Mitla and the Yagul Caves

Two things sit side by side in this valley. Mitla was the religious centre of the Zapotec and later Mixtec world, and its palaces are unlike anything else in Mesoamerica: the walls are faced with tens of thousands of cut stone pieces fitted without mortar into geometric fretwork panels, each pattern different, an effect closer to weaving than masonry. A colonial church was built directly on one of the compounds using its stones. A few kilometres away, rock shelters in the hills above Yagul produced squash seeds around ten thousand years old, the earliest known domesticated plants in the Americas, and it is these caves and their rock art, not the palaces, that carry the World Heritage listing made in 2010.

What you actually see

• The mosaic fretwork - stone panels fitted without mortar, no two alike.
• The Columns group - the best preserved palace compound at Mitla.
• The church on the ruins - a colonial church built into a Zapotec compound.
• Yagul - the hilltop fortress and ballcourt on the way back.

When to go

October to April is dry and clear, and this valley is mild year-round at around seventeen hundred metres. Mornings avoid both the heat and the coach groups from Oaxaca. Combine with Hierve el Agua and a mezcal palenque on the same road.

Honest expectations

The listed caves themselves are not a visitor attraction and access is restricted for conservation, so what you actually see is Mitla and Yagul; the listing is easy to misread. Mitla is compact and takes about an hour. The approach through the modern town is scruffy and lined with insistent craft stalls.

Nearby

Hierve el Agua is an hour further; Oaxaca city is 45 minutes back.