When headed to the city of Oaxaca from the southern coast of of Mexico, you have two options: The first, and the one more frequently taken by travelers, takes you a couple hours east along the coast before heading north on a relatively modern highway. The second, takes you directly inland along a windy mountain road. The coast option takes an extra two hours on a luxury bus and costs twice the price of the direct route. The direct route, well, the price you pay for that is a never ending series of turns as you climb your way up and down the coastal range of Sierra Sur. The guidebook assures you that the driver will make several stops to allow for picture taking, food breaks and vomiting.
Because the direct bus also left an hour and a half before the coast bus, I would get to Oaxaca three hours earlier, which seemed more appealing than sitting around the mediocre town in which I’d already spent one day too many. Having had a history with nausea, I stuffed three plastic bags into the top pocket of my pack to keep them within easy reach. I also added some toilet tissue, since I’d now learned to carry that at all times in Mexico.
The first part of the ride was easy going down several stretches of straight road. I’d even managed to do some reading while we passed through a couple towns I had already seen. Then we began to climb the coastal range. Oaxaca is also the name of the state in which I was traveling, and I found it to have the most diverse landscape of al the Mexican states. We left the sandy beaches punctuated by rocky cliffs and began to pass farms over rolling hills dotted with giant oak trees with huge canopies providing shade for the livestock that grazed beneath them. We gained elevation rapidly, and it wasn’t long before I saw something I hadn’t expected to see in this desert region of Mexico: pine trees.
The curves began as we followed endless switchbacks along the contours of the mountain. I found that keeping my eyes closed and listening to my music helped to make me less aware of the journey we were on, something that in this case was my intention. Occasionally, I would look out to see a remote mountain village perched on a ridge of one of the mountains.
Our first stop was at a junction where a dirt road left the main highway. A pick up truck was waiting there for us ready to make an exchange of passengers, some of theirs getting on our microbus and some of ours headed off to places further down that dirt road.
We stopped the next time for lunch. I checked the time to find it was about half way through the trip, and the driver announced we’d have about 20 minutes there. I wasn’t hungry yet, but I got out to take in the scenery. The first thing I noticed was that the air was cool and crisp. I enjoyed the smell of burning wood and was reminded of nights back home, when I’d stayed in a mountain cabin of this mountain range’s far northern cousin, the Cascades.
The smoke was emanating from an open air shack with a wood stove at its center and a long communal bench to one side. To the other side were racks filled with snack food, and overhead was a corrugated roof collecting smoke from the stove. The stove was long with several large pots filled with boiling liquids. Two were soups and one was coffee. Most of my fellow passengers were already sitting at the table with bowls in front of them.
I headed over to use the bathroom which was an outhouse a few yards away. Not entirely primitive, it was equipped with a porcelain toilet but no seat. It was also missing the water tank above it, and I learned that in order to flush it, you had to go back outside, fill a small pail with water from a larger barrel, and pour the water into the toilet bowl causing it to flush in the same way it would have had it had a reservoir atop it.
As I made my way back to the restaurant, I noticed a wash basin for laundry. I stood transfixed as I watched a small bowl lazily making circles around the inside of the basin as a hose hose dribbled a small stream of water from the edge. Life was enchantingly simple here. One of the people from our van motioned me over to the table to sit down and have something to eat. He was an older man in a cowboy hat, missing half his teeth, but his smile was friendly, and seeing that the rest of group was going to be awhile, I sat down and ordered some food.
When our driver signaled it was time to leave, everyone paid their bill, and I was surprised to learn that the older man had paid for my meal as well. Again a case of someone, who looked like he had very little, generously contributing to my wonderful Mexican experience.
The ride was uneventful after lunch, more twists and turns as we finally began our descent into the desert valley below. I was pleased to have made it without needing to extract any of my plastic bags and pleased that I would have an extra three hours to explore Oaxaca.