Meeting Montezuma’s Revenge in Oaxaca

After five carefree trips to Mexico, I thought my stomach was invincible.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

I had always considered myself lucky: five trips to Mexico, countless street food stops and late-night tacos, and not once had I experienced Montezuma’s Revenge. But on the sixth trip, my luck ran out. Not only did I finally meet Montezuma—I’m pretty sure I was being punished for dodging him all those times before.

If you’ve never heard of Montezuma’s Revenge, it’s the not-so-charming nickname for the stomach bug that humbles a lot of travelers visiting Mexico. It usually comes from food or water your body isn’t used to—nothing serious most of the time, just extremely unpleasant, involving a lot of quality time with the toilet.

The name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to Moctezuma, the last Aztec emperor, and the illness is joked to be his revenge for the conquest and colonization of his empire. And yes—the name is technically “Moctezuma,” but the Anglicized “Montezuma” stuck over time, especially in English-speaking circles. Maybe that’s why he’s still getting his revenge—we can’t even get his name right.

By my sixth trip to Oaxaca, I felt like I had a stomach of steel. I had tried all sorts of Mexican foods—chapulines, tacos de sesos, lengua—and had never come down with food poisoning. This trip was different, though: I’d be staying another entire month in Oaxaca, my second time doing so.

It was the first weekend after I arrived when my hermana told me, “Vamos a hacerte más mexicana, y esta vez, vas a probar tostadas de cabeza.”

Cabeza? Surely that’s just a nickname.
No way we’re actually eating the head of something.

She said we were going to the market in La Central—the same area I’d always been warned not to visit, and definitely not alone. She reassured me we’d be fine if we stuck together but suggested I take off my earrings and gold chain and keep my phone tucked into my waistband to avoid drawing negative attention or tempting a robbery.

 As a gringa, I’m no stranger to turning heads in the less touristy, more local parts of Oaxaca. I can feel the stares of locals, almost hear their unspoken question: ¿Qué carajo hace esa gringa acá? So of course, I followed her advice—I removed my jewelry, tucked my phone into my pants, and hopped in the car to see what this talk of tostadas de cabeza was all about.

When we arrived at La Central, I was surprised to find it much less intimidating than I expected. The semi-shaded interior was lined with winding corridors of puestos tucked under tarps and tents, each one selling something different. Huge jars of tequila and mezcal with scorpions and snakes at the bottom sat on tables throughout the market. Piles of clothes, shoes, and children’s toys stretched across the market. There were vendors cooking pozole, tacos, quesadillas, and tamales on small stoves. Smoke from the comales drifted through the aisles, wrapping everything in the smell of masa and meat.

I felt safe, though my decision to leave my jewelry and hide my phone still seemed like a smart one. We brushed shoulders with nearly everyone we passed, and a pickpocketing would’ve been easy to miss. The locals seemed genuinely shocked to see me there—wide-eyed looks following me as if silently asking what on earth a gringa was doing in their market.

I felt safe enough to take my phone out occasionally to snap a photo, always grasping it tightly, tucking it back into my waistband as quickly as possible. Still, with my hermana and her boyfriend as my guides, I knew I was in good hands. I trusted that we’d stay out of trouble—and that whatever they were taking me to eat would be interesting and delicious.

We finally reached our destination—a puesto in the middle of the market with a huge, hibachi-style cooktop surrounded by small wooden stools, some occupied by hungry locals ready for a good bite. Behind the cooktop stood a woman furiously chopping some kind of meat with a cleaver.

We sat down, and my hermana ordered one tostada de cabeza for me. “Empiezas con una y si te gusta, te pido otra,” she said. I nodded, watching as the woman began preparing our order.

When the tostada was placed in front of me, it didn’t look suspicious or daunting at all—it looked like a perfectly normal tostada. I took the first bite. It was definitely pork, topped with cilantro and onion on a crispy shell—and it tasted good. I made quick work of that tostada and decided to order another, which seemed to pleasantly surprise my hermana and her boyfriend.

About 3 or 4 bites into my second tostada, the woman behind the cooktop reached underneath the counter and struggled to lift a big, bulky item wrapped in plastic onto the surface in front of her. She slowly removed the plastic and that’s when I realized.

It was the head of a pig. 

Easily ten pounds, ears, eyes, and lips still intact, and staring at me as if he were judging me for eating his best friend.  

“Ah,” I said. “Ya entendí. Tostada de cabeza.”

If I’d seen that head before ordering, I would’ve been horrified. But the tostadas were so good, I honestly couldn’t be bothered by Porky’s cousin’s head staring back at me.

 We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the market, my hermana making stops here and there to shop and point out rarities I’d never seen before. Later, we headed back to the house to unwind—drinking beers, echando chisme, and eventually deciding to call it a night. 

It was around 2 a.m. when the gurgling, twisting pain in my stomach woke me up. I was sweating, disoriented, and immediately knew something was very wrong. I felt awful. And I wasn’t sure which end I was going to be sick from first. I crept to the bathroom as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t wake anyone—my hermana, her two daughters, and her boyfriend all peacefully asleep just down the hall.

 And that’s how I spent the next eight hours—horribly ill, drenched in sweat, stumbling back and forth between bed and bathroom until my hermana finally woke up around 10 a.m.

“¿Qué te pasa? ¿Qué tienes?” she asked, poking her head out of her room just as I stumbled out of the bathroom. Surely I’d woken her up.

“Estoy enferma,” was all I could mutter before shuffling back to my room and collapsing into bed.

She immediately knew what was wrong. Lucky for me, she and her boyfriend had just been sick from some bad street tacos two weeks earlier—which meant she already had medicine, tea, and all the comfort supplies I needed ready to go.

After a lot of medicine, a day and a half in bed without real food, and plenty of teasing from everyone in the house, I finally started to feel better again. It was a horrible experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone—but honestly, it was about time I had my share of la venganza de Moctezuma.

Cruel? Absolutely. Fair? Totally.

I’d earned my Mexico badge the hard way. And while it didn’t stop me from trying new foods (in fact, I even tried tacos de médula on my most recent trip to Mexico, and liked them), it did teach me to be a little more selective and cautious about where I eat.

Mexico: 1, Me: 0—but I’d still go back for seconds.