Oaxaca

How's your Spanish? Do you have a hotel set up?

Central Oaxaca city is walkable and easy. Taxis are plentiful and cheap if you need to get around locally. There's good bus service to Monte Alban from the Hotel Rivera del Angel, tickets sold in the lobby. For other trips outside the city to places like Mitla, Ocotlan, Tlacaloula, Teotitlan and others, collectivos (basically shared taxis) leave from next to the Abastos Market. Traveling this way is inexpensive, reliable, safe and fun if you can communicate reasonably well, i.e. know enough Spanish to "get by" as a tourist. Working with a good phrase book like Berlitz or Lonely Planet should be fine, get one for Latin American Spanish which has some different pronunciations from European.

Nicolas Garcia (nichoaxgarcia@yahoo.com.mx) is a very good guide and driver, who speaks excellent English and knows a great deal about Oaxaca and its surroundings. I'm sure there are other good ones but I've taken several tours with Nicolas and recommend him highly. If you're traveling alone or as a couple, you might be able to split the cost of a guide with others in your hotel. Arranging for a guide through the hotel will generally cost more than arranging directly, but the convenience may be worth it.

I don't know when you're going but Oaxaca's climate is good pretty much all year, 17 degrees latitude but over 5000 feet elevation. The least pleasant time to go, from a weather standpoint, is probably April or May when it's been dry for months, the temperature is rising, and the summer rains haven't arrived to cool and green things.

I might be able to help further if I know more about your interests, budget, timetable etc. Feel free to PM me if you want.

Thanks so much for the info! I will contact your guide once I have a better idea of the things we want to do. We will be there for a week in January (6 full days and 1 part day) and are staying at a hotel in Centro. My Spanish is ok once I ask people to speak slowly to me! It's a work in progress, but I tend to get by ok. My travel companions know how to order beer, but that's about it, so I'm the one who has to get us around places.

As far as things I/we like - history, culture, artisan towns, nature, music, food, coffee, drinks. That all sounds so vague. haha

I love ruins and plan to visit Monte Alban one of the mornings. I feel that it could be a standalone excursion, then we could have 2 separate day trips with a driver to other places.

We would perhaps also be interested in a cooking class, as long as recipes could be accommodating to the vegetarian in our small group (there will be 3 of us).

I guess I'm looking for things that wouldn't be obvious in a Lonely Planet guide, etc.

I'm new to this forum, so I'm not sure if you'll get a notification, so I may bug you via PM in the future. :)

Oh - and budget is flexible, but it doesn't need to be a lavish trip, by any means.

For a trip to inenif the local villages, check out En Via. They are a non-profit that gives micro loans to local women in support of their businesses. To help finance this, they run a Spanish school and give day tours to a village where you can meet some if the women and learn about their businesses and lives. They'll translate so no Spanish needed, and no pressure to buy from them (but you certainly can if you want). It's a worthwhile trip.

For cooking, I did a class with a local chef who runs a class out of his home with his mom and it included a market visit to buy for our lunch. We made chicken and mole, but there was a vegetarian in the group. Plenty of non meat, and non chapulines- :). I'll post the name when I remember it.

Try all the moles and pick a favorite!

Our Spanish was so-so when we there, but in most cases we did okay using public transportation--buses, taxis, colectivos. Maybe you could try out a trip or two on your own to see how well things go. Several outlying towns have been named, but here's one more: San Bartolo Coyotepec for black pottery. Another source for cooking might be one of the Spanish language schools of which there are many. We studied at Instituto Cultural Oaxaca and they had a cooking class. Make sure you at least try chapulines!! Have a great trip.