Bikepacking into the Mountains of Southern Mexico
When you think of Mexico, mountains might not be the first thing that come to mind. Most people come to the state of Waka for its food, its vibrant capital city, and its beaches. But Wajaka is also home to a stretch of high mountains known for its biodiversity and unique culture. So, after a redeye flight and a sleep-deprived struggle to put our bikes together at the airport, I always forget which way to do this.
Well, not that way. We are ready to get out of town and explore a side of this place that most visitors don't get to experience. Between us and the tiny mountain town that's our goal, there's a total of 10,000 ft of climbing through the desert on Waka's famous dirt roads. But we like to suffer, right? It's about 9:30 in the morning and we're in our hotel in Wajaka City, but we're about to head out. We're getting used to talking to a camera again. We'll never
get used to it. We've been here for a couple of days and it's been amazing, but we're excited to see what's outside of the city. We have about 14 days to do a loop where we'll start in the desert and then hopefully climb into the mountains pretty quickly. But we're a
little nervous. We first have to get out of the city. The traffic has been a little bit chaotic and we haven't quite figured out the the flow of things yet. So, we'll see how it goes. It's an adventure. All right, let's get out of here.
Yeah. Play path. India, I feel like it's always fun when you're biking through a place and you get these looks like, "What the heck is that?" And then you say, "Good morning or hello" or whatever. And then they like people just like smile and get really excited and return the greeting. They suddenly recognize you as human.
Yeah. Yeah. You go from being a thing to being a person. We are making our way out of the town and honestly the traffic hasn't been that bad. There's been a lot
of art like everywhere. But now we're sort of in the outskirts of town and it's definitely a lot less arty. Um, and just normal normal Mexican village. Oh my gosh, I'm so happy. Yeah, this is fun. My face is going to hurt from smiling by the end of the day. I hope we're outside of the city now. That
happened pretty quickly. We left the pavement and then we're just surrounded by dirt roads and dry brush. It's about 11:30 and we've gone about 6 miles.
We're hoping to wild camp and the only promising area on the map is about 20 miles from here. We'll see what happens when we get there. Yeah, we'll see how the rest of the day goes. It's Sunday, so everything's closed, but on Sundays, older ladies go out into the streets and sell chicken on grills. And we just stopped and had lunch, and that's what we got. And it was so good. It was so good.
It was so good. And now we're in this cute town with a pretty church. Take the next ride. We're supposed to take the
next ride. Apparently, at this point, temperatures are rising and our energy levels are dropping. We still have a long way to go before we find out if our planned camp spot is even feasible.
Slow down. Hi. It's okay. You're okay.
I'm sorry we didn't save any chicken for you. There's a river where we didn't think there was a river. We're not sure how deep it is. Yeah, it's really refreshing actually. Getting thumbs up from uh the guys swimming in the river. They were
laughing at us as we were trying to figure out what to do with our bikes. We're here on the side of the road at the top of the hill next to this little shrine trying to decide if we're going to camp or keep going. You didn't tell me that. You look fine. So, the issue with the next part of the route is that there have been a couple of times in the last couple of months where cyclists have been robbed. So far, everybody that we
have met has been incredibly kind and so we don't really want to perpetuate the idea that Mexico is dangerous. Yeah. But it has happened. And if we camp here, then we're gonna get to that part like in the afternoon when we're tired and it's hot. Unless we get up early. Could get up really early. It's your
favorite. Who are we kidding? Anything else you want to say? Nope. I'm tired. Yeah, it's been a hot day. It
really has. The heat more than the miles have have worn us out. All right, we got a decision to make. First campsite of our Wakan adventure. Oh, that's really pretty. I'm glad we stayed up here.
Yeah. Clearly, we spent the night in the woods last night when we were trying to decide whether to camp or to go into town and find a hotel yesterday. It didn't feel that late, but we had noticed a couple days before that when the sun starts to go down, it is a very quick transition between daytime and night time. We only had an hour and a half or so. It would be pretty difficult
for us to get down to the town and find a place to stay. So, we're here and it was a pretty good night's sleep. And it was a beautiful campsite. Yeah, it was so pretty. How's it going? Good. Got some friends. Yep. Time to finish some coffee and get on the road. Let's go. We're a little
apprehensive about what the day will bring, but we decide to focus on our first objective, finding breakfast. Well, we got out of camp just a little after 8 this morning, which is a bit earlier than yesterday, but at minimum, we have to do about 35 mi today. But that means that for most of the day, we will be down in the bottom of the valley where it's extra hot and dry. Where is we're here in this little town of Tilkahete and there's so much art everywhere. So
pretty. San Martin Tilkahete is known for these little fantastical animals carved out of wood. While people in Wajaka have carved copal wood into animals since before the arrival of the Spanish, this style of carving called alle brie actually originated in 1936 when a Mexico City artist dreamed of a forest filled with strange animals. When he woke, he started recreating the animals out of papier-mâché. His work
became popular among the likes of Freda Kalo and Diego Rivera and others in the elite Mexican art scene. Soon after, some Hawkins adopted the style building economic prosperity for their communities. It's here until Cahete that we pick up the third member of our group, Poco de Gayo, or Poco for short.
And now we are heading out of town. But it is 11:00 almost and it's getting hot. So much for our early start. Yeah, so
much for the early start. want to start this. There it is. Hm.
Both of the reported robberies took place between two small towns in this valley, and we're starting to get closer to one of them. But the people doing the robbing were men on dirt bikes, which honestly could be anywhere. So, we're not 100% sure that we'll be safe even if we avoid the towns altogether. We are in a newly constructed rodeo hall or something. Arena. Arena.
Amphitheater. Yeah. in a town just north of the spot that has a little bit of a reputation for being dangerous. There are two routes that we could go to avoid the towns. One puts us on the highway for a little while and one keeps us still on some of the country roads, but does get us a little bit closer to the town than than the highway is. Hillary's leaning towards riding on the highway. I
may have convinced her to take the what will hopefully be a more scenic route. Yeah. Um if we get robbed, it's his fault.
If we get robbed, you'll never see this. So far so good. We put away our camera and GoPro and just film with our phones for a second, which doesn't go well for me. Be doing that. So, we've started the detour and so far no incident. The detour has been really pretty, too. Hopefully that continues.
Wow, that's a cool tree. We just came around the corner on this reroute and we wouldn't have found this if we stayed on that other route. I love moments like this.
Bike packing is the best. Look at this tree. Honestly, the scariest thing that happens to us in this section is that I get chased by a dog. We make it safely to the town of Ahutla, where we check into a cheap but nice hotel. Well, we are trying to get out of here early. Yeah, the sun already looks kind of kind of hot out there. We We've set
maybe an unrealistic goal for ourselves today. It's not so much about the miles. We're going to do about 43 miles, but it also includes over 6,600 ft of climbing. But if we make it, it'll kind of be the start of the rest of the trip being in the mountains. I don't think we're going to make it that far, but we're going to try. All right, we we better hurry then. Because we have a long way to go today and a lot of climbing to do, we've decided to try and pack light. We're
bringing exactly the amount of water we think we need and no more. How's your butt feel this morning? Real bad. Real bad.
To the mountains. What is this? Dirt roads. So, Wajaka is the most linguistically diverse place I think in Meso America. There's 16 different local
languages that are spoken plus Spanish. And among those 16, there's 100 different versions that are spoken in all the little villages. And every village has their own version. They're pretty autonomous each village. Like they do communicate with each other, but for the most part they govern themselves. And so there's not a whole
lot of like language transfer between villages. So you can go from one village to the next village and they can understand each other, but the next one over can't understand the first one in the chain. But we just learned how to say good day in Zapotech. Oh, see italiano.
It's more like chow, but I'm sure I'm still butchering it. Also, this word only works in some versions of Zapotco. The town that we slept in last night, Autla, was founded in 524 by the Zapoteex. Pretty cool. Yeah. 7 miles. 7 miles. 35
to go. Yeah. Okay. 36 to go. It's 10:00. All right. Oh, it is quite steep. So, whenever the road gets paved in Mexico, a lot of the times it just means it's too steep to not be paved. Go this way. No. Good. So then this is the top. This is the top.
Benito Albario Los Rios. It's the top of the first climb. What is this? But we already ate all that. We're like a quarter mile from the top and it's past 1 and we haven't eaten lunch because we don't really want to try and climb on a full stomach. But we're also not quite out of water, but getting close. And we're not really sure where
the next store is. So, we're just focusing on the last quarter mile to the top. And maybe there will be a store earlier than we think there will be on the map. If not, it's going to be real uncomfortable. Feels so good to be making some breeze. We came over this ridge and we thought we heard a truck coming down the hill behind us, but when we looked, there was no truck. But there were a bunch of
branches and corn stalks being whipped up into the air. And it's been a really calm day. Like too calm to the point of being really hot. But the wind all of a sudden picked up out of nowhere. I don't know if you can see that. I don't think you can, but there is a dust devil that's like circling us. See it? It's picking
up all of the these leaves right next to you. Oh jeez. There it is. Oh god. It's I wish we'd been able to capture it better. It was pretty intense at some points. Anyway, at this point, I'm
feeling pretty bad because I've been rationing my water. Chris thinks he's doing okay, but he's not drinking enough either, although he would disagree with that. We survived our morning climb and have made it down the other side now that it's 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Uh we ran a little short on water. Made it down to a tiny little store that we were able to buy an electrolyte drink mix from. Uh while we still had a couple swallows of water left in a bottle. I don't know,
maybe not the most comfortable, but I think it was probably a success uh to not carry too much more water than we needed up the hill. Hillary may disagree. Now there's a fork in the road. I need to look at the map. Which way do we go? This way. Hey, Hillary, what are you doing? Trying to figure out if we want to stay in a hotel here or if we want to keep going up the hill. I kind of feel like we've already made that decision. Yeah. I
don't think we want to keep going up the hill. I think you're finding the best hotel for us to stay in today. It just killed me. Yeah. And then tomorrow will be a short day and maybe I can talk Chris into spending an extra day up at that little refugeio. Danny, this is our vacation after all.
Yeah, I forgot. How do you cut a pineapple? With a knife this big and no cutting board. Someone tell us how to cut a pineapple with a I I know how to cut a pineapple.
Just not in this particular situation. All right. So, clearly we're not in a retreat in the mountains. Today just kicked our butt. Also, Chris got this pineapple because we hadn't had water for like eight miles and it just looked too good. I couldn't be prouder right
now. I couldn't be more proud. I think we're both just kind of a little bit surprised about how long this is taking us and how much the heat is affecting our ability to like make miles. To be able to get to where we wanted to get to today, we would have had to do twice as much as what we've done.
And yeah, that just wasn't in the cards. Our plan B was spending a night wild camping again halfway up the climb. This street side hotel was definitely plan C, but it'll do. It'll be fine and yeah, we'll we'll make it up to the mountains tomorrow and spend a bunch of time up there.
Don't judge me. It's delicious. We are leaving little town of Miaan. The temperature is great right now. Yeah, in like 20 minutes it'll be hot. I
just looked at the map and it looks like it's a little bit shorter as far as mileage today, but we're just climbing the whole day. But we have more water today. yesterday when we almost ran out of water and I thought it was the perfect amount of water because we didn't have to carry anything more than necessary up the climb. Um, well, I was wrong. I didn't make him say this for the record. I I just think I didn't feel the dehydration until later and now I'm paying for it with a splitting headache.
We're ready to get out of the heat. We're excited because we've heard about this hippie retreat with adobe cabins and excellent food tucked into the cloud forest at over 7,500 ft. To get up to that elevation, we have to climb 3,500 ft in about 19 mi. And we gain nearly a
third of that in just 1 mile, which is marked on our map as crazy steep. Chris. Chris, what did we find? We're in the pines. Pine trees. What do you have for me? Peach drink. Peach drink. She ran up to
the house to get one out of the fridge. Yum. Oh, I love I love peach juice. Bummer, dude. No front derailer for me. It's okay, though, because I wasn't planning on using my high gears.
Where where are you going today? We're the way up there. Going to get firewood. Yeah. Do you use the pine trees? Yeah. Pine trees. The leftover is falling off the tree. Uhhuh. So without cutting the live wood or green, huh? Yeah. Nice. Are
these trees dead or is it because it's dry season? Uh dry season. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Do you know what they're called? These trees in Spanish. I forgot. I forgot. Is it a a type of oak? Exactly. Okay. Yeah. Oak tree.
Okay. Oak. They're pretty. Yeah, they're pretty. We're in this beautiful little valley with flowing clear water. There are lots of little farming plots and the road has been tough, but it's leveled out for a second and there's big trees with lots of shade and it's just like the best. The break didn't last long.
Remember that thing I said earlier about pavement? I'm tired. We've only just begun. It's going to be about this steep for over a mile, I think. So, a little bit at a time. Push from one shade patch to the
next. This hill is so hard. And we're not quite halfway up it. It's never gonna end. This is our life now. No more pavement. Either this is about to get easier or a lot harder.
Doesn't immediately look any easier. Is it going to be like this forever? Yes. You can definitely tell that it is very wet here sometimes of the year. There's
lots of moss. Oh, and mushrooms. We haven't seen clouds all day and now we're up here and all of a sudden we're like a little bit in a cloud. That's cool. We're riding. These things are huge. They're so big. They're so big. These
things are ridiculous. We made it. Wow. Oh, wow. It's like a totally different world over here. We made it to the top finally and
we found a cafe that serves hot chocolate. So, we are going to enjoy some of that while enjoying this view. Yes, it is hot chocolate. Things have changed quite a bit from this morning. Well, we are Just about to head out of these cabins in the mountains. We had a
really nice night here and spent the morning exploring the area. Hey Chris, where are we going? We're going to go see the moon tree. We have a dog friend. Next we have about a 4 mile ride to San Jose del Pacificico. But first, we have
to make it up the really steep climb out of this place. We considered taking a rest day here at the retreat, but we decided that we were too excited to get to the namesake of this route, San Jose del Pacificico. On the way there, we noticed things are looking a lot more touristy. Well, we could do a bridgewalk, but there's a bike out there. I think riding these roads is enough of an adventure. Yeah.
All right, onward. The town's location is beautiful, perched on the shoulder of a mountain, but its claim to fame is as a destination for, let's call them consciousness travelers. This part of the world is where certain mushrooms first entered the western awareness in the 1950s. What was once a closed indigenous practice now attracts thousands of visitors per year to the little town. It's pretty busy and cramped and loud. So after our lunch, we move up the road towards another little town that comes highly recommended.
So close. I feel like I'm getting stronger. How about you? Definitely.
The shade really helps, too. After a stretch of hard days like this, our legs are starting to feel empty and we need a full day off the bike to recharge. So, we're stoked to arrive at the place we'll be spending the next two nights until we realize that the climbing isn't done yet. We made it. We asked when we booked this place if there were a lot of stairs and he said no. Oh, no. Not many. He said, "Well, this is the mountains. We're at a little tiny house that we have rented that's just built right into the side of a mountain." The caretaker
of this house was here a little bit ago and he offered to bring us a welcome treat. So, we're waiting for that. We're going to take a day or two here to rest and give our legs a chance to recover and we'll acclimatize because we're at about 8,000 ft here. We'll be getting up to nearly 10,000 ft and probably won't be able to find nearly as many hotels as we have been. We're really excited to just hang out here and explore this town and get some rest cuz it's been hard. Yeah. And our hot chocolate showed up.
Chocolate is native to Central America and hot chocolate is a common drink here. It's traditionally served froth. Looks pretty frothy. We've come such a long way. It's kind of wild how much has happened and how different the world looks from where we started, but we've got a long way to go from here and we're about to leave the comforts of the populated valley we've been traveling in and see what a wilder section of Waka looks like. We're
not sure what the next few days will feel like, but we're excited to find out. So, we hope you'll join us in the next one. See you soon.
2025-05-07 16:38
