Nochixtlan

You won’t find Nochixtlan in any tourists guide of Mexico, it is a small town about an hour’s drive north of Oaxaca just off the main road to Puebla.  It caught my eye because I was keen to visit a typical small town to experience how people live outside of the main cities.

We stopped by on the Sunday morning after leaving Oaxaca and as we walked into the town I got an eerie feeling.  The street seemed deserted and to my way of thinking that made Robin and I really standout.  Perhaps I was thinking of some of those cowboy movies where the new guys in town walk up the main street and everyone is subtly watching them from their windows.

As soon as we got close to the main square we entered the market and then everything changed.  It is amazing what happens while you smile and say hello. That seems to be the universal ice breaker and at once everyone was extremely friendly.  The market takes place once a week on Sunday and it was an amazing sight.  Stalls filled the central streets of the town selling just about everything you could imagine.  I was surprised to see chilies for sell and not just a few, each such stall had mounds of them, more chilies than I had ever seen.  And so it went on with vegetables, pulses, grains, etc.  I was delighted when we reached the local bakery stall and like Puebla, this one was impossible to pass by without getting some breakfast.  It is clear I am a real sucker for true Mexican baked goods!

I noticed some of the locals had a deep latin complexion, it seemed to me they were descendants of the original Mexican people.  I wanted to capture their photographs but at the first mention of taking their picture I got an animated no.  I could tell they weren’t just shy, and I suspect photographs have a deeper meaning for them.  I did manage to get one local person’s picture but that resulted in a five minute heated discussion following much to the amusement of the stall holders and so I called it day for portraiture.

Off to the side of the market was the local church, beautiful in its simplicity.  We didn’t get a chance to enter and as I experienced in other churches, I have no doubt the interior would have been very ornate.  Around the corner from the church we found a group of very large model characters waiting for the next carnival.  A person gets inside of each of them for the carnival and it must be quite the sight as they dance in the streets!