Beautifully Landscaped House in Quiet Village Outside Oaxaca

We had a really nice time at Tami and Karen's home. We are a family of 6, two adults and 4 children, aged 4-12, and stayed for 4 weeks. The place was perfect for our needs! It was more spacious than we expected, based on the photos, and the large garden was a huge hit for everyone! The kids really enjoyed exploring the yard, finding whatever fruit was ripe for picking, building fairy houses, kicking a ball around the back, or filming short iMovies with the beautiful background flowers and foliage. We were lucky to have regular visits from hummingbirds. Evenings were spent on the back deck playing cards and watching the sunset.

Karen and Tami have an excellent staff taking care of the place! We will miss Cata's infectious smile! We also really enjoyed their library. We added a few books to our reading list for when we get back home. :)

And we loved the art throughout the home! Real art! We think it's so important to expose our kids to all different kinds of art, so they develop an eye and an appreciation for it.

A few notes to help in planning: the home a little off the beaten track. If you don't have a car (we didn't), you can leverage the fantastic services of Lupe (contact info at the house), who can provide transportation and/or local tours. He was very helpful to us! There are some very small shops nearby with some basic staples (like fruits, veggies, milk, bread, sugar, eggs, tortillas) but if you have specific needs, you will want to arrange to get to a larger grocery store a little further away.

We found Karen and Tami's place a perfect spot to simply relax and allow creativity to flourish. It is obviously a beloved home that we are lucky to have had the opportunity to share. Thank you for making available to us!

This home is better than described. We spent 16 days here over the Christmas holidays. It is roomy, bright and pleasant, well furnished, immaculate, and comfortable. The two patios are very private and overlook interesting landscapes of fruit trees, cactus, succulents. There is local artwork everywhere in the home--clay sculptures, hand-woven rugs, paintings, baskets, etc.

The house manager, Celina, was a blessing in making our visit better. She gave us a little driving tour to orient us to the immediate area. We had one problem with hot water and that was solved immediately. She assured us that she was always available. Cleaning was done by a very nice lady named Cata. We did our own laundry but she was available for any extra help we might need.

Here though, I want to describe a few things that might help you plan your trip or be better prepared for enjoying it. We rented a car for the full time of our visit from the airport, as that is our normal pattern when we travel. Driving in Oaxaca, is however, very challenging and somewhat frightening. At the end of our visit we wondered if we would have been better off using taxis as we could figure on paying approximately $10 an hour for their services. Renting a car cost about $40 a day with extra insurance. Lupe is an English speaking driver with a good car who lives in the village. On our next to last day, we did have an accident caused by a lady who got impatient and passed us as we made a legal left turn!

Here are two negatives related to the location of the house. The most direct route to the house once you leave the main highway, is through a poor, dusty, depressing area of chicken stands and mini-tiendas. The village itself is charming but it is accessed from a different road. The second thing we didn't like about the location is that in the evening there are no restaurants near-by without going back into Oaxaca. We did go to Villa Del Sol on the main highway (about 3 miles away) and it was pleasant for a quick meal. But generally after a day of exploring we would come back to the house, lock the car in the gate and make something light at home.

We enjoyed visiting the different craft villages, the city of Oaxaca and we especially liked visiting near-by San Augustin Etla and the gallery there (Villa Hermosa). Oaxaca is about 6-7 miles from the house so without traffic it is about a 20 minute drive. It took some time to learn our way into and around the city.

There were five of us--two couples and one single woman and the accommodations were perfect. We all had enough space and did quite well sharing the one bathroom. There was always enough hot water provided by solar panels and the kitchen allowed us to cook liberally. The people working at the house were delightful, efficient and very, very helpful. We had drives with Sebastian who was great---and this was coordinated by Celena, the house manager. The only comment I would say is we all wanted furniture and/or hammocks in the beautiful garden!! The location is also nice outside of Oaxaca City for a quieter time. There is not a lot in San Pablo de Etla, however exploring daily with Sebastian allowed us to see everything, and then some, in the area. Also, Karen, one of the owners was extremely helpful in our planning. Overall, a fabulous house and trip!

We stayed in the house for almost one month, from February 9 to March 9, 2016, and we did enjoy the time there. The house well situated, surrounded by Mexican village life, with three tiendas in walking distance,where you can buy most of your needs. The house itself is beautiful with terraces on the front and rear, in a large garden; a paradise for birders. The house is full of local art and very colourful, with two bedrooms, and a sleeping porch, where we sat most of the later evenings. Catalina come once a week to clean and help with other things, and gardeners also appear on some days. The house is somewhat difficult to find, but with the help of the property managers, Carl and Celina, it should not be a problem. Our daughter with her two year old stayed for two weeks, and Celina helped out to find a crib for the child.

The house is peaceful, but there are Mexican village sounds,which usually stop around 10:00pm or so.

The nights are cool in February, down to 10-12 C in early morning, so you will sleep very well. It will warm up very fast and by early afternoon easily reach 30 C, and by early evening still around 22 C, so you can have dinner on the terrace outside. The kitchen is very well equipped, with basically everything you might require. A large superstore, along a Costco concept, Bodega Aurora is halfway between San Pablo de Etla and Oaxaca

If you stay only for a few days or a week, and will mainly visit Oaxaca and places nearby we recommend to go by taxi, around 200 pesos one way to Oaxaca. Public transport by motor taxi,tuktuk and local bus will be adventurous, but time consuming. If you stay longer, as we did, I strongly advise to rent a car; we found Hertz at the airport very reasonable,and they actually mention to you that the third party liability is included in the rental. Most other rentals, especially the ones in town include it ( and excessively) in their price resulting in a very expensive rental. Mexicans drive very defensively, are polite and use common sense rather than following strict rules. If you follow the same routine, check all sides of the car, and beware of the speed bumps (topes) you will enjoy driving in Oaxaca.

In Oaxaca city there are a number of public parking sites, clearly indicated by E(staciamento), are fairly quiet and charge only 15 to 20 pesos/hour.

Oaxaca is at 1600m ,consequently you need some adaption if you arrive from sea level, and the sun can be very hard.

We recommend this rental very much

My wife and I enjoyed two wonderful weeks here in November. Perfect weather for enjoying the multiple porches and seating areas. Carl picked us up at the bus terminal and waited while we loaded up with groceries for our stay. Good idea because we did not have a car. As described by everyone the

Casa is well equipped, comfortable and ideal for a stay in the country. Nice country roads lead into the hills for enjoyable walks. But for us, the great joy was living in a home with all the incredible pottery & art work that was obviously chosen after research, going to the artisan villages and displayed with good taste. Our only disappointment was not meeting the owners.