Last week the Denver Press Club organized a weeklong trip to Oaxaca, an increasingly attractive magnet for foodie fans. Organized by one-time Westword restaurant writer and bar consultant Tony White through his Almas Viejas tour company, which he operates with his wife and business partner Carmen. They arranged for us artisanal mezcal tastings, four-star meals and trips to the looms of Zapotec textile weavers.

This was my first real vacation since the pandemic disrupted our lives. Far removed from the chaos and turmoil familiar in border cities, where asylum seekers under growing duress from across the globe crowd the streets, Oaxaca was surprisingly middle class – even though drivers prefer using their horns rather than turn signals.

The Mexican peso has remained strong during Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency and, well distant from the American border, they are preferred to dollars. Having read last year’s “How the World Became Rich” by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin, it was evident economic globalization, love it or hate it, has made it easier for those who were already rich to get still richer in Mexico, just as it has in the United States. Nonetheless, everyone is doing better. Streets were crowded on weekend evenings with young people cruising bars and paying $10 or $12 for cocktails.

For several years the net migration between the U. S. and Mexico has seen more migrants returning home than departing. The few beggars we encountered tended to be single mothers with young children, often displaying Venezuelan or Guatemalan flags, fleeing up the immigration corridor from Central America, through Mexico, to the U. S. border. It seemed American tourists were more willing to hand over a few pesos than were the locals who have witnessed this torrent of desperation for decades.

When I had an opportunity to ask Mexicans what they thought of the Republican presidential candidates who have been promising to dispatch American troops to shut down the drug cartels that plague their country, perhaps the most telling response was, “We think exactly what you think we think.” As one restaurant owner explained to me, “Your drug problem is creating our problems. Nearly as many Mexicans are dying from cartel violence as Americans are overdosing. Remember, these are killers who make Hamas look like choir boys.” A few months ago, a cartel which wasn’t getting the cooperation they desired from local police in Guerrero raided their station, killing 24 cops and then cut off their heads for public display along the rooftop.

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I wonder how many war planners at the Pentagon are really prepared to corral such heathens? Or how many troops are enthusiastic for a chance to “save American lives” against that kind of savagery? I was able to follow the special session’s property tax drama in Denver, thanks to the worldwide internet, where Democrats appeared determined to prove they could give arrogance a bad name. They seem likely to get away with ignoring voter sentiment while Colorado Republicans remain in disarray. Why embrace humility? I will postpone further analysis for next week.

Perhaps the most interesting part of our trip was a trip to Monte Alban, the Zapotec religious and astronomical site outside Oaxaca. Constructed 1,500 years ago, a sun-worshipping priestly caste enlisted thousands of peons to shave the top off a mountain at the juncture of three river valleys, creating a flat-top summit suitable for temples and playing fields.

Unlike the Aztecs, who incorporated human sacrifice into their religious practice, the Zapotecs seem to have settled for castrating prisoners and then enslaving them. In a semi-arid desert, I couldn’t help but wonder how they delivered water to their mountain-top fortress. Today, nearly every building in Oaxaca has a system of rainwater capture that delivers drinking water into basement cisterns from where it is pumped to rooftop gravity tanks. In a society that rewarded its priests, I suppose they may have forced slaves to carry water to the top of the mountain. There’s a reason why the most popular history of Mexico is titled, “Fire and Blood.” The fact Cortez could execute Moctezuma and thereby collapse a civilization of 7 million with just 150 soldiers on horseback tells us daring went a long way.

The effort required to convert agave plants into mezcal demonstrates how far human ingenuity can be applied to getting high. The Zapotecs were producing mezcal when the Spanish arrived, roasting hundreds of agave hearts for two to three days, then crushing them and fermenting the resulting mash for another week or two. To speed distillation of the liquor, Spanish merchants imported copper stills from the Philippines, which had been themselves first developed in India. Or, as one wit noted, an exemplar of “inquisition Era Technology Transfer.” The small batch, artisanal distilleries in the 10 Mexican states authorized to label their bottles as mezcal aren’t making their operators wealthy, even though their bottles become expensive after they’re exported.

We met Berta Vasquez, who was featured in Eva Longoria’s CNN series examining Mexico’s tourist attractions. I arrived in Oaxaca thinking mezcal usually tasted like liquid Styrofoam. I’ve revised my opinion since sampling Berta’s variants, including lemongrass and “Dios de Muerte” fruits. She was the first female mezcalero recognized internationally who remains true to traditional techniques. No two of her batches will ever taste alike. Intrigued? Tony and Carmen, an expatriate American from Wyoming and a Oaxacan native, prefer to escort small groups of six to 10 (almasviejasoax.com). As one T-shirt slyly proclaimed, “Mexico: The Fun Side of the Wall.”

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.