Having previously spent 5 weeks in Oaxaca City, convinced that its art gallery-lined streets and delicately plated dishes of juicy memelas and tlayudas were going to be enough to keep me longer, I eventually left with a soft spot for the city in my heart. When I had the chance to return for a short weekend, I knew that I wanted my stay to present me with another side of the city. Here’s my inside look at my first time staying at Hotel con Corazón.

Oaxaca is already known for being one of Mexico’s most vocal cities. A short walk to the center of the city will show graffiti speaking out against gentrification, violence against women and more nationally relevant issues. One piece of graffiti that always finds its way into my stories about Oaxaca read in Spanish, ‘Oaxaca will not become the next Tulum’. A neatly scribed reminder that no passers-by or street vendors flinched at.

The social, cultural and indigenous commitment to maintaining original roots speaks clearly: Oaxacans love and preserve the land they are on. I admire it, and extend that admiration to Hotel con Corazón, a local hotel that allowed me to further witness this in action.

Here in the heart of the city, maybe a short 8-minute walk from my temporary Airbnb home from my last visit, was Hotel con Corazón, a social enterprise dedicated to Oaxaca’s education depravities. As humbly as it presents itself online is how it feels when arriving. I remember it as an oasis of natural lighting, the pastel green outside-wall easing you into one of the purest and most easeful stays of your life.

As a solo Black woman traveler, a foodie, a newbie nomad, shamelessly attracted to hotels with cute colourful minimalist designs, Hotel con Corazón almost convinced me never to leave the hotel premises. And it wasn’t just the pleasing aesthetic, it was the fact that as a Black person aware of the effects of under-developed and under-served communities, this felt like a form of tourism I could easily relate to.

oxaca

There is no article