only for the quality of its aromas. At the entrance are located chicharrones posts jerky, beef jerky and dried tripe, then sellers are chocolate, bread stalls. At the end are the barbecues and eateries, where every day you can enjoy an appetizer or a meal more serious: tasajo strand, for example, followed by egg sauce with epazote leaves, enmoladas, chilaquiles beans, cheese, and, to top it with beans and chochollotes rabbit grass and a good cup of atole white sprinkles. In the market's Benito Juárez Maza also fruits, vegetables, flowers, snow and fresh waters, blouses, skirts, embroidered silks, alebrijes, the fishmongers that occupied an entire street, the fruit vendors and distributors of fresh cheeses, Oaxacan cheese consisting of delicious strings that wrapped each other, eventually compose a large round cheese. In the market there is everything Abastos (San Antonino fabrics, baskets and Ocotlan figurines, sculptures Isthmus, Mitla jewelry, pottery from San Bartolo Coyotepec), is located next to the main bus second class, there are also many other markets - the Sanchez Pascua, Democracy, the hairline - almost as many as churches. Nine of the eleven species of marine turtles in the world arrive to the coasts of Mexico and four total are destined coastal beaches of Oaxaca, where they nest and breed, and where the only research, conservation and monitoring of sea turtles in the world. Sea turtles know how to choose. The coast of Oaxaca is a paradise where many unspoiled bays concur, Luxury Hotels, mangrove lagoons, beaches, sports, fishing villages and idyllic golf courses. On these shores, once animated by ships seeking the gold of Peru or the silks from China, laden with legends and treasures, tourism has only to take off. From Huatulco to Puerto Escondido is one of the last paradises of the Pacific, ready to welcome those who want to find out. The coast of Oaxaca is brave and wondrous. The Sierra Madre del Sur with her ??arms reached the sea and make a unique coastline where cliffs and placid happen and secluded bays. Rivers and streams descending from the mountains to confuse the end of the palm beaches and lagoons, estuaries and mangroves. The beaches, dozens of beaches, mostly virgins, are surrounded by tropical vegetation. The inland forests protect small populations in the plains or on top of small hills, where life outside the growth of tourism that has just discovered Huatulco, Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido and has been released to enjoy one of recent peaceful and quiet havens Mexican Pacific. Huatulco could be the key to the real American Indians. When the Spanish came to this place that had been a crossroads on the route linking the domains Zaachila with Tehuantepec Zapotec, Cortes himself thought, first, that was a good base Huatulco fortune to achieve the treasures of Peru and dreamed when gave up this idea, it could be the best Huatulco port of New Spain to reach the East. Between 1526 and 1560, Huatulco lived this dream. The boom of the cocoa trade and trade with Peru and the viceregal capital, by the route of Miahuatlan, Oaxaca and Tehuacán, Huatulco became a prosperous and flourishing emporium, where there were missing colonists, merchants, craftsmen and shipbuilders.
     
The stories and legends are general in nature, is common in the history of our people, whether conceived in an unbelievable fact is, the product of a myth, or based on the verification of a significant event in remote and whose if sometimes takes body of tradition, which in turn are derived certain uses, customs and practices which constitute precisely the bone manifestations of folklore. In this aspect Oaxaca has a variety of mythical legends and historical listed first among the Zapotec legend of fire birth, the birth of the legendary trees Apoala, parents of the first man and the first woman Mixtec, between the second include the poetic legend of Princess Donají and singular apparitions of the Virgin of Solitude and Juquila. In each of the stories we can find a number of suggestive stories, traditions and legends ranging from those with epic flavor, reminiscent to the fables concerning the grandparents, the narrative of daily events is rich and varied in Oaxaca and flavor that put our countrymen is a very special event. The Pacific coast of Oaxaca presents interesting prospects in the lagoons, which are paradisiacal places of picturesque appearance, enhanced by the spectacle of an abundant and varied wildlife unique, which is the natural environment that gives the landscape the necessary breath of animation and life. An important element of the lagoon system in the region is the existing high biodiversity, with abundant rainforest vegetation, coastal dunes and mangroves, wintering area for a variety of migratory and resident birds, presenting a show themselves worthy of admiration . Because of its importance and highlight the natural beauty and Manialtepec Lagoon National Park Lagunas de Chacahua, which can be admired in the way of the coastal road Puerto Escondido - Acapulco and where you can practice all water sports and enjoy traditional food in the palapas that are in their environment. In 1560, Huatulco lost ships of progress for neighboring docks Acapulco galleons definitive basis that would link New Spain for centuries with the East. Huatulco became then, reluctantly, in a town forgotten by almost everyone, with the unfortunate exception of the pirates. In 1579, Francis Drake demolished what remained of the harbor and, in 1587, the raid pirate Thomas Cavendish was no less negative, but is remembered today for his contribution to the legend of Cruz Huatulco. Cavendish ordered the wooden cross that stood opposite the port of Huatulco was destroyed. The axes were shattered, the mountains lost their teeth, several cables broke and the fire got even topple the cross. The prodigy was soon considered a miracle. Where had emerged that cross? A new marvel: the natives attributed the arrival of the cross to a white man, bearded, robed, which had emerged from the sea, with the cross, centuries before the Spanish arrived. In fact, the Aztecs had named the place as Cuauhtolco, meaning the place where the tree is worshiped.
     
La Cruz de Huatulco also resisted the loss of dozens of pieces that became so many relics in the churches of much of the country. But as his fame was growing Cruz, Huatulco lost, definitely, any options for progress. In 1848, Benito Juárez asked the media to open a "wagon road" which would link with Huatulco Oaxaca, but would have to take a little more than a century for Huatulco again flooded with merchants, artisans, ship owners and people arrivals Uttermost the world. In 1984, the Federal Government began working on the creation of Huatulco resort, with the work of the National Fund for Tourism Development (FONATUR) transformed in a few years, thanks to their economic backwardness, was and is a unspoiled paradise. Today, the warm nine bays of Huatulco, which contain no less than 36 beaches, as well as inlets, coves and other smaller shelters, hosting more than 200,000 tourists a year in its excellent luxurious hotels, including no shortage of large international firms. Pools, underwater, sport fishing, pleasure yachts, a great golf course and the tranquility of the huts sandpipers (in Mexico, palapas) are vying for the interest of the visitors who come to the evening, with a modern and safe center holiday boutiques, restaurants, seafood restaurants and nightclubs (the Crucecita) and ongoing opportunities to extend your trip to the beautiful inland populations or continue exploring the rest havens that still holds the coast. Huatulco is located near the Mexican Turtle Center, unique in the world. Located next to the beach of Mazunte, Maxontetia word derived from Nahuatl, meaning "I ask, please, that spawns" a clear plea that the turtles were the inhabitants of the area, the Mexican Turtle Center develops triple work to investigate the life of sea turtles, welcome visitors interested in seeing on the beaches the miracle of life of sea turtles and try to create new forms of economic development between the peoples of the Coast, accustomed for centuries to live exploitation of turtles before there industrial processes to capture and the ban was mandated. Mazunte has a Living Museum of the Sea Turtle and manages several bungalows for those wishing to see the reproduction of thousands of turtles on the beaches of Oaxaca. East of Mazunte, Puerto Angel is home of the University of Mar and base for visiting the beautiful and confident Zipolite Creek stripper. And just abandoned the peace of Zipolite, civilization arises again and Puerto Escondido, whose development - international surfing championships, big hotels - is offset by the proximity of Manialtepec gaps and the National Park Lagunas de Chacahua - where grow three types of mangroves and the rare black lily, nesting albatross and pink spatula, and have come to sight, in a week, up to 155 species of birds - and with the celebration of Coastal Dance Festival in Puerto Escondido, reminds us with his sones, syrups and popular rites, we follow in Oaxaca. In Zapotec: Schiaa Ruavia, means "hill where the cloud is born." Inhabited by ancient cultures and located in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca, the Sierra Juarez stands out as one of the three richest areas of plant and animal species, as well as one of the best preserved nationally with a variety of ecosystems unprecedented holds for 7 of the 9 main types of terrestrial vegetation of the country where they are staying about 6,000 plant species. In no other part of Mexico you can find pristine rainforest from 200 feet above sea level (masl) to over 300 m Since forming about 65 million years has served as a bridge between the North American and South American subcontinent (United Nearctic and Neotropical) by enabling the exchange of plants and animals between the two kingdoms which together with its geological history and their environment variable will allows a unique richness in the world. On a tour of one hour is possible to pass the hot dry climate of the valley of the Rio Grande to the cold and damp summits of mountains over 300 meters where occasionally snow falls and ice forms on a good part of the year. The presence of places I have worked as Pleistocene refugia have led to a unique flora and fauna and unique (endemic): the third of the plant species that populate the low deciduous forests live only in a small area between the Sierra and Puebla state, or the breathtaking cloud forests of Mexico Oreomunnea considered one of the oldest forests in the world for its similarity to forests fossils dating back over 22 million years. The cloud forests (or cloud forests) above are also the richest in plant species nationwide and are part of the area's largest cloud forest in Central America (including the Caribbean). In contact with these cloud forests are forests of conifers and hardwoods world's richest and considered a priority globally by experts from around the world. Zipolite became famous in the 70s when entire colonies of hippies came to enjoy this beach was the only nudist beach in Mexico. Today still hear some restaurants horns sounds of The Doors, Bob Marley, Santana, Led Zeppelin and others. Already past midnight Zipolipas tear the two clubs and the sunset with a variety of music.
     
The variety of animal forms present is unusually high to the extent that is mentioned as one of the two richest places in the world in relation to the number of species of salamanders of the family Plethodontidae, the butterflies reach here an array of colors and shapes they regard it as one of the three areas with higher species richness nationally and even many with very rare species only live here, so they come to be valued by collectors at high prices, as in the case of the Pterourus hope with list prices of up to $ 1,500 per copy. Reptiles are not far behind in variety of forms and at least 13 species found only here. Birds meanwhile deployed its most varied forms, and recent studies reveal the presence of more than 400 species, two of which survive today only in this awesome place and at least 15 are considered threatened or endangered. Finally, a wide range of mammals found in the Sierra relatively safe habitat, so it is possible the existence of at least eleven species of threatened or endangered species such as the tapir, jaguar and spider monkey, but usually are hard to see . Most tourists travel to Mexico for its striking beaches. Surrounded by 6,000 miles of shoreline for four distinct parts. Mexico has incomparable sunny places. There really is something for everyone. When visiting Mexican beaches. They are found from deserts to tropical jungles. Its turquoise waters range from green to blue. They are from rustic lodges (palapas) to large tourist hotels. Wherever you decide to go, remember the following: • By law, all beaches in Mexico are open to the public. Free of charge. • sunbathing nude or, for women, not the top of your bathing suit is strictly prohibited. (There are some exceptions: Puerto Angel is a nude beach). • Few beaches have lifeguards. Take safety precautions. • Be careful with the intense sun of Mexico, use sunscreen and avoid the strongest hours (from 12:00 to 14:00) • Do not swim alone or in remote locations, not your back to the sea and the waves are unpredictable. • If you feel that is pulled offshore not alter or try to swim to the beach, instead swim parallel to the beach and usually about 12 meters (40 feet) of the situation changes and it is then safer to swim to shore. • Pay attention to the flags placed on some beaches, as they indicate the condition of the water. At the hotel, plus pool, no spa, temazcal, gym, cooking classes, kayaking and snorkeling, ATVs and fishing. If you want further adventures in Huatulco can dive in coral reefs, go kayaking its nine bays, climb the sea cliffs, mountain bike cycling in the mountains, rappel down waterfalls and rafting down the river Copalita. Ask at Casa Bichu. Mexico is considered worldwide as a country that has an enormous natural wealth, since it has the most diverse range of vegetation in the world. The state of Oaxaca is considered the most diverse biological species nationally, it houses approximately 30,000 plants representing approximately 5% of the total flora of the planet. Here we find one of the richest areas of plant and animal species at the national level, with a very important ecosystem diversity, as holds seven of the nine types of terrestrial vegetation of the country: the Sierra Juarez. Another no less important riches are its forests, which still have large tracts of forest areas where we can find many timber species such as cedar, mahogany and oak among others. There is a forest that is completely unspoilt parts and is a national ecological diversity that we cherish and value: The forest of Chimalapas.
     
  According to another version based on research, the region was inhabited by the Mazatec Indians before the arrival of the Nonoalca-Chichimeca, having come to it from the east, after a long journey, about the year 890 of our was. Its capital, called Matza-apatl, or Mazatlan, which take their name, was on the banks of the Rio Santo Domingo, near present Jalapa de Diaz According's own version, for 280 the Mazatec lived alone and independent until that around 1170 arrived the Nonoalca-Chichimeca that underwent. However, by the 1300s the Mazatec freed from the domination of Nonoalca-Chichimeca were two manors: the bottom or from the east and from the top or from the west. What is historically verifiable is that the territory was invaded and subjugated Mazatec by the Aztecs during the reign of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, to the years of 1455-1456, who established military posts in Teotitlan del Camino and Tuxtepec in the top and bottom, respectively, for control. The heavy taxes levied by the Aztecs and the abuse they suffered, which resulted in the Mazatec rebelled repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, since, to the arrival of the Spanish in 1520, made ??common cause with them to fight against their oppressors.