Jan. 9/11 – Mexico
Saturday, January 14th, 2006Day 161/163 – We have been driving full days since we left Mazatlan, though the distance we’ve gone has been minimal. We have been very impressed with the quality of highways throughout Mexico, with only a few exceptions. For the most part, they have been very well paved, or in the process of being repaved, making them comparable to the United States. The road along the coast is twisted and has a few mountains to go over, at times making the drive very slow.
donkeys and lots of them.. they are my favorite so far! Jason says I can´t have one though 🙁
Cows, lots of pastures in Oaxaca
The town we stayed in after Pie de la Cuesta was Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido is another tourist town, with mixture of Europeans and North Americans. There is a nice downtown right on the beach. A market is created on one of the main streets in the afternoon and into the nighttime. Pedestrians wander down to look at the gypsies handmade jewelry. They also offer ‘rasta ties’, a strand of hair wrapped with colorful string in a decorative weave – I remember getting one in high school once, but not from Mexico, from Lake Chelan in Washington, 🙂 not quiet as exotic. People from the village outside of the city are also at the market, selling hand woven animal dolls and clothing.
The first change we noticed when we went from the state of Guerrero into Oaxaca was less trash on the side of road. In Guerrero there were times that it literally looked like that roadside had been collecting garbage for months from the nearby town. Mexico needs to find a better system for their waste in the rural areas. I know the people don’t have any idea what to do with it, and it doesn’t look like the state is stepping in to provide services. Even their yards are littered with wrappers and soda bottles. Oaxaca seems to have found a better solution; maybe they have been educated about the environment. I have no clue what the facts are; these are all just observations we’ve had from the roadside.
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Some lowlands with lily pads and flowers
Juchitan is the beginning of what I believe to be the windiest part of Mexico. We are on the edge of The Isthmus, where the land becomes very narrow and the mountains become quite low (250 meters high). This creates an area where the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean are within 210 Km (130 miles) of each other. The weather systems from both bodies of water mingle and create high velocity wind, which sometimes causes strong weather systems. The wind doesn’t ever stop blowing, it gusts in short cycles, making the window of our hotel last night rattle constantly.
lowlands getting blown sideways from the wind – hard to tell but it was a neat sight
The drive through the Isthmus the next day was not exactly relaxing. The strong wind tried it’s best to push us off the narrow road. We were able to cover a good distance though, because the roads were flat and mostly straight all day. We stayed in Tapachula last night. It is a bustling city right next to the boarder of Guatamala. Since the boarder crossing can take hours it is best to start in the morning.
sometimes it can be a lonely road
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