A Week in Oaxaca Without a Plan

I landed in Oaxaca with a backpack, a phrasebook I never opened, and a vague plan to figure it out when I got there. This is not a strategy I recommend for every trip. But sometimes, when you arrive somewhere without expectations, the place gets to introduce itself on its own terms. Oaxaca, it turns out, is very good at introductions.

The first thing I noticed was the color. Not the tourist-brochure color of the markets, though that's real too, but the color of ordinary walls. Deep reds and yellows and greens, layered and peeling, so that every building looked like it had been painted by someone who couldn't decide and eventually gave up in the best possible way. The second thing I noticed was the smell of chocolate and chilies drifting out of doorways, mixing with exhaust and rain and the particular musk of a city that's been alive for a very long time.

Getting Lost on Purpose

I spent the first two days walking without a destination. I'd pick a direction and follow it until something stopped me. A courtyard with a fountain. A woman selling tamales from a cart. A church so old the stones had gone soft. I got lost repeatedly, which is the only way I know how to learn a city. Google Maps tells you where you are. Getting lost tells you where the city is.

On the third day, I found a small mezcalería with no sign and no menu. The owner poured me three small glasses and explained, in Spanish I mostly understood, that each one came from a different village and a different family. I didn't take notes. I didn't ask for the names. I just drank them slowly and listened to the conversation around me, which I couldn't follow, and felt, for the first time in a long time, like a guest rather than a customer.

What Happens When You Stop Scheduling

By the end of the week, I had done almost nothing on any list I might have made. I hadn't visited the big ruins. I hadn't taken the cooking class. I hadn't gone to the famous restaurant everyone told me about. What I had done was eat at the same tiny comedor three times because the woman who ran it started saving me a seat. I had watched a wedding procession go by from a park bench. I had spent an entire afternoon reading in a plaza while kids played soccer and old men argued about politics.

I'm not going to pretend this is the right way to travel. Some places demand planning. Some trips are better with reservations. But Oaxaca, for me, was a reminder that the best parts of a place are often the parts no one can schedule for you. The parts that happen because you were there, walking slowly, without anywhere else to be.

I still don't know the name of the mezcalería. I couldn't find it again if I tried. That's fine. It wasn't mine to keep.