Of Oaxaca, Part the Second

(Our deliberately paced chronological retelling of our journey home continues...)

We had heard that Oaxaca was a lot like Antigua, Guatemala, so we weren't totally sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised. We had some delicious selections from the abundant street food, saw a good museum and some baroque churches, went to a couple really cool bars, and ate fantastic food. On top of all that, we happened to be there during the weeks of Oaxaca's annual fair. The big event is held on two consecutive Mondays, with huge crowds and lots of cultural demonstrations from around the region, particularly highlighting dance. We weren't there on a Monday, but we stumbled upon a couple different shows of what appeared to be high school kids dressed in traditional costumes and dancing. They were actually good, and for the most part, few of them seemed to have been forced to go through the paces on these dances. Perhaps this was aided by the fact that at the first performance we saw, there were other high school kids roaming the crowd offering free cups of mezcal and of some other local alcoholic beverage - and apparently doing so in some official capacity. This correspondent could certainly be convinced to at least attend (although maybe not participate in) a lot more dance performances were free booze a universally understood and standard part of the package.

More pictures of the colorful costumes here.