Shifting down a gear in laid back Oaxaca

Encircled by majestic green hills, Oaxaca is a town that has eschewed the pressures of modern life. Although it has over 200,000 residents, it manages to retain an accessible small town feel, its many shaded plazas connected by a neat network of paved streets.

This is a town that completely shuts down on Sundays and there are far more churches (23 at last count) than cantinas. Indigenous women walk the streets carrying baskets on their heads and markets are the focal point of commerce. Small-family run tienditas dominate over big brand chain stores.

Main cathedral

But it is quickly evident that Oaxaca has benefitted from a big tourism boom. Most of the centre of town is set up for the gringo influx - the streets are lined with brightly-painted and well-tended galleries, handicraft shops, restuarants, cafes and bookshops. Regular services such as chemists and laundromats are confined to the grittier edges of town, where super-noisy local buses ply the streets.

It was quite a shock arriving in touristy Oaxaca from our little barrio in Mexico City as we had grown used to being the only anglos and getting stared at constantly - Adam's height attracts lots of attention. In Oaxaca, we started overhearing strains of Ameri-English instead of Spanish and everyone looked like us.

As you might expect, the pace is much slower in Oaxaca. Things really wind down in the heat of the day, and many businesses close for siesta. The streets were empty on Sunday, with most locals shifting to the Zocalo, or cathedral plaza to simply hang out in the shade of the giant trees, eating ice creams and drinking raspados, which consist of sickly sweet gloopy fruit syrup poured over a cup of ice.

Wedding car

Oaxaca's few modern-style supermarkets are easily outstripped by traditional fresh food markets, where you can find pretty much everything you need for your pantry - and many things you probably don't. We wandered around the larger wholesale markets, where many of the vendors would not sell you items in bags smaller than a 1/4 of a kilo. Others buy from the wholesale suppliers and resell smaller quantities in stalls around the corner.

The variety here is absolutely dazzling. Butchers specialise in either pork or beef and have just about every cut imaginable on display - including cow's head, offal and tortillas made from spongy pork crackling. There were chocolate and cheese stalls with big discs of dark, gritty Oaxacan chocolate and thick, dark lumps of pre-made red and black mole paste.

Mezcal vendors had rows and rows of different varieties, from completely clear blow-your-head off types to smoother, creamy opaque versions. In between the many fruit and vegetable stands there were stands of glass jars containing different types of herbs, flowers, seeds and cactuses used in indigenous medecine and witchcraft.

Oaxaca has an incredible variety of unique fruits, vegetables and herbs, including the caramel-like mamey fruit. It is also the home of chapulines, or dry-roasted grasshoppers, which taste remarkably good considering they are an insect. Oaxacan cuisine is richly flavoured with herbs such as the aniseed-tasting epazote, and an impressive array of leaves and edible flowers. Many of its dishes are based on complex-flavoured moles, or sauces where up to 30 ingredients are ground together and can take hours or days to prepare.

Dry-roasted grasshoppers

Oaxaca is a great place for just hanging about. There is lots to do culturally, with dozens of museums and art galleries and of course ubiquitous churches. But as much of an impression can be gained from just strolling around one of the shaded plazas or pedestrian-free shopping streets.

This leg of the journey provided some much-needed downtime after the past hectic week of last-minute sightseeing and farewell parties in Mexico City. We are also resting up to have plenty of energy for our next episode - a four day cycle through the mountains of southern Oaxaca state to the Pacific Coast, finishing up in the surfer's retreat of Puerto Escondido.