53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good but with some problems, August 16, 2007
This review is from: Moon Oaxaca (Moon Handbooks) (Paperback)
Overall this is a very good guide, but it does have its defects.
Here are my impressions after having spent nearly 7 weeks in Oaxaca City and State. First, the good points.
It is very extensive and detailed. The author seems to have left almost no stone unturned in the State of Oaxaca.
His local maps are quite good, and very thankfully he had gas stations symbols on his larger maps. On the one occasion that exact distance was important to us, he got it exactly right. He also states how long in time trips will take in the mountains, not just giving the kilometers, which latter are misleading if you don't realize how curvy and slow the roads are. "It's only 100 km from Oaxaca. No time at all."
The book, like other Moon handbooks, has the good menu of `What to do if you have X days' choices.
In addition, Mr. Whipperman provides many interesting sidebars on various topics.
It's easy to sum up the virtues, which are extensive in applying throughout the book. Now for some of the problems.
Many of the places in the book are described in glowing, even poetic terms. These did not always seem to bear a relation to reality--I'm talking really off--as in our visit to Puerto Angel. The main problem here is that with so many effusive descriptions, it's difficult to make judgments. On the other hand, on those much rarer occasions where a place is described as `downscale' or such, you'd better believe it.
There didn't seem to be directions for where to turn off for Ixtlan (what's the matter with 'turn right at the Pemex station'), and the directions on how to pick up the road for Pluma Hidalgo in Santa Maria de Hualtulco didn't seem correct.
In Oaxaca City, he doesn't mention the comida corridas: inexpensive, light 3-4 course meals offered in the late afternoon, nor does he say where you might find the best of them at the low prices, like 25 pesos. If you ate in our neighborhood at one, south of the zocalo, you'd be having a definitely non-tourist experience. But they are hardly haute cuisine.
However, the most significant fault in the book that I found was in its gross failure to provide sufficient guidance with respect to buying rugs at Teotitlan, a village near Oaxaca City. As a minor matter, he says if you take a bus you need to get off on the highway and then walk or hitchhike the several km into town. This isn't true. There's a bus that goes right to the village. Also, he doesn't mention that the colectivo taxi is only 15 pesos or so.
But the most significant problem is this: you can sign up with a tour company (a lot more expensive) and you will most likely be taken to a specific weaver with little time to see others. Of course, the tour operator's large commission is built into the price of the rugs. And then, to help your reasoning, you may be plied with mescal and/or cerveza.
It's a general phenomenon. The language school I attended arranged a trip just like this too to the same place. Which had both their own Suburban type van and an SUV in their driveway. Hey, they deserve to make good money from their rugs, but not by setting people up. But even this isn't the point. The guidebook should have warned of this common technique related to the rugs. Just as guidebooks to Thailand warn you of the various tout schemes. In a similar vein, Moon Oaxaca doesn't mention that some weavers now use chemical and not the more expensive natural dyes, while swearing otherwise.
The next two times I went to Teotitlan--I was into the rugs--I took the colectivo taxi at 15 pesos and the bus once (4 pesos), and compared rugs at my convenience from many weavers.
Two smaller guide books to Oaxaca, locally written, are Oaxaca Tips ([...]) and Viva Oaxaca ([...]). These are for Oaxaca City and valley only. They are more idiosyncratic and opinionated than Moon Oaxaca, with some more local detail. Viva Oaxaca, for example, lists its favorite comida corridas. We generally carried these around in the city, in part because they are light. Amazon, why don't you carry these books???
Nevertheless, Moon Oaxaca is overall a good guide.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The "bible" for travel in Oaxaca, April 15, 2009
We got this book and a Mexico travel book before we left for a week trip in Oaxaca. Just myself and my son, age 15. Other than assuring we had a hotel in Oaxaca the first night and a car, we made no other plans.
Old motto: "Good travelers don't know where they are going. Great travelers don't know where they've been." (My personal addition: "And even better travelers have no idea what they just ate!")
While the 'map' in this book is not to scale (some roads cross that do not cross in the maps inside; distances are not to scale) and the hotels/pricing is out of date ... we found this book to be 100% indispensable.
We joking referred to it by saying 'consult the good book' when we were coming up to towns and wondered what, if anything, was there. We found ruins that locals wondered how we found and a few hot springs that were off the beaten track. The one north of Ixtepec (more a warm stream than a bath) was worth the whole trip.
We barely cracked the Mexico book (it got relegated to the bottom of my suitcase) but this book was in hand the whole trip and came back dog-eared ... and covered with red dirt.
On the last night, we used the book as our sole map of Oaxaca city and found a couple nice places we doubt we would have located without it.
Of course, we stumbled onto a few places that were not listed (Tip: Arrive early to the cultural museum in Oaxaca City and walk around the Church to stroll through the botanical gardens) and some sites were not accessible any longer or (more likely) we could not get the locals to comprehend what we wanted to find from our limited Spanish ... but simply put:
This book was worth every penny. Buy it before you leave for Oaxaca.
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