In Oaxaca City, Cuajimoloyas and El Carrizal

 Take the deepest dive into the regional cuisine and lifestyle of the Sierra Norte Mountains. Foraging and mushroom cooking classes with our Zapotec partners in Cuajimoloyas; learn how barbacoa is made overnight from start to finish with our hosts in El Carrizal; participate in the making of Pan de Horno with locally grown, donkey-threshed and stone-ground wheat that the villagers bake into delicious empanadas in massive wood-fired mud ovens; tour the 12,000 year old caves of Mitla where the first evidence of corn and pumpkins cultivation was found; and, of course, dine at some of the best restaurants in Oaxaca City! This tour is a full exploration of Oaxaca cuisine from village to city, from prehistoric to modern fine-dining.

"There was discovery and striking connections at every turn. Mexico offers more than I had imagined and Oaxaca is the perhaps the most magical place I’ve ever visited. Zachary and Kim provide all you need to take it all in at your own pace and the direction of your choosing. ”

 - Michael, Chef/Restaurant Owner; Florida; 2022 attendee

TRIP OVERVIEW 

Dining at the incredible Cocina de Humo in Centro Oaxaca; MycoWeaving Tour, 2022.

We begin our trip in Oaxaca City, where we will meet for our first dinner of this MyComida tour. In past trips, we have eaten at several of the top restaurants in town, and are excited to share with you these special chefs and dining experiences we have met in this last year! The following morning we will eat an early breakfast and explore Monte Alban, the incredible Zapotec ruins in the middle of the city.

​From there, we will visit a palenque--where mezcal is made--in Tlacolula Valley for a tasting and lunch, before heading up into the mountains to above 10,000ft to be immersed in mountain air, pines and mushrooms for nearly a week. This is our first tour where we experience the mountains for this long, and our only tour this year, and we couldn't be more excited to share the lesser known Oaxaca with you!

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Zapotec guide Martha harvest medicinal plants in Cuajimoloyas

Our first day in Cuajimoloyas we will explore the town, get settled, and most of all, get used to being above 10,000ft. We will dine at the local restaurant El Mirador Comedor, with it's unparalleled view. The next two days will be spent in the forest, collecting mushrooms for the dinner table as well as for the collection table (and the dye pot)! We will be exploring with local herb and mushroom maestras, as well as others from the village, including some brilliant mycologically-inclined children!

Our dear friend & Mexican mycologist Iñaki will help us identify much of what we find, and medicinal uses of plants discussion with Zapotec guide and instructor Martha is inevitable! Martha will also teach a cooking class on using mushrooms traditionally the third evening. We expect to be finding innumerable Porcini (Boletus edulis group) and Caesar Amanita (Amanita caesarea group), as well as cauliflower mushrooms, several species of edible Laccharia, wood blewits, and more!

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Waking from our third night in Cuajimoloyas, we will eat breakfast in town, and travel even deeper into the forest to an even quainter town nestled several thousand feet lower in elevation, and all but situated on the edge of a cliff.

El Carrizal is a baking town: the folks here grow, thresh and grind their own wheat, and in gigantic mud ovens they bake local empanadas and cookies for the surrounding mountain towns. We will arrive on baking day, so we will have a chance to see the family in action, and maybe even help out a little. Our incredibly gracious hosts will feed us daily, and we will have the opportunity to learn about the milpa system of agriculture that the Mountain Zapotec developed to meet their nutritional needs over thousands of years, as well as be treated as family as we eat our meals together.

 The views in El Carrizal are stunning, and on our hikes we will go both high and low in our search for mushrooms and adventure. We will eat lunch both days out in the field. Last year the campesino lunch was one of the highlights of the whole trip for many participants. We will reconvene each evening for dinner with Delila, and on our second evening there, for those interested, Ramon will prepare a proper barbacoa that will roast all night for the following day's meals! Last year some of us were up until 2:00am, getting everything prepped!

​We will unveil the barbacoa in the morning of our last full day, enjoy the rich consomme for breakfast before heading down into the Jurassic Park like canyons filled with mushrooms, orchids and bromeliads.

​We will dine again in the field at a very special location, before coming back for our final dinner, the barbacoa of the night before.

As we depart and descend back into the central valley of Oaxaca the following day, we will stop at the Mitla Caves, a series of five caves containing 12,000 year-old evidence of the earliest maize and pumpkin seed, as well as metates (big stone grinders) made out of the rock itself.

​Afterwards, we will return to Oaxaca for our final evening together, where we will be going to one of the most incredible experiences in dining, in our opinion… to be announced when the time is right.

​Of course, you don’t have to leave Oaxaca when the trip ends… in fact, we encourage you to stay and are more than happy to share what we know.

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By the end of this trip, you will have experienced the Zapotec culture through the lens of food and fungi, stretching from ancient prehistoric times when mammoths roamed the valleys up through the modern and impressive city that Oaxaca is today. This trip is a must for chefs, anthropology-curious humans, and mycophiles everywhere.

Our Team

Zachary & Kim 
​Williams-Hunter

Your Tour Leaders

Over several trips to Oaxaca, we have cultivated a rich relationship with the people, culture, & cuisine that has culminated in this invitation for a hands-on, immersive window into this cradle of civilization. 

Avid travelers with curiosity & a deep appreciation for culture & engaging people around the world, we believe that through travel & connecting with different cultures, we gain a greater understanding of the world, our place in it, and the better future that we can build together. It's in this spirit that we share the Oaxaca that we know & love with you. 

Iñaki Oyarvide Ibarrola

Lead Mycologist

Iñaki Oyarvide Ibarrola graduated with a BS in Biology at the University of Guadalajara, specializing in Ethno-mycology and Biotechnology for the cultivation of edible and medicinal mushrooms. His study was focused on the isolation of wild strains and their in-vitro preservation and reproduction.

Iñaki has dedicated himself to empirical research on the uses of medicinal mushrooms for more than two decades, working and collaborating at the community level with the Mazateca, Mixtec and Zapotec cultures in the highlands of Oaxaca and in Sonora with the Comca'ac. He currently investigates the traditional knowledge of natural medicine in these communities.

Celestino Mendez​

Our Zapotec Nature Guide

Celestino Mendez is a local Zapotec member of the Mancomunados of the Sierra Nortes, farming and living in his native village of Latuvi. He leads treks, mountain bike tours, mountain summit tours and more with his business Walk With Celestino.

We met Celestino in 2019 at the Cuajimoloays Mushroom Festival, and have partnered with him on all of our tours in 2021 and 2022. He is also a nature geek himself, passionate about orchids, as well as deep knowledge of the forests and ecological diversity in the Sierra Norte.