The capital of the southern Mexican state of the same name, was a war zone: anti-government protesters packing spray paint, rocks and Molotov cocktails; police in riot gear tossing canisters of black tear gas into the crowd.

Thousands of teachers were on strike and thousands more socialist sympathizers joined them in street protests eventually ended when the federal government sent in troops.

My eyes stinging, I raced past the burned-out shell of a bus. Thick smoke filled the air, but there was just enough of a clearing to allow me a glimpse of El Catedral restaurant. It looked so enticing: a serene courtyard, white tablecloths and glass wine goblets with the distinctive Mexican blue rim. But the door was locked.

I kept running.

Fast-forward one year and I’m finally inside El Catedral, and in a city that feels much different. Seated under the stars on an ancient stone patio, a fountain burbling beside me, I savour sautéed mushrooms in garlic wine sauce. The setting is almost exactly as I envisioned it would be: a place of architectural jewels, one-of-a-kind textiles and culinary surprises. Except I am alone.

The two-storey bar, all polished wood and chrome, is dark. The dining room to the right of the courtyard is as empty as the one to the left.

I have returned to Oaxaca on assignment: Find out if, one year after deadly riots crippled the city, it is again an attractive destination for visitors seeking language schools, colonial history, craft markets and art galleries.

I’m eager — and a bit apprehensive — to check in on friends I’d made here and find out whether Oaxaca still belongs on Mexico’s A-list. It didn’t take long to realize that the answer is more complicated than I’d thought. Oaxaca (wa-HA-ka) is no longer the filthy, smouldering wreck of 2006. Nor, however, is it the bustling cultural centre of years past. It appears safe and clean.

My friend Harry Smith, a Bostonian living in Oaxaca with his wife and three daughters, is keenly aware of the economic and political injustices in the city. But he also wants others to appreciate its warmth and beauty.

“I would advise people to come, as long as they come with their eyes open,” he says. “But this is not Disneyland.”

As in most of Oaxaca, things at El Catedral, where I’ve come for dinner, are “mas o menos,” explains my waiter, Alberto. Translated literally, the phrase means “more or less.” But Alberto’s diplomatic shorthand, which I will hear often during a three-day visit, hints at the conflicted, contradictory state of an emotionally scarred city.

For adventurous travellers, “mas o menos” can also translate to opportunity. The decline in foreign visitors — from 264,000 in 2005 to 190,000 this year through October — means there are bargains to be had and no hordes to fight. Smith, for instance, negotiated half-price rates at the nearby beaches of Puerto Escondido.

As I finish an affordable glass of Spanish tempranillo, two groups arrive at El Catedral, adding a bit of life to the courtyard. “It’s certainly not like it was three years ago,” declares Virginia O’Brien, a San Diegan who has returned to the city every year since her first Spanish language class in 1984. “This place would be packed; we’d be lucky to get a table.”

Now in her 70s, with cropped red hair and kitschy-cool Mexican-silver skeletons dangling from her ears, O’Brien loves Oaxaca so much she even came during the riots. She and a travel agent friend “were going to bring a tour last year, but we cancelled it, thank God,” she says. This year’s group backed out.

“People are taking their kids back to school; they’re walking in the Zocalo (town square) again,” says her dining companion, Javier Garcia Vigil, who is the director of the Symphony of Oaxaca.

O’Brien, who loves to scout for bargain-price handwoven rugs, remains bullish on Oaxaca. But she is sad: “It hasn’t staged a real comeback yet.”

Oaxaca — it’s the name of both the capital city and the state — is an hour’s flight south of Mexico City. The city (population before the riots: 258,000) was laid out by Spaniards in the mid-1500s, and its streets are lined by mossy relics of that era. The surrounding region boasts phenomenal ruins, such as the sprawling hilltop Zapotec village of Monte Alban, and what is believed to be one of the largest and best-preserved indigenous cultures in the Mesoamerican world.

Protest is as much a part of Oaxaca’s tradition as its black clay pottery and handwoven tapestries. So when the city’s teachers announced their perennial strike in May 2006, it barely caused a stir. But unlike in previous years, the dispute escalated into a broader conflict over social justice.

Anti-government demonstrators stormed local radio stations and occupied Oaxaca’s famed Zocalo. The city once known for picturesque cathedrals, graceful laurel trees and colourful marketplaces was coated in graffiti and strewn with the charred remains of vehicles.

Some 4,000 federal police descended, erecting barricades and military-style encampments. Masked protesters countered with guerrilla tactics, hurling burning tires and rocks collected from the cobblestone streets. Before order was restored in December, the riots claimed the lives of at least nine and as many as 20 people, including American activist/journalist Brad Will, who was shot dead.

Today, mariachi music fills the Zocalo and fresh whitewash covers the walls. But marches in opposition to state Governor Ulises Ruiz — who sent riot police to battle demonstrators — occur often, and residents say the underlying economic and political tensions remain.

Officially, Oaxaca is back to normal. And as if to prove it, the government has taken a more active role in some of the city’s most beloved festivals, which once had been ad hoc community affairs.

But a more nuanced truth comes out when you share a coffee or a shot of mezcal with Oaxacans or with those, like my friend John Rexer, who have adopted the city.

“It feels antiseptic,” he remarks as we walk through the Zocalo and the adjacent square known as the Alameda. Rexer, an American, runs the Café No Se bar in Antigua, Guatemala. But he spends much of his time in Oaxaca overseeing his latest business venture, a new brand of mezcal liquor named Illegal. “It feels as though it’s been prettied up and staged for the tourists.” Yes, it’s nice not to be dodging flying rocks, he acknowledges. But in its effort to remove the ugly barricades and trash, the government also swept away a bit of Oaxaca’s soul.

We walk the few blocks to El Naranjo restaurant, where a decade ago, Oaxaca native Iliana de la Vega won international acclaim — and sneers from local culinary purists — with her lard-free mole and organic ingredients. An English-speaking man in chef’s whites directs us to a table next to an ancient orange tree. He is friendly, helpful and definitely not de la Vega.

She fled Oaxaca last year, and after drifting from New Mexico to Austin, Texas, hopes to soon join the staff of the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio.

“We just couldn’t make it,” she tells me later in a telephone interview. “We had trouble getting downtown; we couldn’t get deliveries; we couldn’t pay the rent. We’d cook all that food and then no customers would come.”

Andrew Peterson, the new owner, proudly announces that he has changed every recipe on the menu save one: de la Vega’s gazpacho. In the interest of science, I order that and the mole, which had been El Naranjo’s specialty. Neither dish stands out, and Rexer grumbles that he has trouble detecting any chilies in his allegedly spicy shrimp.

Though pleasant, El Naranjo falls short: sadly gringoized, when what we crave is authenticity.

We amble out for a late-night stroll, pleasantly surprised to find others on the streets, a far cry from the days of curfews. As we turn the corner onto Macedonio Alcala, we can’t resist the lure of Caribbean music pulling us into Café del Borgo.

Behind the bar, owner Eduardo Evans looks relieved at the sight of a relatively packed house.

“The last four months were the worst,” says Evans, better known by his nickname, Lalo. With occupancy at many hotels below 10 percent, he considered leaving but couldn’t: “All my money is invested here.”

Evans predicts that the holiday season — with Oaxaca’s parades, religious ceremonies and famous radish carvings — will be better. There is one difference nowadays that is both attractive to those who complained Oaxaca had been inundated with gringos and unfortunate for the business owners who survived on U.S. dollars.

The majority of visitors — including the two men seated beside me — are Mexicans.

Before the riots, Oaxaca had a thriving art scene, from museums with artifacts of pre-Hispanic cultures to galleries with the colourful paintings of 20th-century native Rufino Tamayo. As its reputation grew, the area attracted not only painters but also sculptors, writers, musicians and filmmakers, says local artist Rowena Galavitz.

But last year, several galleries folded, and art students stopped coming to the city for lectures, which meant the artists, too, began abandoning Oaxaca. “Anybody who was able to get out, did,” she says. Others, including Galavitz, began exhibiting in other cities. Though she is aware that the political disputes could flare up again, Galavitz says the recent calm is helping to slowly revive the art world.

The Washington Post