Oaxaca is the state travellers fall hardest for, and the reason is density: sixteen recognised indigenous peoples, a cuisine that is argued to be the country's finest, and a capital small enough to walk across.
Oaxaca de Juárez is a city of green volcanic stone, with the Santo Domingo church and its gilded interior, markets selling seven distinct moles, and mezcal in every form from industrial to a plastic bottle from somebody's uncle. Above it sit the Zapotec terraces of Monte Albán, levelled off a mountaintop around 500 BC.
The valleys around the city hold the craft villages — black pottery, alebrijes, the weaving at Teotitlán — and Hierve el Agua, mineral springs that have petrified into what look like frozen waterfalls.
The Sierra Norte above is cloud forest, with community-run tourism that predates the phrase: Capulálpam de Méndez is one of several villages running their own cabins and guides, and San José del Pacífico sits in the mountains between city and coast.
The coast stayed small because the mountains made it hard to reach. Puerto Escondido has a serious surf break at Zicatela; Mazunte and Zipolite are villages rather than resorts, the latter Mexico's only official nude beach.
Oaxaca is also where the Day of the Dead is least adulterated, and where Guelaguetza in July brings the state's peoples to the capital to dance.
