oaxaca to puebla

one of the problems in keeping a blog, we always suspected, would be playing catch up...trying to keep apace with mexico is nearly impossible (and of course there´s our own speedy wheels to contend with), so here in several large doses is our journey from oaxaca to zacatecas, where we are currently. enjoy the ride.

oaxaca to coixtlahuaca, 101km this ride could otherwise be skipped but for two exceptions which definitely merit it noteworthy; first is our need to brag that we can pronounce the village name coixtlahuaca, and second is the four friendly gentlemen we met along the toll road... after a tough climb and ride from oaxaca we neared the two villages of coixtlahuaca and san cristobal, each flanking either side of the highway and situated near a main tollbooth. after our three-day eating frenzy in oaxaca and with our little knowledge of the two villages, we decided to ask the tollroad service station to camp behind their secure facility. mexican toll roads (free for bikers) are incredibly maintained and regulated highways equipped with service stations where mechanics, EMTs and firemen are on call 24/7 should a driver in-need call them from an emergency telephone (located every 3km!), or perhaps two cheap chicas find themselves in need of a safe place to stay. thanks to tony, guerrmo (¨memo¨), rolando, and jose for one of our best nights in mexico, and a firsthand experience in mexican hospitality. and forget camping. inside the full-service tollroad station jose gave us a warm room and mattresses for the night; memo whipped up a fantastic feast (still our best dinner) of soup, steak, chicken, refried beans, cheese, well-peppered habañero, two varieties of tortillas, and for desert, cookies and mangoes; and after the meal memo and rolando took us for a tour of the surrounding villages, riding in the back of the ambulance, naturally.

getting a chance to see the pueblos was especially interesting because while on any given ride we pass by so many small villages, most of our major stops have been in towns or cities. from afar, coixtlahuaca and san cristobal were like the countless other pueblos we have passed in the last month, picturesque against a mountain backdrop and always with a towering and immaculate church, but otherwise nondescript and unassuming communities that rarely even make it onto our maps. rolando and memo were excellent tour guides of the area and brought us to see the huge dominican churches that dominate in both villages and date back to the 1550s and 1800s. they stopped to pick various wildflowers--splashes of color in an otherwise gray clay and white sand landscape--and explained the uses or meaning behind each flower. they explained the differences between the maguey plant for tequila and the maguey plant for mescal (an essential distinction in the state of oaxaca), and to top off the night they took us to an energetic and traditional mixteca dance competition, part of a 3-day fiesta going on in san cristobal. it was a type of swing-your-partner-round-and-round line dance, with women in bright, full skirts and their more comedic men (who would amuse the crowd with their missteps, as if silly on mescal). after each set the dancers would throw oranges and straw hats into the adoring crowd.

all in all it was really a typically mexican night for us, filled with friendly ¨strangers¨, excellent food, and colorful culture. but it also goes to show that in this world, in every scene that can be viewed from afar and passed by, so can it be entered and shared--even in the most unexpected places like the side of a tollbooth.

coixtlahuaca to tehuacan, 100km in the morning we left our friends of the toll road and continued to ride through the tehuacan-cuicatlan biosphere, where a dense early morning fog would occasionally open to reveal a beautiful but lonely landscape. as we climbed higher and neared the oaxacan/puebla state border, the land around us steepened into green canyon walls and hillsides which grew 8ft cactus that emerged from the ground like gigantic index fingers. we crossed several impressive bridges, perched on 600ft pedestals, which gave us passage over large chasms and allowed for magnificent views on either side. the last 20-30 to tehuacan tested us at the end of the day with long, steedy climbs and a slight headwind, and though we just beat the afternoon rain we arrived exhausted. we immediately found a cheap and secure place to stay and set up to camp in the carpark of a friendly family-run hotel, just on the outskirts of town. taking cue from our second-wind, which always kicks in about 30 minutes after the day´s ride, we rode the short distance into town to resupply on groceries and see the place where most of mexico´s bottled water comes from. in tehuacan`s central park we had an impulse snack at the first taco and panades streetstand we passed. late into our second tacos, we were horrified to realize, after much debate ("i don´t know, maybe it´s calamari"), we were inhaling not only grilled pork, but also coursely chopped, incredibly rubbery (hence calamari), and inexplicably hairy pig ears, snout, and hooves. we left tehuacan, bellies full of pig parts, on a dark rainy morning and within our first hour found ourselves crawling 30km up a steep, mountain pass. a chilly drizzle kept us from overheating on the ascent but became more persistent and frigid on the long straightaway into the junction for puebla. after a warm lunch and slow dethaw, we interrogated an official looking man with puebla license plates about the remaining 70km of road to puebla. he assured us our passage would be flat and indeed it was our first length of level road since the yucatan crossing. after a rough morning we were greatly rewarded with not only flat road but also a hearty tailwind that kept us cruising at 17-19mph and timed our arrival into puebla, mexico´s fourth largest city, for friday evening rush hour, when traffic seeps into the city limits from literally all directions. cycling into and out of mexico´s large cities, which we always do during rush hour traffic, is no small matter and we have learned to take the "TRANSITO INTENSO" road signs very seriously. after merging in and out of traffic 4-5 times, we finally found ourselves on a main artery heading for puebla´s centro, where at our first red light abby stated her bottom line: "we are NOT riding into mexico city." in swift confirmation, bridget´s back tire went flat, a victim of the highway schrapnal that always litters the shoulder near big cities, and we limped our way through the cobblestone streets of puebla´s downtown historical district.

puebla we spent a relaxing day in puebla doing nothing more than our laundry and walking the streets. puebla is unusual in that the city was never a site in pre-hispanic times but was established during the cortes conquest as a retreat and a major trading center near mexico city. por eso, puebla boasts some of mexico´s most impressive and beautiful colonial architecture. cobblestone streets, with colorful tiled buildings and terraces adorning all windows, stretch in every direction from a wide and shady zocalo. the zocalo and central park are flanked by mexico´s second largest cathedral, which stands like a massive fortress, gated all around, and incidentally the only main cathedral we have encountered that was closed to the public. all in all, we found puebla a very friendly and relaxing city--where locals shared their sweets and bread with us in the street while slowly delivering information and directions around the city center. for us it was a perfect day-retreat after the long ride from oaxaca and before we moved our adventure to the largest city in the world.