Mountainous Bus Ride

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Left Oaxaca on Easter Sunday to cross the mountains to the east by bus and it was an incredible ride on an economical bus - not the school bus second class but the ones without TV and that stop many places and that dont have a bathroom and let vendors on to sell food like tamales and tacos and nuts and cheese (and on other rides icecream and juices etc). It was also one of those rides that took 6 hours to go less than 200km - twisty turvy 2 lane mountainous road - hwy 175 - barely 250 straight metres until the end. Leaving Oaxaca the climate is still dry - leafless bushes and nopales (or prickly pears) - an must admit I dont like the scenery when they dominate (though they are tasty - as are tuna ices - no, not the fish but a cactus flower) - not many candlestick cacti as to the west. Then as we climbed and climb we did with great views we entered into a greener zone dominated by pine forest - felt so good to see green. Stopped for lunch and then entered the zona del niebla as we got to the eastern edge - its a zone I saw and loved around Jalapa and Cuetzulan - of thick misty cloud cover so that all is vibrant green and moist, the ferns grew larger and larger as we decended, saw waterfalls, and purple and yellow flowers on trees. Unfortunately there is really no tourism infrastructure - sparsely populated until you get to the valleys and basically small indegenous communities. Thats one of the things I don´t like about Mexico - its hard to get out in the country - especially as a gringa woman alone - small insular communities, and even in the slightly larger places that might have a hotel there are no parks etc cause people work the land and try hard to survive on it and that infrastructure just does not exist. Also, while Mexico in many ways is a freer, looser society, the gender roles are much more strictly defined - especially out of larger cities - and even there you get some stares - more dirty ones from women than from men - if you are out alone eating or sitting, and in small non-touristy places it can be overwhelming - women dont go out alone and with the emphasis on the family - both nuclear and extended which you see - and on kids and on community - to be a lone woman is to be an outcast in many ways. But the landscape is beautiful.

Spent the night in Tuxtapec - at the crossroads - a gritty city of about 90,000 - where everything is shut on a sunday night - found a store to buy things to make a sandwich. The main street is crowded with stores open onto the street selling cheap clothing,tacos and other goods, but not a nice place so from there I began my next bus journey which I will write about next.

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