Book notes: Oaxaca Journal

By Oliver Sacks.

This book was recommended on my Kindle for those interested in visiting Oaxaca.

Scoring:

• Axe for the frozen sea: 10/10.
• Page count: 176 (I had to look this up. I don’t see page counts on my Kindle, only % complete). It read much faster.

It covered the author’s 1 week trip to Oaxaca with the New York chapter of the American Fern Society (AFS) in 2001. Each chapter is a day of the trip (Friday, Saturday, etc). The main goal of the trip, predictably, was ferning, or looking for new and existing ferns. There are over 700 species of fern in Oaxaca, and only about 400 species of fern in all of North America. The group shunned any talk about flowers or flowering plants, which was hilarious.

For me, this book is the new gold standard for travel writing. The author talks about ferns, obviously, but also the Oaxacan culture he experiences, fun details about the other people in his group, notes about the history of Oaxaca and Mexico, and fun insights from his day to day experiences. I think I got maximum value out of this book from reading it while I was there. I like the occasional sketches of the ferns.

I wonder how much time of the trip the author spent furiously taking notes for the journal? Maybe the trip would be more enjoyable if there were 50 fewer pages and more time spent engaging with the trip? Not complaining, more reading enjoyment for me, but I bet at a personal cost to the author.

From 2001 to 2024, most of the Oaxaca descriptions were the same save one: he described people and kids begging for pesos everywhere he went. I didn’t see that on our trip. Poverty in Mexico is declining.

There is a beautiful moment in the book where the author realized he felt accepted and included in his fern group.

This is a must read for anyone visiting Oaxaca!