On the travel forums there was a discussion one day that interested me slightly as one intrepid traveler planned a journey from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido. There were several choices and the poor lost soul was asking public opinion to help him decide, a concept that I, a pre-Internet traveler, still find bizarre. I am traveling in retirement to make my own choices, but I found the discussion interesting.
From the coast the long easy route on straight roads is to drive back to Salina Cruz and turn inland. The gray line looks longer but you have a chance of driving fast enough to be close to Google's estimated time for the journey. The blue line is the direct route Highway 131 and if you pull it up and look at it you'll see a squiggle reminiscent of a medical textbook's illustration of an intestine traveling through an abdomen. This is The Road Of Death, and is not advised. So naturally that was how I wanted to get to the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the rather impoverished state of the same name.
However...when you remember I am married and intend to stay that way, when there is a third alternative that is NOT labeled The Highway of Death, it will become immediately apparent that we took the middle road. Highway 175 which on the map above is a simple yellow Google highway between the blue and the gray lines and is a mixture of splendid views and easier driving, supposedly. It did have its challenges, though not exactly death defying.
I enjoyed the drive and we took all afternoon to get to the top of the mountains. The road surface was not always brilliant though sometimes it was.
Traffic was light, mostly though sometimes we got jammed up with a bunch of cabs and collectivos who were in a desperate hurry. As you might imagine I had few choices to pull over and it's quite tricky deciding on the spur of the second that the open space is wide enough, smooth enough and level with the highway enough to pull off, a surprise maneuver that might cause confusion in the collectivo van snug on your tail and filling your mirrors. Often it is better to press on and hope for the best.
I love the derrumbe warnings, and looking it up in Google the word means "collapse." Watch out for the road collapsing! say the warning signs. This derrumbe is getting some work:
And for Layne who does not enjoy riding in the passenger seat overlooking a vast canyon of emptiness the frequent lack of guardrails or shoulders meant the equally frequent voids on her side of the van made the journey something of a trial. Especially as I was enjoying the few, well marked topes, no sudden braking for invisible speed bumps, and the views, and the relatively light traffic.
We went up hill at 20 to 30 miles an hour, stopping when we met dogs wandering along the road. Three times we stopped for them and put food and water out for them. They were skittish and none of them looked abandoned (those are the skeletal mangy dogs) but they seemed to be on a long run home to the villages from fields where their owners had probably been working during the day. None would approach us of course and if they had we would have picked up a headache. Rusty is a one dog van kind of dog and I respect that no matter how much my heart hurts. Food and water seemed the only compromise and I tried not to think too hard about dogs in Mexico, the worst part of traveling for me.
We had our crisis moment of course. It was on a winding shaded section of highway through pine forests at high altitude and we were leading a line of cars, a full sized Sprinter collectivo van followed by a Nissan collectivo followed by a taxi and some trucks. I was in no position to pull over as the curves were tight and frequent but I was looking. Suddenly a huge white Sprinter filled my window as the maniac lunged into a pass. Happily I braked, hard because I had no idea what was around the corner the Sprinter was plunging into. Naturally at that moment another Nissan collectivo came around the corner and as the Sprinter struggled to cross back into our lane the Nissan nose dived as it tried to stop from t-boning the Sprinter. We were stopped and I sat and watched the drama which seemed to take forever. Even the Nissan behind us was stopped and tucked in behind me, all aggression lost in the drama of the moment.
The Sprinter made it by inches, how I don't know, and just like that the drama dissipated. The Sprinter hauled ass up the curves, oncoming traffic drifted by and I found a turnout ironically on the next short stretch of straightaway. I pulled over and we panted back to a normal heartbeat. I think we were far enough back by the time the two vans might have collided to have avoided any impact but the drama of the moment had our adrenaline coursing.
As we got closer to the top we started to see small restaurants with parking areas and offers of WiFi as phone service was sketchy, I mean non existent for us, in these mountains. I was of a mind to pull over and have an early dinner and spend the night but Layne had set her heart on a hotel recommended by a traveler who said the Sunset Hotel (La Puesta del Sol) in San Jose del Pacifico at the top of the mountain was worth a stay.
It is an unprepossessing village clinging literally to the hillsides with houses sticking out on stilts, one wrong step and a homeowner plunges to their death in the valley out of sight below. Every scrap of horizontal land is used and there is even the classic covered basketball court alongside the road through the village. San Jose is called "del Pacifico" because supposedly you can sometimes see glimpses of the Pacific Ocean many miles away and 8300 feet below, though this is something of a tourist village, defunded as always by our Covid friend that killed off tourism for these past years.
San Jose sells itself as Mexico's mushroom capital and offers roadside sculptures of wooden mushrooms and rumors of magic mushrooms to eat. There is also a Meso-American cleansing ritual on offer to improve health and vitality and so forth in some sort of ceremony that I in my clunky Western way have no interest in. I am a Moderna man and looking forward to my second booster. Of more interest to me was talk I read about in the guidebook of trails through the hills though at 8300 feet my breath felt completely cut short. It is quite surprising and rather shocking to find oneself panting hopelessly after a mere fifty foot climb up a hotel pathway from our room. If that's what emphysema feels like I want no part of it. It is horrid being short of breath.
The views were cut off largely by trees but it was. a lovely alpine spot, warm in the sun and cool after dark. We could have spent the night in the restaurant parking lot next door but we took the room for the hot shower and the WiFi which exacted a special toll of staying outdoors or with the door open to work, and we ate dinner at the restaurant next door.
We ordered a mixed grill to share, sausage, grilled jerky and flank steak and potatoes and zucchini, quesadillas and cactus all kept warm above the hot coals. It has been the best meal we've had in Oaxaca so far, a land of bland foods I find, and it cost us as much as the room ($40) with flowing margaritas and craft beer. It was a night to celebrate being alive!
Of course there was music into the night from some other cabin (Layne couldn't hear it so perhaps I am overly sensitive) and our Mexican neighbors had a dog they left out all night to roam the hotel grounds which I thought was weird. It sat on the deck and I offered it water Rusty didn't want as we packed to leave and after it drank the whole bowl one of the Mexicans took him onto their room and glared at us when they left ahead of our slow departure. I, who hauled Rusty's vast bed through the oxygen-free atmosphere did indeed think poorly of their treatment of their dog, but I was polite and cheerful nonetheless in the face of their darkened brows. One offends so easily where pet husbandry is concerned. I remained glad the sad creature got some water when it needed it.
The road down was more of the same and we stopped to buy fruit and some lethal coffee/mescal mixture in a bottle. The lady gave us a taste and it barely touched my lips thank God, because it was actual firewater and I was driving. These roads require full attention. Layne lapped the stuff up as though born to sup mezcal.
Buying stuff by the side of the road is great fun, ridiculously inexpensive when translated to a dollar economy, and it helps out the people working for a living. Plus you learn stuff, and taste new stuff and if you mumble any Spanish at all you can learn a little about what goes on. I startled one roadside seller when I discussed with him the annoyances of living in one state and earning a living in the state next door. He looked at me and appraised me a while and said he'd never met a gringo who thought like that. Frankly I was surprised. There's a presidential vote coming up in three days. I shall watch the results with interest. Probably while scooping one of these delicious guanabanas with a spoon:
It turned out that by the time we were down to Oaxaca's level of around 5,000 feet we decided we had taken the road in the best direction, making the hard climb first..
...and spitting ourselves out into a dry desert of heat, smog and easy driving at the end.
We stopped for sandwiches and cappuccinos in 96 degree desert heat. We sat under the awning in front of the coffee shop at the gas station and Rusty laid down in the shade behind us. I am going to miss the easy living in Mexico, outdoor eating, dogs that don't matter (in a country that doesn't treat them well) such that Rusty can follow us almost everywhere, and parking as you can because traffic flows without getting mad. I am looking forward to being back in the States and seeing how I react to the life that used to be the benchmark before this extraordinary driving experience!
The night before, while we were having our splendid dinner at the the hotel I overheard the only other two people on the terrace speaking English. There is a fashion among Americans in Mexico to ignore other gringos so I turned around and said "English speakers! Are we ignoring each other?" They smiled back and I was ready to let it go there, acknowledgement is enough, but they engaged with us and we heard what is undoubtedly a common life story of work and travel but was new to us and fascinating. It turns out he was a California native and she was Mexican and they met while teaching overseas, fell in love and got married and continued to work overseas on two year assignments. Now retired he is enjoying Mexico with his wife who works as a librarian at the British school in Mexico City. It was a wide ranging conversation discussing education, different countries and the pleasures and vicissitudes of life in Mexico. Layne has always wanted to live overseas and yet she never did try that life. She applied at my insistence to work as a Public Defender in American Samoa, but luckily for us dogs need to be quarantined, Samoans care less than Mexicans for dogs apparently, and the idea of living on a remote small island with Emma and no vet was not on, especially as she had to be caged for four months to gain entry. To live surrounded by stray, ignored dogs was not on for us and is tough as a mere traveler. We stayed in California until we went sailing.
The campground outside Oaxaca used by Overlanders (we are mere travelers in our own minds) is outside a small village called El Tule. Packs of dogs roam during the day and are locked away at night because they aren't strays they just live on the streets in juvenile gangs which intimidate Rusty. It's actually not a bad life when you consider how many dogs in the States live locked away in apartments by themselves and rarely get to run and enjoy the open air. Rusty enjoys the open air in safety behind the massive walls of our First World compound.
There are some Germans here on the road for eleven years who were adopted by a street dog in Nepal. That he looks just like Rusty doesn't mean they hang out together. Dogs are so weird.
Yes, eleven years on the road and not attacked, killed, robbed or living in fear. When we talk to our well traveled European neighbors fear is the last subject on the agenda. I wish more people back home could hear them dismiss American fear with a shrug of indifference. Mexico has its problems but we see a country filled with color and life and I feel so happy to be here. I'm glad I'm not alone in that. Layne is off taking an all day shopping and cooking course in the city. She took a cab by herself, arrived safely of course and sends me a text from her class: "Everyone is lovely. I'm learning about mangoes." and sent me this picture:
I'm in the campground with Rusty, the English couple left their massive truck and took off into town on their Honda 300 scooter. I wish them well in the traffic but I don't need to break my pelvis again here, thanks. This is how you blog in El Rancho RV park:
Rusty keeps an eye out for potential intruders, sort of:
We avoided death on the road and life continues.
