agatha_jane

My husband and I recently spent a few days in Oaxaca City, MX. We hired Nicolas Garcia as our guide for two days while we explored Mitla and Monte Alban and surrounding area craft villages, churches and markets. Nicholas also transported us from and back to the airport. We enjoyed being with Nicholas and recommend his services. Please contact him directly at [email protected]. His telephone nos. are (951) 502-8566 (home) and (951)180-4762 (cell).

emd3

I had an excellent guide, Linda Hanna. she picked my husband and I up at our hotel, took us to many surrounding villages in the valley around Oaxaca, had great relationships with some of the top craftsmen/women in those villages so we got demonstrations of them doing their crafts. She is a big patron of the arts in Oaxaca and is well respected, runs a program to subsidize young artists in Oaxaca, to help them receive support to keep their historical crafts businesses that they learned from their parents and grandparents going.

She has also taken us out for day of the dead on different visits, and to the Cemetary in Atzompa. She is excellent, speaks fluent Spanish, is very pleasant. Very reasonable rates.

http://www.folkartfantasy.com

ekscrunchy

Most helpful, thank you.

emd3

Alvin Starkman is also good. I spoke to him before I chose Linda Hannah. Alvin and his wife own a B&B just outside Oaxaca city. While we were with Linda in Ocotlan at the workshop of a man who forges knives and swords from old car parts ( that was fascinating; he makes machetes for the MX army generals also, and we had him engrave a large kitchen knife he made for us for our anniversary) we ran into Alvin with another group of Spanish tourists he was guiding for the day. So I got to chat with him also. I would not hesitate to use him as a guide either, but we really loved Linda.

emd3

Alvin Starkman is also easy to find online-- he owns Casa Mahayana B&B with his wife, and he has written MANY good articles on different subject pertaining to Oaxaca. See here. His articles are very informative for planning a trip.

http://www.oaxacadream.com/articlesmain.html

http://www.oaxacadream.com/index.html

emd3

Should be Casa Machaya

ekscrunchy

Sorry for the intrusion. This is very handy for me, as I will be spending a week in the city in early November....

I've been to Oaxaca many times, but the last time was about 20 years ago. I speak Spanish well. My partner has never traveled in Mexico and has little language command.

I am trying to work out which destinations in the area would require a guide and which we can do by taxi.

What is the approximate daily price for a driver/guide?

I expect that we will want to go to a couple of weekly markets outside the city, and to Teotitlan and Monte Alban. For the latter, we will certainly want a guide.

Food is a major interest and I will be refining my list of restaurants/fondas, etc in the next few weeks...

We are booked at Casa Oaxaca and are thinking of having a dinner there.

Will begin a separate thread once I get my DF plans in order. Thank you and sorry for breaking in here...

NewbE

We had a guide for the market from Seasons of My Heart cooking school, run by Susanna Trilling. A van picked us up at our hotel, the guide met us at the market, we walked around for a couple of hours tasting and learning and photographing, and then were driven to the cooking school, where the same guide narrated the preparation of a splendid lunch. The school has a tiny shop with local food products and crafts, so we shopped a bit and were then driven back to our hotel. Great experience.