The city parks in Oaxaca de Juarez look green on the map. And they have trees. They definitely have trees. But they’re more paving-and-planter-beds than the expanses of green we expect of an urban American park.

Our visit to Panteón General, the local cemetery, was another attempt to spend some time in a green space, but that didn’t work out quite as planned. American cemeteries often feel like parks with some bonus dead people, but Panteón General was dead people with some bonus trees.

Our search for green continued, and led us to Parque Ciudad de las Canteras (Park of the City of Quarries), where we finally hit pay dirt. True to its name, it had been an abandoned quarry before being turned into a park. In Spanish times Oaxaca was known as Verde Antequera for the distinctive green stones that were used to build the colonial structures, which came from here. You can still see that green stone showing through the walls of the quarry.

In addition to the lakes that fill the quarry, there are picnic and exercise areas (the charmingly named Bosque del Deporte: The Forest of Sport), a merry-go-round, an open air library, and an amazing performance space, Muñoz Cota, carved out of the stone.

The park seems to be under constant development, so there were areas we couldn’t access on our visit, but what was available was beautiful and serene. We finally got the park experience we were craving, in a locale that wasn’t just lovely, but also represented a particular slice of Oaxacan history.