Car Shots -- Oaxaca

After we had spent a few days in Oaxaca, we started our jouney south to the coast. From Oaxaca City there are two "highways" down that hit the Pacific about 60 kilometers apart from each other. One, Highway 175, went directly to our destination, so we headed that way, stopping at various artisanal markets along the way.

We really liked the named of this town -- Xoxocotlan. Raul called it "Hugs and Kisses, Hugs and Kisses Cotlan" which is vastly more pronouncable than it probably really is. The highway went from 4-lanes to two, then passed through tiny little towns paved with topes (speedbumps). Then we came to a long, straight stretch where we could see for a long way, and could see the people ahead of us all turning around. We had hit a strike. The road was blocked both ways. So, being only a few kilometers from where the two highways had split, we backtracked and took the other route rather than wait it out. A few kilometers down the new highway, we came to another roadblock. This one was a truck that had overturned, and in no time we were on our way to the Sierra Madres del Sur with only 6 windy hours of driving ahead of us.

Still in the valley, we started seeing these shrines on the back of trucks. We would see many of these decorated with streamers at many of the villages.

So as we got into the mountains (very very curvy), we kept coming up on cyclists. They were a bit of a hazard, especially at the speeds at which Raul was driving. Finally, we came upon, not cyclists, but relay runners. These suicidal athletes were escorting their village Virgins to the next shrine. The relay runners were carrying some sort of relic or other holy item while this shrine followed behind. I don't know anything else about what was happening, but these kids seemed to having a great time. We passed about 10 different shrines in various states of procession, many parked with their people to get lunch at a little roadside taco stand.

So recall how we had taken this alternate highway, taking us out of our way by 60 kilometers? About 45k from the coast, we wound our way through a little village tucked on the side of mountain. I was nauseated from the drive and had a miserable headache. We got to the other side of the village, and there was a roadblock. We were something like 2 cars from the strike so we could see their signs of what they were protesting: regional crime. Oh, the irony. We headed back into the village, and Raul asked the pharmasist if there is another route. Yes, he said, but it is very dangerous, and anyway they have that blocked off too. We were stuck, so we went back to the roadblock and waited it out. An hour later, they let us through, holding hats for tips and donations. Raul reached to get some change, and I stopped him. It was bad enough that we were held hostage for on hour; I'm not paying their ransom.

Roadblock #4 -- cows. We skirted past them. We also hit a goat (the goat got away unharmed), dodged a number of donkeys, and managed to not run over any cyclist/runners.

When we hit the coastal highway, the speed limit was 20 kph. My car doesn't even know what that is. We were flying down the road, passing people left and right. At one point Raul giggled and said, "I'm going 6 times the speed limit. Ooh, now 7 times!" (The coastal highway is fairly straight.) We got lost finding our hotel that was located at a private beach off the highway. When we couldn't find the landmarks listed in my directions and the sun was long since set, we stopped for help. One person responded, "Playa Boquilla? There is no hotel there. It is a solitary place. You don't want to go there. The road is not safe." Raul and I have separate cell phone providers, and neither had reception, so we had to trust in the directions that came with the warning. Those directions got us happily to a place where my hotel directions made sense, we crawled along the very washed out road, pulled into a parking spot, walked down to the hotel office where we were greeted with, "Welcome to Bahía de la Luna. Let me show you to your cabana. We're serving dinner right now. Is snapper okay?"

10 hours later, we had arrived.