Discover Teposcolula: Oaxaca’s Magical Town of Copper Legends

The name “Teposcolollan” was known for a long time this Pueblo Mágico ( Magical Town) of the Oaxacan Mixtec which means “Junto a la torcedura del cobre” ( Next to the copper bend).

 

Historians say this is because the currency before the arrival of the Spaniards was in the form of tiny copper axes.

 

Although some think that these are two places, in reality, San Pedro and San Pablo Teposcolula, Oaxaca is one single municipality. It has managed to combine the influences of two cultures, the Spanish and the Mixtec, which undoubtedly formed a new identity.

 

By immersing yourself in this exciting Pueblo Mágico and its Zona de Monumentos Históricos (Historical Monuments Zone), you will be able to get to know its buildings of sumptuous past that remain magnificent. One example is the Casa de la Cacica, nothing less than the palace where the last Mixtec queen lived and which in its splendor stored silks, furs, gold, and diamonds.

 

In those same golden years of the 16th century, the convent complex was built and still preserves an Open Chapel, the Templo de San Pedro y San Pablo (Temple of St. Peter and St. Paul), and the Dominican Exconvent that houses the Chapel of Santa Gertrudis. The latter has a beautiful ethnobotanical garden that we recommend you visit.

 

An interesting fact is that the Open Chapel has been recognized as the largest in Latin America. Its function was the evangelization of the natives, a teaching given by the Dominicans for more than a century. In it, the forms of an indigenous teocalli and the traces of a church of the time are one and the same.

 

Once in front of the Templo de San Pedro y San Pablo, you will find images and liturgical instruments of incalculable value: from a baroque organ and Latin missaries to priestly vestments made with gold and silver thread during the colonial era. To be there is like having entered a gigantic treasure chest.

 

Teposcolula is painted purple thanks to its abundant orchids, a flower that you will find all over the town and that grows naturally in its lands, as if attracted by its warm soil and dancing to the sound of the jarabe mixtexco that sounds in the distance.

 

Teposcolula is located 1 hour and 50 minutes by road from Oaxaca City. Departing from Tehuacán, Puebla; it will take you 2 hours 20 minutes.