Life is an Adventure Highway
Battling the crazy Oaxacan traffic, we managed to quickly find the arterial road out of town. Mile after mile of small Mezcal factories greeted our path through the long Oaxacan plain. Blue agave, the plant from which Mezcal and Tequila are made, made up nearly all of the cultivated land. People here weren’t worried about starving, why would they be? They could drink themselves stupid all the time!
As we reached the mountains that ring Oaxaca, the scenery changed to cactus forrests on rugged, rocky, dirty mountains. Green cyilnders of cactus shot stovepipe straight, often 16 or more feet into the air! Dotting the landscape in some sort of Christmas joke were strange trees with red, shiney bark, barren of leaves. Mineral-rich dirt flew by in copper-green and rich iron red. Over a set of mountains, the air suddenly changed, and became much colder. The cactus were instantly replaced with deciduous forrest covering similarly tightly packed mountains. Around a corner, the world opened into a vast, hazey volcanic plain. From our generous vantage, extremely lush vegetation, rugged volcanoes, rolling foot hills, and pointed mountain ridges played out in hazey glory. In awe, I stopped to take some photos, and a group of three Mexicans, two on BMWs with expensive metal side and top cases, and one on a Suzuki I’d never seen before, all with Mexico D.F. plates, went whizzing by honking and waving.
After the volcanic plain, more cactus, shiney red trees, and heat, and after that, more volcanic plane! In case we were starting to tire of that transition, next up was a mix of the two! We began to follow a river, though from at least 100 yards above. Finally, rivaling any scenery I’d seen in the four corners region, we began driving in a slot canyon, with sheer rock faces hundreds of yards above and below, with only our road carved impossibly in the middle. When we took our next break, I had to take a deep breath and validate with my dad that I hadn’t imagined that ride.
We passed another 2, germanic looking adventure riders on KTM bikes heading the opposite direction, and a wind farm with only a third of the wind farms turning, despite some of the strongest winds to date. We entered the mountainous state of Chiapas as the night started to rear its head. The sign above the roadway translated to “Chiapas – Land of Tradition and Beauty.” Envoloping the sign was a thick cloud of black smoke from one of Mexico’s many wildfires. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
We arrived in the sleepy town of Cintalapas with night dawning on us, and found an incredibly cheap hotel. The owner was incredibly friendly. He pointed us towards the nearest hotel and we walked there along the dangerous road. Next up, we were killed with kindness by the matron of the restaurant we first came to. They made their own cheese, and incredibly good food. When we devoured her salsa, she made up a batch of extra spicey stuff just for us, and brought us some of the house cheese, both with dinner, and another for dessert. I asked her where there was a store for me to buy beer, and she sold me a 6 pack, packed in ice, for $60 pesos (store price). We vowed to return in the morning, and there she was again smiling hugely to see us. For breakfast, she put on an even more impressive spread than the night before, and brough us what she called “queso de crema” – cream cheese – and while not what we think of as cream cheese, it was some of the finest cheese I’ve ever tasted, and I told her so. After our feast, she insisted on giving us what had to be a pound of the stuff, wrapped in tinfoil, and refused payment. Ahhh, how I love Mexico.