From Oaxaca to Pueblos Mancomunados

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If you are in Oaxaca, you have 4 choices where to go next : Puerto escondido, San Cristóbal de las casas, Mexico City or Pueblos Mancomunados.

Most people I met came from Mexico City, Puebla or San Cristóbal de las casa to Oaxaca and went from there with a van or a night bus in a 7 hours ride on a very bad road to Puerto escondido. If you want a few days to relax, enjoy the sun and the sea side, that’s the place to go.

If you would rather do something a little more adventurous, more nature and hiking, then you should definitely go to Pueblos Mancomunados.



There are different recommandations where to go and how to get there. Lonely Planet says you should go to Sierra Norte expeditions in Oaxaca and book a tour. They are very expensive though, about 1800 to 3000 $ ($ = pesos = +/- 300 euro) per day. As well Lonely Planet as the people in my hostel (Casa Ángel) told me you can just as easily go there on your own, taking a taxi collectivo or a bus and get to any of the 8 villages of Pueblo Mancomunados (Amatlán, Benito Juárez, Cuajimoloyas, La Nevería, Lachatao, Latuvi, Llano Grande and Yavesía). In my hostel, they told me that in the most touristic village, Cuajimoloyas, you have to hire a guide for any hike you want to make and that it’s much better to go to Latuvi because it’s less touristic and from there you can just do hikes on your own, no guide needed. They also told me that you can hike in one day across all 8 villages.

All of those information were bullshit !



Here’s how it works if you prefer going alone instead of paying an expensive tour :

First, take a bus (1h, 18$) or a taxi collectivo (45 minutes, 25$) to Tlacolula. There, you go to the small domestic bus terminal in front of the gas station and you ask for a transport to Cuajimoloyas. There is NO transportation to ANY other village, except if you pay for it and they will ask a lot (about 500 $) !

In Cuajimoloyas, it’s pretty nice though, there are not many tourists and you can do 3 different hikes :

<li style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color:񮾑">Canyón del Coyote (+/- 3 h : 175$)Mirador Xi-Nudaa (+/- 7 h : 330$)Some waterfalls (don’t know the name of this ; +/- 3h : 270$)



You can also do variations of these tours, the first and the third can be a bit longer and the second one shorter.



In Cuajimoloyas, you can either stay in the hotel rooms (200$/night in shared room) or in a cabaña (180$/night in shared room). The view from the cabañas is amazing, but it’s very cold up there, so you should bring warm clothes and in the evening ask for fire wood (they will light the fire whenever you want). You have to tell them when you want hot water for a shower, there is usually just cold water and they have to heat it up with if you want to take a hot shower. It’s for free though. I don’t know how it is in the hotel rooms.



If you want to get to another village, you have to walk a lot. The closest village from Cuajimoloyas is Benito Juárez and it’s between 2 and 3 hours walking. Other villages like Latuvi are 7 - 8 hours away. This means they are day tours and you should plan at least 3 days : 1 to get there, 1 to see the village and hike there, 1 to get back. You will have to pay 2 to 3 guides to take you this far. It’s recommended that you do several villages and stay like a week or so, so that you can see many villages. Also, they hike back from Latuvi is easier if you go to La Nevería and then to Benito Juárez then to go back to Cuajimoloyas. For my part, I had only 3 days and so I decided to spent 2 of them in Cuajimoloyas and 1 in Benito Juárez.

If you want to get from one village to another by car, you have to pay a lot of money, but it’s also possible.



Cuajimoloyas is very nice though and if you have just 2 or 3 days, you should just stay here. I would recommend you to stay 2 or 3 days :

Day 1 : get there, get a cabaña, do the 3h tour to the canyon.

Day 2 : do the Mirador tour of 5 or 7 hours

Day 3 : hike to Benito Juárez early in the morning (+/- 3h, 250$), spent the day and night there and go up to the Mirador.

You can either go back to Oaxaca in the afternoon after day 2 (tour finishes at about 4 PM) or stay one more day in Benito Juárez and go back the morning after that. From Benito Juárez, you can walk 1h to the cross road between this village and Cuajimoloyas. There are always many cars passing who will take you back to Tlacolula. If you leave early in the morning, you can go to the market in Tlacolula, from there to Teotitlán del Valle and to Tule to visit the largest tree in the world before going back to Oaxaca.



All tours in Cuajimoloyas must be guided, except if you come with your own car and go to another village, like Benito Juárez or Latuvi, then you can do the hikes without guide. First it was wired for me to hike alone with a guide, but they were very nice and told me much about these eco-villages, the fauna and flora (many medicinal plants here) and it was much better than expected. It’s really interesting to go with them and since there are no hiking indications anywhere on the way, you would be completely lost without a guide.

If you want a guide in English, you should reserve 1 day ahead, so if you arrive there without having booked a tour, you can only take a tour the next day.





Cuajimoloyas, Benito Juárez and Pueblos Mancomunados are worth definitely worth going, the nature and sights are stunning !

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