Why Wa-ha-ka rocks. A list.

Week one in Oaxaca, originally uploaded by kitty424.

(1) At 10 PM on a Thursday the zócalo is bustling with Oaxacan families. Little kids, babies in strollers, grandmothers - four generations a family - watching clowns performing, buying empanadas or tuna ices from a street vendor, playing with huge balloons in front of the old church.

(2) The Institute of Graphic Arts had a party this Friday night. Not a publicized, but not a private event. An art gallery in an old, colonial building with a courtyard full of cacti.

(3) Three-wheel food bikes. It's a tricycle! No, it's a vitrine of donuts! No, it's both!

(4) Mango with chili salt and limón.

(5) Boiled corn on a stick with limón and chili salt

(6) Jicama with limón and chili salt.

(7) short Mexican boys with crusty, shiny gelled hair. Sometime when you dance salsa, you end up brushing the tops of their heads with an elbow or a forearm.

(8) Hummingbirds

(9) Art galleries on every corner

(10) The cacti in front of Santo Domingo

(11) Church bells

(12) Mezcál at 9am at the organic market