What to do in Pueblos Mancomunados ?

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My first stop in Pueblos Mancomunados was Cuajimoloyas. I arrived there at around 11 AM (1h from Oaxaca to Tlacolula, 1h from Tlacolula to Cuajomoloyas) and the first thing I did was rent a room in a cabaña compartida and check out the tours they offer. If you want to hike in Cuajimoloyas, you have to hire a guide for 2 reasons : 1) you would get utterly and completely lost without one, since there are no road indications and you have to cross many private grounds ; 2) you would miss all the interesting information about the local stories, the fauna and flora there.

In Cuajimoloyas, there are 5 hikes you can do :

Canyón del Coyote (+/- 3 h : 175$)Mirador Xi-Nudaa (+/- 7 h : 330$)Some waterfalls (don’t know the name of this ; +/- 3h : 270$)Hike to Benito Juárez (+/- 3h : 250$)Hike to Latuvi (+/- 6h : ? $)



After settling in to my cabaña and having a really nice lunch at the comedor next to my cabaña, I did the hike to the canyón del coyote. My guide was a very nice young lady who showed me many medicinal plants and told me what they are used for ; e.g. plants against a sore throad, against, headaches, diabetes, for a better blood circulation, etc. There is one kind of lettuce that is used if a woman, after the birth of her child, doesn’t produce enough milk. Then a special kind of rocks is heated, this lettuce gets wrapped around it and they put it on her breast. Then she will produce milk the next day. Amazing, right? She also showed me a beautiful purple flower that you can eat.

In what concerns the trees in Pueblos Mancomunados, most of them are pines and they have different kinds of them. They can be used for different things : their leaves are used to make artisanal gadgets and baskets, the resin is used to put around broken bones. It’s wrapped with bandages and when the bandages fall of, the bone is healed. The wood of pines is used to light fires, because it burns faster. For construction, they use other kinds of trees whose wood is stronger (don’t remember the name).

She told me, that in the villages of Pueblos Mancomunados, most people are farmers and live a very traditional life. Most of them have their territories somewhere in the hills, far away from roads, and they have to walk everyday for hours to get there and back. Most people live in the village though, and just go to their territories (and the cabañas they have there, during the day. It has only been about 30 years since they got cars and even running water in their houses ; before, they had to walk everywhere (they still mostly do) and they had to go to public washing places in the village.

The 8 villages of Pueblos Mancomunados form a strong community and everything in this community, i.e. all territories and lands, belong to the community and not to a particular family, even though the families occupy part of it and can use it’s products for themselves. There are even « community fields » that all people of the village work on together and the products go to the whole community. They grow potatoes, corn and vegetables there. The corn is for people’s own usage, while potatoes are for selling. Usually 1 person in the family, mostly the women, are in charge of selling the products. So, they go every day either to the market to Tlacolula or to Oaxaca and sell their products. In addition to that, they elevate donkeys, bulls and cows that they can sell later to get some money.

Some people also sell their artisanal crafts, like handmade baskets or even homemade, biologic shampoo.

It surprised me to learn, that most of the young people stay in the villages after graduating and don’t go to they cities. Many of them study agriculture and come back to their village later.

In every village, they have quite strict rules : all animals must be kept in fences, no going out after 10PM, no public drinking, etc. Definitely not a village where I could have spent my youth ;-)



What concerns animals, there are still many coyotes in the woods, but they are very shy and you can almost never see them. There are no dangerous animals in these mountains, but many birds and other nice animals that are worth the trip.



From the viewpoint of the canyon, the sight is very impressive and I can only recommend this hike !



That evening I was really exhaused and annoyed to find out that there was no hot water in my shower. So I went back to the tourist office (10 minutes) and they also told me they could make a fire in my cabaña, a proposition that I was very eager to accept. It was really really cold up there, I had put on almost every piece of clothes I possessed. In addition to that, I wasn’t feeling well because of the altitude. Cuajimoloyas is situated on 3100 m altitude and even with my medicine against hight problems, I was feeling sick. I barely touched dinner and went to bed very early. Since I was the only tourist and in my cabaña was no cell reception and no wifi, there was nothing much to do besides reading anyway.



The second day, I waited for the hot water in my shower, but it took some time. I had asked for a hot shower at 8AM, but at 8:30 it was still only half warm. Fortunately, outside it was more hot though and I warmed up very fast.

At 9AM started my second tour. It was a 7-hour hike to the mirador de Xi-Nudaa. The first part was pretty easy and nice, only going up to the mirador was exhausting. There we had a long break where I could enjoy the view and - for a change - the cell reception ! :-) The view was spectactular ! You can see all the valley, all Sierre Norte with it’s 8 villages and it was the first time I realised how far away they were one from the other. My guide, Albino, explained that it’s about 1 day hike from one village to the next, some are further away than others. Therefore it’s recommended to either stay in one village for 2 or 3 days or to do all the villages in 1 week.



Albino told me much about the villages and life there, like that Cuajimoloyas means « Mole guardado en el hoja » (mole kept in the leaf) or the tourist office that has a name that in spanish means « palo huesco ». The viewpoint where we went is called « piedra resbalosa » (slippery stone). He told me that most old people still speak the indigenous language called zapoteco, but that almost no young people speak it anymore. It’s a shame that it gets lost... Most young people just know a few words nowadays.



Albino has only left Oaxaca once and that’s when he was young and worked for 18 months in the States, Los Angeles I guess. Many people from Oaxaca immigrated to Los Angeles, seems like you don’t need to know much English to find work and live there. Most people have never seen anything else of Mexico and the world though than Oaxaca, their village and the part of LA where they found work. A bit sad, but they are very rural people and quite poor. If you compare, a meal of about 200$ (= +/- 12 Euro is quite expensive for them, busses and taxis cost about 50 Euro cent to 2 Euro maximum. So you can see, they would never be able to afford going to Europe or any other country, even a bus to another Mexican state for about 500$ is quite expensive for them. Besides, most of them have a home, animals and a farm that they can not just leave like that.



Albino was a very nice guy and I learned a lot from him. I could ask him whatever came to my mid and I just can’t remember all we talked about.

After the mirador, we stopped at a trout place that belongs to his brother in law. In Mexico, most families are quite big, from 4 to 18 sibblings per family ! His brother in law, just as his father and his brothers, has his own place where he grows trouts and he has a comedor (like a small restaurant with only a few dishes that can change from day to day) in the village where you can eat trout. But also here, on the place where he elevates them, you can eat trout and I must say, they were just delicious, the best trout I have ever eaten! :-D It was grilled with oignons and tomatoes and served with rice. There was also the obligatory tortilla and a very spicy but delicious sauce. I loved it! :-)



The way back to my cabaña was very steep and I was happy when we arrived. After a nice hot shower and relaxing a bit, I went to the tourist office again to book an English guide for Vicky and Phil who were going to arrive the next day (you should reserve an English speaking guide one day before) and I booked my tour for the next day. Albino had recommended me to go to Benito Juárez and up to the mirador there and I had decided to follow his recommendation. They ask 250$ for the 3h hike there, but I guess it’s fair since the guide has to go back again. Then I wanted to have dinner at the comedor my guide from the day before had recommended me, but it was already closed. Apparently all the comedors in the village close at 5PM. So I went, as usually, to the one next to my house, that is always open. Actually, it’s a private house and the woman there cooks mostly for the people staying at the cabañas. Since I was the only guest at the cabañas, I ate most of the time in their kitchen and chatted with them. They were very nice people, friendly but not pushy and they never commented on my not finishing my dishes. The bread there was wired, a bit sweet, I don’t know, a strange taste I didn’t like that much. Seems to be a speciality of Oaxaca. So I almost never finished it, just as my food, because in the evenings I was just too tired to eat much.

So, again, I went to bed very early and slept like a baby.



The next morning, I got up, had breakfast and packed my stuff. At 9:30AM, I started my hike to Benito Juárez. My guide was a very nice lady who still spoke very well zapoteco and who knew all about the medicinal plants in the area. She repeated much of what I had learned the days before, which was good because I had already forgotten most of it. She also made me it a leaf of some plant. It was very bitter at first, but like a minute or so later, it gave me the best aftertaste ever, like a mango was stuck in my throat. Delicious! Even though I was thirsty, I wouldn’t drink anything so as not to loose this taste. :-)

First, it was a very steep way down, then a very steep way up and it was a very hard hike. The only good thing : the sight was wonderful and the company very good. My guide was 40 and had already 4 children. The oldest one is an English translater and also a guide in Pueblos Mancomunados. The others are still studying, one wanting to become a biologist.



At about 12AM, we arrived in Benito Juárez where she brought me to quite unfriendly people at the tourist information. They gave me a room in the dorms and showed me the comedor of the village. After relaxing for some time, I went up to the mirador. Here, you didn’t need a guide, the way was quite easy to find. The view was stunning, just amazing! For that, I had to go up a very scary looking building, but it was absolutely worth it !



I spent some time up there and then I went back down, had a shower, lunch and went to bed very early.

The next morning, I got up at 6:30AM, packed my stuff and left to the cross point between Benito Juárez and Cuajimoloyas. I had to wait almost half an hour, but then I finally got a ride down to Tlacolula. I shared the back of the car with a nice old man who went down to sell his potatoes, like every day. In Tlacolula, I went to the local market that takes place every Sunday and bought a nice typical mexican linen shirt.

From there, I wanted to go to Teotitlán del Valle. People had recommended me to go there and I had enough time, so why not. So I took a bus direction Oaxaca and got out at the crossroad to Teotitlán del Valle. Unfortunately, every taxi I tried to stop was full and the busses didn’t stop... The IDIOT I am, I thought I could just walk the 4km there, but it was really really hot and I swear 4km in Mexico are longer than 4km in Europe ! So I walked and walked and when I finally got there, there was nothing in this stupid village ! I was so mad, hungry and tired :-( I took the next bus out of there and went to El Tule to see the biggest tree in the world. It was really big! It’s supposed to have a diameter of 18 meters ! There I finally had lunch, a nice mushroom quesadilla, and I enjoyed the nice town.



Finally, I took a taxi collectivo back to Oaxaca where I spent the afternoon relaxing on the rooftop terrace until my bus to San Cristóbal de las casas came.

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