Winter in the Valley of Oaxaca--Is It Spring?

It was not yet 5 in the morning, a good hour to leave Mexico City. The air was cool, and as fresh as it gets. The taxi hardly rattled. Street lamps glowed along the broad Paseo de la Reforma.

Traffic was manageable--even sparse--considering that my husband and I were heading for the airport in the world’s most populous city.

Our destination on that December dawn: the mystical valley of Oaxaca, about 300 miles to the southeast. We had read of its archeological riches and bustling crafts villages, but this would be our first visit. We chose it for a winter escape because of its springtime climate; we were not in the mood for the rigors of ice, nor the torpor of the tropics.

Shortly after take-off from Mexico City,--I remember that we were still climbing--the pilot announced that we were about to pass the snow-capped volcano Popocatepetl, which rises almost 18,000 feet. The sky was dark. I cupped my hands around the window to block out the reflection of cabin lights.

Suddenly my window was filled with an awesome hunk, all black with white markings. It was like seeing a killer whale swim in front of a snorkeling mask--close enough to touch, although I prayed we wouldn’t.

After that spectacle, I napped until we landed in Oaxaca, a broad valley ringed with mountains, an altogether gentler Mexico.

Oaxaca moves at a slow and stately pace. Women stroll the plazas arm-in-arm and pause to cluck at toddlers who tumble by in chase of balloons. Men trade abrazos and stop for shoeshines in the shade of massive laurel trees.

Traditions are strong in this ancient, mile-high city. Mornings begin with strong coffee and newspapers at tables in the covered arcades around the main plaza, or zocalo. Church bells toll in tones that range from the sublime--at the golden Church of Santo Domingo--to the ridiculous plinks that we heard on the quarter hour from our room at the hotel El Presidente, bells that sounded more like a distant cable car than a call to prayer.

Music is part of daily life in Oaxaca, and fiestas erupt almost as often. We followed the silvery blast of mariachi trumpets into a school courtyard in the midst of a celebration replete with a teen-age queen and a charge on a bull-shaped pinata. Many Oaxaquenos wandered in from the streets to cheer.

Although it was barely December, shop windows were filled with handcrafted Christmas ornaments and there was talk of the annual posada processions which began Dec. 16. Wreaths and lights were being strung from the high wooden beams at our hotel. The city’s patron saint--the Virgen de la Soledad--is also honored in December with fireworks, costumes and dances. And something called the Night of the Radishes is celebrated on the zocalo Dec. 23.

But we could not stay for those fiestas, so we concentrated on year-round sights and pleasures.

Oaxaca’s Saturday Market, for example, is famed for its pyramids of glowing papayas and grapefruit, its mountains of pink plastic shoes, its clotheslines of papier mache masks and embroidered, beribboned blouses called huipiles.

Local pottery--the classic black of the village of San Bartolo Coyotepec, and the green of Atzompa--is artfully arranged on low tables. Shaded stalls are bright with woolen weavings; whimsical carved animals painted orange, purple and crimson; herbs for medical cures and cooking; live turkeys and goats; flashlights, hammers, watches, guitars, bicycles, pots and pans, auto parts, beans, flowers, tortillas.

Indians come from miles around to sell and buy and barter.

The people of Oaxaca--the most Indian state of Mexico--have an aura of self-confidence and contentment. They live in a charming city that is proud of its Spanish colonial buildings, with classic balconies and grilled windows. They seem properly respectful of their heritage which is exemplified by the magnificent archeological sites of Monte Alban (on a hilltop at the edge of town) and Mitla (about 25 miles away).

One sunny afternoon I set out for the Rufino Tamayo Museum, a collection of splendid pre-Hispanic objects amassed by the Oaxaca-born artist. At the corner of Avenida Morelos and a street named 20 de Noviembre, I paused to check my map. A tiny woman came close to my side and whispered something I could not hear.

“Tamayo,” she repeated and pointed to the next block where I found the museum tucked into a 17th-Century mansion, surrounding a rose-sweet courtyard. Like much of Oaxaca, it offered surprising serenity.

That evening we joined the informal family promenades around the Church of Santo Domingo, among the stone sculptures of the pedestrian street called Macedonio Alcala and onto the zocalo, its bandstand alive with marimba music.

In the fresh breeze of December, I tossed a light shawl around my shoulders as we headed back to the El Presidente, a romantic inn hidden behind the thick wooden doors of a 16th-Century convent.

Candles flickered on tables in the patio and a guitar played a soft lament. Over platters of Oaxacan tamales (made with banana leaves instead of cornhusks), we toasted the gentle town that had met all of our dreams of Mexico. Then we began plotting our return.