Get an early start for your visit to Monte Albán: whatever the time of year, its vast plaza collects the heat of the sun. The state's prime archaeological site, Monte Albán covers some eight square miles on a high ridge only six miles west of Oaxaca. Zapotec Indians started building here in about 500 B.C., and over the centuries more tombs and temples, pyramids, palaces, and ball courts were constructed.
You need a knowledgeable interpreter to explain what's known of this site, and it's easy to find one: licensed guides lounge about as you climb the steps to the entrance. I wind up with Benito Hernández, an unusually tall Zapotec with a movie-star profile and a startling command of English. As we scramble up and down the pyramids, he enthusiastically recounts how the top of the mountain was sliced down to the bedrock before construction began (the work of some three centuries; probably done to protect against earthquakes), how buildings were oriented to the positions of the stars, how parts of the ingenious drainage system still function. In one spot he claps his hands to demonstrate the uncanny acoustics: despite the enclosing walls, there's not a trace of echo.
Archaeologists believe that the network of secret tunnels was used to convince the peasants of their leaders' supernatural powers: a priest would appear on top of one temple and then vanish, only to reappear minutes later (after having scuttled underground) on top of another. At that time the city was painted crimson, and during special ceremonies the priests are believed to have worn robes encrusted with mica that gave off an eerie glow when sheets of mica or polished obsidian were used to reflect sunlight onto them.
Not far from Monte Albán are several other crafts villages worth exploring. Almost everyone who lives in Atzompa is involved in making the green pottery used in many area restaurants. Families exhibit and sell their wares either in their own houses or in the town's Casa de Artesanías, where room after room is filled with pitchers, plates, mugs, figurines, vases, whatever. For sentimental reasons, I buy a vase that matches the one holding a tiny rose in my bathroom at the Camino Real; still, I'm more taken with the black pottery made in nearby San Bartolo Coyotepec. Those pieces, whose almost iridescent finish is produced by polishing the fired pottery with quartz, are consistently more sophisticated.
Any day trip to this area should include lunch near the town of Zaachila, at La Capilla, which is proud to call itself a "tourist restaurant." You'll soon figure out that the tourists referred to are Mexican; a wall of photos reveals dignitaries, TV stars, and other people you won't recognize. Rows of wooden tables are arranged outdoors beneath long thatched roofs; you sit on broad wooden plank benches. Don't be embarrassed to order the "platón turístico"--it'll give you a generous taste of chiles rellenos, enchiladas de pollo, tasajo (salty strips of beef), and the local mild white string cheese, quesillo. And since the kitchen is wide open, you can watch the cooks flattening balls of dough in the same blue metal tortilla presses you saw in the Tlacolula market.
There's one more stop before heading back to Oaxaca. Just down the road, in Cuilapan, is the ex-Convent of Santiago Matamoros, started in the mid-1500's by Dominican friars. Though partially restored, the crumbling walls and faded frescoes still speak volumes of the past. It doesn't seem to matter that the caretaker who shows me around speaks not a word of English. I don't need a guide to admire the view of the whole valley, and the dim high-ceilinged rooms with the haunting presence of the fathers who once lived here.
During my visit, a torrential shower surprises us, and the caretaker and I sit down on a stone bench in the echoing Gothic cloister to wait it out. I can't remember the last time I simply sat and watched the rain-- but Oaxaca does that sort of thing to you. For half an hour we gaze out while the water gushes from the roof's downspouts into the courtyard. I'm overcome by a feeling of utter peace-- and grateful that such an eloquent beauty, such a rich sense of the layers of history, exists in a ruined monastery in the heart of Mexico.
