A visit to wonderland
Last year I had an old root canal go bad and after he pulled it out, my dentist told me it would cost $5,000 to replace. Instead, I decided to go to Mexico and get it done for a third the price. It’s finally time to make the trip, and despite the joys of dental surgery, I’ve looked forward to this for many months.
In preparation I’ve been trying to learn Spanish. I really have. But one of the many reasons I’m glad to be traveling with June is that she’s a native speaker of Spanish (and Danish, and English, and French, and manages Italian and Portuguese and Greenlandic in a pinch). She speaks Español as fast as the Mexicans, though she grew up in Spain and seems to say “th” where they say “s”.
Trying to find the third leg of our flight in the gigantic Mexico City airport, a lady looks at our boarding passes and sighs, “Oaxaca — mucha mole, mucha mezcal, mucho chocolate.” This makes me very happy, since mole, mezcal, and chocolate are three of my favorite things in the world. We’re headed to the delicious world of Oaxaca!
I don’t like to spend a lot of money when I travel, usually because I don’t have a lot of money. A decent place in Mexico shouldn’t cost more than $40-$50 per night. The fruits of this approach show themselves in our beautiful, cavelike airbnb in the heart of Oaxaca City. Rough and unique in a way only a small amount of money can buy, it feels like it’s hundreds of years old.
It probably is. The bedroom walls are made of stone, the only light coming from ornate glass blocks in the ceiling. The kitchen faucet is a coldwater pipe running out of the wall. And the bathroom is clearly a recent addition — you have to go outside into the courtyard to reach it.
I love it so much I can ignore the lumpy pillows. The traffic roars but it’s buffered by layers of rock and seems far away, like distant surf. I lay down in the warm, humid air and start to forget the winter world I woke up in.
#dentaltourism #oaxaca #travelblog #airbnb #mole #mezcal #singersongwriter #paulinoaxaca
