Across to the Gulf of Mexico via Toytown, the Garden of Eden and a big lake

We said goodbye to El Tule and our friends at Overlander Oasis on Thursday 16th June and started heading north east. We had just over 200 km to drive to our next stop at Tuxtepec but 160 km of it was across yet more mountains, at least as high as when we were in the cabana in the clouds, with yet more steep and windy roads. The terrain was dramatic with stunning views at almost every turn.

The view wasn't all that we had to entertain us, however. After about 4 hours of these mountains and coming down very steep sections with tight hairpin bends our brand new brakes started to get spongy and there was a great deal of hydraulic huffing and puffing going on. Over the next half hour they got steadily worse and then ceased to work completely! Alan put the vehicle into 1st gear and, mercifully, coasted to a halt near a small cafe where a group of men were eating lunch. We asked if there was a mechanic around, one of them laconically gave a loud whistle, then like a genie out of a bottle, a mechanic appeared from the next door compound.

After getting underneath the vehicle and checking everything the mechanic concluded that the brakes had become seriously overheated whilst coming down the mountain which had caused them to fail. Alan felt this  was a reasonable explanation as he had kept his foot on the brake rather more than usual once it started to feel spongy. Once the brakes had time to cool, all was well again and we continued on our way.

Our next bit of excitement was a road block, some 15 km from Tuxtepec. This had been created by some people who had come out in sympathy with the teachers who have been protesting in Oaxaca and other parts of Mexico. They'd been burning some tyres, put some logs across the road and they had placards up and had strategically placed the road block on a major junction. It was all fairly friendly, however, and after about an hour they let us through.

Although the brakes were working fine, we were still concerned so the next morning we found a garage down a back street at Tuxtepec and asked if they would check them over. A mechanic was assigned to our job and he duly lay in a puddle and got underneath the vehicle and then jacked up each wheel individually. As it was so hot, he got an extremely tatty beach umbrella which he moved around from wheel to wheel whilst he was working. The brakes were pronounced to be in perfectly good working order which was a considerable relief and the consequence of overheating brakes has been added to the memory bank.

Mechanic checking brakes at back street garage, Tuxtepec

We set off again and this time our journey was uneventful and we reached the delightful town of Tlacotalpan on Friday afternoon. Tlacotalpan is a world heritage site and is located next to a very wide river. It has two squares with two churches, both of which could come out of fairy tales. One is blue and white, the other one is a shade of pink. All the houses and shops are painted in bright colours and we decided that it was like nothing so much as Toytown. You almost expected to see Noddy coming down the road in his little red and yellow car going 'beep, beep!'

Sugar plum church in Toytown (Tlacotalpan)

Brightly painted shops in Toytown

Street view, Toytown

We spent an entirely enjoyable couple of days at Toytown, strolling around the town, eating delicious fish lunches at the riverside restaurants and taking boat trips on the river in order for Alan photograph yet more birds. In the evenings the plaza came to life as families came out to stroll in the cool of the day. We were also treated to some traditional Mexican music and dancing which was taking place in one of the side streets on Saturday evening.

Toytown from the river

Fishermen on the river

We're your friends.................

Universal gesture from young boy in the river

Cormorants in conversation

On Monday 20th June we moved eastwards, just 50 km or so, to an area known as the Reserva de la Biosfera los Tuxtlas, a volcanic region with nature reserves, rainforest and a very large lake, all just a few kilometres from the Gulf of Mexico. We camped at a place owned by a biologist called Felix and we called it the Garden of Eden because of the profusion of flowering trees and plants that were in full bloom. Unfortunately, we then had two days of almost continuous tropical storms which, whilst very dramatic, limited our appreciation of the Garden of Eden. Our little tent was put to the test as it trembled from the massive claps of thunder and the rain hammering down. We are pleased to report that it stayed perfectly dry, as did we. In the brief lull between storms, Felix took us out on an 'ecotour' a short way into the rainforest, enthusiastically pointing out all the birds and telling us their Latin names, none of which we could remember.

Camping in the Garden of Eden

Hummingbird on Crabclaw flower

Our last night there was also the night of the termites. With the rains under way the termites took wing and went on their various nuptial flights, many of them around Sue's head, in our food and just about every orifice in the vehicle. There were thousands of these things and we were still finding the discarded wings all over the place the next morning.

On Thursday 23rd June we moved on, not very far, to Catemaco which is on the shore of Lago Catemaco and we have just spent a wonderful couple of days exploring the area. We hired a boatman who took us out to some islands in the lake which are home to some monkeys, we visited some very impressive waterfalls which were easy to find and a wonderful swimming hole which was almost impossible to find, being several kilometres down a dirt track and then accessed through an unmarked barbed wire gate. It was down in the middle of some deep rainforest area, there was a little wonky track that led to it and, when you got there, there was a narrow gorge with intermediary pools, cascades and then it dropped down into a glorious deep green pool, lovely and cool, to swim in. A memorable occasion.

Sunset over Lake Catemaco

Supper by the lakeside

Monkey on island in Lake Catemaco

Waterfall at Salto de Eyipantla

View of waterfall from above

Breakfast stop on the lakeshore

Fellow travellers on the road

Alan taking a dip in swimming hole at Poza Reina

Yesterday, Friday, we woke to the news of the EU referendum results and the only comment we will make is that we were totally shocked. We didn't let it spoil the day so we headed up to La Barra, a little fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a delightful place, almost deserted, and we enjoyed a swim in the beautifully warm, clear water followed by fresh prawns at a beachside restaurant. After that we found our way to a hidden beach which involved going down a very steep set of steps and path through some jungly bits that didn't look as though they are very often trodden. Very hot and sweaty!

We made it! The Gulf of Mexico

To hidden beach from a very long and sweaty footpath

So, we have now made our way across from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and tomorrow we will continue our journey eastwards into the Chiapas region.
 

Cabana in the Clouds

We left Footloose Lucy safely parked at Overlander Oasis and, armed with fleeces and cags, we set off in a taxi on Saturday morning 11th June to the village of Cuajimoloyas 10,600 ft up in the mountains. How to describe it? We went up through the mist and the cloud and sometimes we came out and looked down on the clouds swirling around the mountains. Really a pretty inspiring sight.

Once we arrived in Cuajimoloyas we were then taken to our cabana which was about 3 km further into the forest. We got ourselves snuck down in our cabana which was made of adobe with a sort of tiled roof and lit a log fire which smoked like blazes to begin with but when we got the smoking sorted out we had a really nice fire. We had a stroll around and were amazed at the quantity and variety of wild flowers - red hot pokers at least 8 ft tall, great fields of wild blue lupins, wild strawberries, purple vetch and orchids.

Our cabana in the forest

Alan in front of large aloe

Wild lupins in the forest

In the afternoon we went back to the village of Cuajimoloyas where there was a bit  of a fiesta going on with a brass band marching around accompanied by a couple of more than life size puppets dancing and flailing their arms. Many of the gardens were adorned with massive marigolds, dahlias, fuschias as big as your fist and lots of other flowers we couldn't name.

Euphonium player (we think) at Cuajimolyas

Village house and garden

There was a tiny kitchen/restaurant next to the cabanas, run by a delightful lady who must have been all of 4 ft 6ins. She also turned out to be the cleaning maid and Alan nicknamed her Senora Mighty Atom because she was always cheery and never stopped being on the go.

Breakfast was hunks of sweet bread dunked in steaming mugs of the local hot chocolate which is nothing like Cadbury's drinking chocolate because it is also has crushed almonds and cinnamon added and is quite delicious.

None of the footpaths in the mountain forests are waymarked and the cloud can fall very quickly so we took local advice and hired a guide who turned out to be a diminutive Zapotec woman who spoke reasonably good English.

On Sunday we walked from Cuajimoloyas to Benito Juarez which is the next village. The walk there was supposed to take about an hour and a half but, in fact, in our case it took over two and a half hours, the reason being that we had not properly acclimatised to the reduced oxygen at ten and a half thousand feet. However, we learned a lot from our guide about the herbs and flowers that grow in the forest. There are herbs for all or many ailments, herbs for repelling mosquitoes, herbs which they put on the altar on the Day of the Dead which is the same as our halloween, and a great profusion of flowers which seem to grow well in this mountain environment.

With guide en route to Benito Juarez

Local resident

View from the forest

Butterfly on red hot poker

On Monday we walked to the Canyon of the Coyotes. The canyon itself is a narrow rock passage that is quite steep but then after that we walked up to a lookout which was very, very steep, in fact, it was a bit of a climb. The lookout itself is really quite hard to describe without getting a bit poetic. It was like being in the clouds, like coming down in an aeroplane, like hanging on a parachute, looking down on the clouds in places where they were swirling around the trees, looking down a mile or more to little homesteads and farms and patches of cleared ground where people were growing corn and potatoes and other stuff and the loudest noise that we could hear was the buzzing of a beetle coming past.

Sue coming up through Coyote Canyon

Coming up through the cave at Coyote Canyon

From there we went to our guide's family homestead and on the edge of the farm there was a wooden platform which looked out on a view at least as good as the one from the lookout that we had just left. Sue made sandwiches and we drank water and sat and gazed at the shifting panorama that was the product of the movement of the clouds and the coming and going of the sunlight. We can't recall ever having a nicer picnic spot, it was wonderful!

Picnic above the clouds

Once we got back from our walk we went back into Cuajimoloyas in the pouring rain to enjoy a little more of the continuing fiesta. The celebrations were part of a religious festival to do with San Antonio who is the patron saint of the village. We went down to where the band and a lot of people were gathered together under a series of leaky tarpaulins. The band was basically a collection of young men and not such young men who were gathered round standing in puddles with their instruments: big bass drums, snare drums, cymbals, the usual euphonium, silver trumpets, trombones and clarinets. It was very loud, but a lot of fun and really quite moving.

Cuajimolyas village

The forest around Cuajimoloyas is quite famous for the wide variety of wild mushrooms which grow once the rains start and, with the help of our guide, we collected a nice bundle whilst on our walk. We took them back to Senora Mighty Atom who then kindly cooked them for our supper. We were thankfully still alive next morning!

Guide holding wild mushrooms in front of very large aloe

We came down the mountain and returned to El Tule on Tuesday after a remarkable experience for us. The way of life in the mountains is so close to the natural world, they know things that we in the West forgot a hundred years ago.

On our return to Overlander Oasis we were informed that the brake pads had arrived and these were duly fitted on Wednesday 15th June. Time to get on the road again!

The Bears went over the Mountain ............

..... and down into the valleys of the Zapotecs

After spending a couple more days moving along the very hot and humid Pacific Coast, on Thursday 2nd June we started making our way inland again via highway 175 which goes over the Sierra Niahuatlan. These mountains are very high and the road was very long and windy.

Lunch stop on Sierra Niahuatlan

We estimated that we went through at least 5 climatic zones between the Pacific Coast and Oaxaca. Firstly we had arid semi desert of the Pacific Coast, then we moved up into semi tropical country in the lower slopes of the mountains where they were growing coconut and bananas, higher up the mountain we went into more temperate climates and here there were profusions of flowers, including a magnificent moonflower. Nearing the top of the mountain we were in what looked like primary rainforest, thick jungly stuff, profusions of ferns and mighty big trees. As we crossed the top of the mountain we came out of the rain shadow and the fairly heavy rain we'd been experiencing stopped. Coming back down from the mountain top we were very soon back into semi arid country with giant aloes and cactus.

Would you believe so many different colours of banana!

Moonflowers on the mountainside

After 7 hours of driving we arrived at a place called 'Overlander Oasis' in the little town of El Tule, just outside the city of Oaxaca. Overlander Oasis is run by a Canadian couple, Calvin and Leanne, who understand overlanders and were very welcoming, friendly and helpful.

Footloose Lucy parked at Overlander Oasis, El Tule

There is so much to see and do in and around Oaxaca that we decided to base ourselves at the 'oasis' for the next few days.

Friday was a 'make and mend' day, topping up on provisions and getting laundry done. Sue also threw herself on the mercy of a Mexican hairdresser and had the quickest and cheapest haircut (£3.00 including tip) she has ever had in her life. The result wasn't too bad but Alan discovered a new vocation when he was required to make the finishing touches back at base.

Sue being sheared by local hairdresser

El Tule's main claim to fame is that it is supposedly home to the largest tree in the world. It is 11 metres wide and is in the churchyard of a 17th century church which it dwarfs. The Lonely Planet claims that it's not the world's biggest, being beaten by America's General Sherman, a giant Redwood tree which is somewhere in California. It is, however, undoubtedly the widest and it's certainly a great deal bigger than anything we've ever seen.

Sue in front of the biggest tree in the world (possibly)

Impossible sign!!

Oaxaca city is surrounded by many archeological sites and villages which are home to a number of indigenous groups, of whom the Zapotecs are the largest. They have their own language and customs, wear colourful clothing and make all kinds of handicrafts including rugs, textiles and pottery.

On Saturday we went along to the village of Teotitlan where they make handmade wool rugs using traditional natural dyes. Just about every other house appeared to have it's own workshop with looms and weaving on show.

Rug weaver at Teotitlan

On Sunday we visited a huge street market in a village called Tlacolula. One of the most interesting things was to see the Zapotec people who come in from the mountain villages with fruit, vegetables, their carvings, pottery and textiles. Alan was busy with his camera, as usual, but most of the Zapotec women did not want to be photographed. Every woman has her price and ten pesos was obviously not enough!

Zapotec lady

Stallholder shaving pineapples

Zapotec stallholder with chicken for sale

Pork scratchings Zapotec style

Zapotec lady chef

Onion sellers

The rainy season started here at the beginning of June, as predicted. So far, we have mostly had a violent thunderstorm for 2 or 3 hours in the late afternoon/early evening but on Monday it rained constantly all day making our trip to Oaxaca city a bit of a washout. We sloshed our way through the streets to various churches and museums, most of which were closed due to it being a Monday. The plaza was covered in tents and tarpaulins so the stall holders could keep themselves and their goods dry and there were demonstrations and marches going on (apparently common in Oaxaca), but we weren't quite sure what they were about. However, it was a lively place and we enjoyed the buzz.

Oaxaca in the rain

Church of Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

On Tuesday morning we set off to see Mitla, a Zapotec archeological site. From there we went on to Hierve el Agua which translates as the 'water boils' although it's actually cold. This is an area where a spring full of calcium comes out of the hill and dribbles over the side of the rocks producing the effect of something akin to bottles with candlewax dribbling down the sides that used to be popular in the sixties and seventies. It was undoubtedly spectacular and the drive there and back up a rough dirt road with lots of hairpins was fascinating. We also managed to see a man with a pair of oxen ploughing his land which happened to be at about 45 degrees to the vertical.

Iglesia de San Pablo, Mitla

Zapotec ruins, Mitla, with church behind

Zapotec ruins showing carvings

Cactus flower with insect

Ox ploughing on 45 degree field near Hierve el Agua

Hierve el Agua

On Wednesday we had another great day when we went to have a look at Monte Alban which is the biggest and most impressive of the pre-hispanic sites around here. We certainly found it to be so, it's situated on a flat hilltop about 4 or 5 kms to the west of Oaxaca and it is a world heritage site which has been very well preserved/restored. We reminded ourselves that the cute little Zapotec natives that one sees around the place in ethnic traditional dress were working out astronomical data and had advanced building techniques and a system of state government several hundred years BC at a time when the best that we could manage was Stonehenge.

Sue on Monte Alban

The Great Plaza, Monte Alban

Wall carving, Monte Alban

Temple Mound, Monte Alban

Carving of Defeated Enemy, Monte Alban

Ball Court, Monte Alban

Yesterday we took Footloose Lucy to have a full service at a garage in Oaxaca, at least that's what we hoped she would get, our Spanish being very limited and the mechanics speaking no English at all. When we returned to collect her in the evening we were informed that she needs a new set of brake pads which will have to be ordered and won't arrive until next week. On checking our selection of spares, brake pads are the only items we have failed to bring, once again proving Murphy's law.

Today is Friday 10th June and we had planned to leave today to head up into the forested mountains of the Sierra Norte, not far from here, where we intend to do lots of walking. We are told it will be cold and wet but that the landscapes are spectacular. As Lucy is going nowhere at the moment we will leave her at Overlander Oasis and go tomorrow by taxi up into the mountains and stay in a Cabana for the next few days until the new brake pads arrive.

We have had a fantastic week here in El Tule and enjoyed the company of our fellow travellers at Overlander Oasis which have included Americans, Germans, Dutch, Greeks, Aussie/Kiwi couple and Brazilians. Among the overland vehicles have been a 1958 Mercedes, which is towing a trailer, and a heavily modified Landrover.

Bird of Paradise flower, El Tule

Gentlemen in the park, El Tule

Butterflies mating in El Tule