Petrified Waterfalls and the World's Widest Tree

Located just outside of Oaxaca City, are a number of pueblos and points of interests for which everyone and their brother offers a tour.  Our hostel advertised an inexpensive tour to see the sights in the surrounding countryside so we geared up to travel in a small van with 7 fellow hostel guests.  At least that’s what we thought was going to happen as we'd seen a small van taking people away the previous morning. 

What we actually did was spend 10 hours on a huge, air-conditioned tour bus with roughly 40 strangers that we kept picking up at different hotels.  The places we visited were beautiful, but the process of being herded like sheep in 15-60 minute intervals was kind of awful.  Here’s a quick summary of our adventures for your reading pleasure, and future planning purposes should you desire to visit Oaxaca (which you totally should!).  

Landscape at the ruins in Mitla.

Hiking with views at the end of the day.

One of the many beautiful sights along our tour.  

View from the tour bus. 

Here she is - our beast of a tour bus. 

Stop 1: El Arbol del Tule.  The widest tree in the world asked for a 10-peso entry price, which I deemed too steep because a) I'm cheap and b) I had a limited amount of change for public restrooms.  Fear not, I was able to view the tree and take pictures through the iron fence so I didn't miss out.  This Montezuma Cyprus has a trunk circumference of over 130 feet and an estimated age of more than 1,200 years.  We realized what we were in for when we arrived here and saw the throngs of tour buses and tourists with color-coordinated dots on their shirts.  Our guide did not give us any colorful dots or other manner in which to distinguish who was part of our group so our 15-minute stop turned into a 30-minute stop as he tried to round everyone up. 

It's hard to fit the full width of the world's widest tree into a camera shot. 

That's the tree next to the church.  As you can see, it's big :)

Stop 2: Teotitlan del Valle.  This was an awesome tour stop!  Here we enjoyed a great presentation on how textiles are woven by hand by locals who maintain the Zapotec culture and language.  It was fascinating to learn about the weaving process and how colored dyes are created.  Local children start learning the trade at age 6 (or earlier) and essentially grow up to weave and farm corn.  The local guide told us that school was an option but not a priority for youth because their weaving and farming traditions are so strong.  He also said that we were welcome to live and volunteer with their community to learn the weaving process and/or help identify new markets where their cooperative could sell products.  New life goal identified: learn how to weave carpets and create colorful dyes from insects that live on nopales.

 Foot pedal loom.

 Hand-dyed materials.

Finished bags. 

Close-up of a great rug.

Hall of carpets.

Display in the hall of carpets. 

Stop 3: A mezcal distillery.  This was my least favorite part of the tour because our guide was literally running from one spot to another, and we were weaving between several other large groups of tourists.  It was cool to see the plants and learn more about how mezcal is created, and I appreciated the free samples at the end, but I had to say “no” after three tastings because it was super-hot and like noon (and that mezcal is strong).

We arrived at a fairly isolated restaurant for a 140-peso buffet lunch in a large building packed full of tourists.  The food looked good but we had a minor group anxiety attack sitting in a confined space with a sea of tourists and an insane amount of people hovering at the buffet.  So, we bolted to the tiny shack across the street where we enjoyed cold beverages and nuts while our fellow volunteer Peter went wandering down the road.  He called 15 minutes later to say he found a woman who would cook us quesadillas with beans for 10 pesos each.  Score! 

Pics from the distillery. 

Stop 4: Mitla.  This was my first time to see any ruins in Mexico so I was stoked!  We really wanted to wander on our own but were placed in an English language tour group, which was curiously led by the local artisan from Teotitlan del Valle.  You would think that I could tell you more about this site since the tour was in English, but I was distracted by the artistry and literally remember nothing.  There were tons of stands with handcrafted goods outside of the ruins, but we didn’t have time to explore them as we were herded back on the bus in less than an hour.  As we started to leave, a young man informed the driver that his friend Marco was still in the bathroom, so - lucky for Marco - we stopped and waited.

Mitla ruins.  

 That's our friend with the awesome cheek highlighter in the front of the picture.  

Wall and ceiling in an interior room.  

Me and Mickey with an awesome wall :)  

Close-up of wall artistry. I blame this lovely wall for my lack of any knowledge about this site.  

Stop 5: Hierve el Agua.  We arrived at Hierve el Agua about an hour before sunset and rolled up to see two people sitting in camp chairs in what can only be described as the most idyllic setting.  The petrified waterfalls at Hierve el Agua are a site to behold and were worth the long day on a tour bus.  The online pictures for the pools above the waterfalls suggested that we would have a tranquil soak in mineral springs while enjoying a beautiful vista of mountains and valleys.  The reality was that hundreds – if not thousands – of people had entered those pools on the day of our visit and at 6 pm, tranquility was not a word one could use for what we encountered.  While the pools were beautiful to view, we sadly we could not bring ourselves to wedge our bodies into that huddled mass of wet people.

Natalie pointed out that the plates on the car parked by the idyllic camp chairs were from Washington, so I made my way over to talk to these strangers with a view.  There I met Pete, who was traveling with his fiancé from Spokane, WA down to Argentina.  He was the perfect embodiment of what you would picture for a super cool guy who just got back from a few months traveling in Asia and was now sleeping in his car while making his way through Mexico and South America.  His fiancé was a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Benin who had wandered off just before we arrived, but we talked and laughed with Pete for a good 20 minutes.  Our group was feeling a little beat down after such a long day of travel and time spent with so many other tourists, so Pete was just the jolt of energy and joy that we needed to make the journey back to the big city. 

 This was a seriously beautiful place - even with all those people. 

Pools for soaking - finally free of people at the end of the day. 

Petrified waterfall.

This was the view from Pete's camp chairs. 

Super large, beautiful flower. 

Long story short, the landscape around Oaxaca City is beautiful, but I recommend you rent a car or hire a driver if possible.  Or you can take one of the many tours offered - just be prepared to participate in an armada of air-conditioned tourists all visiting and arriving at the same spots together in mass.  However you get there, don't be afraid to walk up to strangers and engage them in conversation, because you never know who you'll meet.  Your super cool version of Pete is waiting to meet you and bring joy to your day somewhere in Mexico, so go find him!