Last week, Jeremy, a good friend from Santa Fe (we’ve bike adventured together for over a decade), rocked up to Oaxaca with his helmet, sandals, running shorts, and a few other basic possessions, as well as some bottles of tyre sealant, a big bag of dehydrated camping food, and a bunch of other treats (like my favourite crystalised ginger and Emma’s favourite herbal tea).

Jeremy is (amongst many other things) a holistic arborist, a cyclist of all persuasions, a trail runner, and an appreciator of good farming and good food. Initially, we set out on some day rides to get a lay of the land – including hurly burly Laguna Seca, and San Andrés Huayapam on foothill trails (for pre-Colombian tejate sampling), along with other assorted outings, and an inspection of the magnificent, 2000-year-old Árbol del Tule (a Montezuma cypress, with purportedly the stoutest trunk in the world). It was a week of good living; Jeremy made some killer banana bread and Emma cooked up her Oaxacan piece de resistance, Jamaica flower tacos. 

Tejate, a sacred pre-Colombian energy drink that’s served in a beautiful painted jicara, the fruit of a calabash tree. It’s made from toasted corn, fermented cacao beans, pixtle (toasted and ground mamey pits), and cacao flowers, which are ground into a paste that’s mixed with water and cooled by a big block of ice. Catch it early in the day for maximum cold deliciousness.

Our day rides included the protracted climb to Laguna Seco and burly descent to Tule, on the other side – see here for a gpx file. At this time of year in Oaxaca, the trails are leafy and the bougainvillaeas are popping.

Sidenote. It turns out that we have a fantastic little tortillerias/memeleria just down the (dirt) road from where we live. This is most excellent news!

We’d originally planned a monster climb to Ixtepeji and some high country r&r (aka enduro trails rips), but suspension fork woes on the Hayduke was borrowing thwarted that idea (dangit). So instead, Jeremy and I headed east into the Mitla valley for a three-day, dirt road valley tour via Tlalixtac, Tlacolula, and Yagul, and onto the mineral, healing pools of Hierve el Agua for a sunrise soak and a morning coffee!

Jeremy and the Tule Tree. He may well be sitting where 19th-century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt once sat. Oaxaca is a state for arborists.

I love valley riding in January, before the mercury goes awol and slivers of shade become highly prized real estate, or it’s so dusty you need to mummify yourself in a bandana every time a pickup truck loaded with maguey hearts bounces by. At this time of year, there’s not much to do other than pedal away, gaze upon thickets of carrizo swaying in the breeze, allow your brain to boggle at endless acres of regimented agave, pause for ice cream and aguas frescas (and other sugary treats), get chased by mismatched gangs of village dogs (unless they’re napping after an all-night barking session), negotiate (forever bleating and farting) goat traffic jams, convince 2-inch long acacia thorns not to take up residence in your tyres, and admire the rural rigs that abound in the flat valley pueblos – be it a moustache-barred Benotto with machete strapped within its frame, or an old mountain bike with a single brake and a homemade wooden child seat, or a bright yellow, behemoth 3 wheeler cargo trikes, used to sell everything from ice cream to tamales, or even to take grandma and grandpa to church.

Roadside valley treats include horchata with ‘tuna’, a sorbet made from the deep pink fruit of a prickly pear cactus, some classic, oblong memelas, a handmade Oaxacan fast food special, and Euphorbia greeting parties. Zapotec is spoken widely in this region, and a mural in San Francisco Lachigoló assists visitors to the area with some basic conversation starters.

I can’t say I’ve ever been to this bar, but it’s a ‘just have to’ backdrop if you live in the American South West…

Classic valley riding near San Juan Guelavía, a small town known for making woven baskets from Carrizo, one of Bamboo’s cousins.

Another classic valley vignette: campesinos collecting wood by bicycle and donkey, likely destined for a comal, the flat griddles used to make tortillas in Oaxaca.

This particular dirt road traces the Camino Real, the Spanish conquest, colonization, and trading route which once ran to Mexico City and onto Santa Fe New Mexico – where Jeremy lives.

On our first night, we camped out at a favourite perch overlooking a massive limestone outcrop that’s home to the archaeological site of Yagul, and framed by the imposing wall of the Sierra de Juárez. I call the organ cactis here Los Abuelos, as they resemble grandfatherly custodians of this prehistoric, cave-poked zone. Additional factoid: these very caves claim that the earliest evidence of the domestication of maize, some 10,000 years ago.

Sunrise panorama…

Pre-breakfast nibbles… Picking some Guaje seed pods, after which Oaxaca is named.

Although it’s always a little slow to wake up in the morning, El Ranchito is a favourite spot to start the day, especially when they have some atole de espuma (with foam) on the go. This cappuccino-looking Oaxacan drink is normally made for festivals but in this case, it was leftovers from a baptism the day before.

Also, I found this point fella click-a-di-clicking in my rear tyre. Makes a change from acacia thorns, I guess! Praise be to sealant and tyre plugs.

More quintessential Mitla valley vibes, including thickets of carrizo, short-range moto-taxis, and dastardly goatheads, even if they do look pretty when they’re flowering…

Sweet score! A palm leaf sombrero, forlorn and forgotten by the sandy roadside. It will continue to live its best life on Jeremy’s head (or squished into his bike bags).

Finally, we’re leaving the pancake floor at the end of the Mitla Valley. It’s a sizeable climb from Xaaga to Hierve el Agua – a 550-metre bump can feel surprisingly taxing after a day cycling and mooching in the sun.

Still, it’s just an extra squeeze to the juice, because it means we can camp for the night at Hierve and have these Insta-perfect mineral pools to ourselves come dawn. For sure, they’re a big tourist attraction and whilst it’s fun to see the place jam-packed with Oaxacan families or weekend revellers (the clue is in the rum-laced coconuts sold on site), I prefer it before the crowds arrive!

Plus, the early bird catches the sunrise.

#coffeeoutside (2 rounds, in our case) and a morning soak did wonders to reboot our dusty bodies and toasted minds, even if we were soon sweating our way back out of this chasm.

From there, we retraced our steps to Xxaga (could there be a more quintessentially dusty Mexican village?) and then Mitla, largely to eat ice cream at the plaza. Xxaga is an especially good spot to appreciate Mexican Fence Post Cacti. It’s the ideal living fence in these parts, and way more cordial than barbed wire, I feel.

Street dogs are part and parcel of riding in Mexico. Whilst many do enjoy chasing cyclists, a lot are surprisingly friendly and like nothing more than a good scritch ‘n scratch. I expect these cuties are catching some zzzs after an all-night barking session, hence our existence is barely noted. But pedal by them on another day, and you might be setting some local KOMs.

By late afternoon, we’d made it back to Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Oaxaca City, just a hill away from home.

Huesos and his neighbour buddies, Brownie and Dulce, were very happy to see us back!

The trip captured Oaxacan Valley riding at its finest, I feel, and Jeremy even found the perfect roadside trail treasure. He sure cut quite the profile in his beaten-up campesino sombrero, running shorts, and sandals.

It was wonderful to see you here my friend and I’m stoked that you connected with Oaxaca so profoundly. Until the next ride in Santa Fe!

THE ROUTE

You can find ideas for following a similar route over on the Route Ideas page!

FIELD NOTES

With a little motivation, you could easily run this route as two biggish days, but we lost a little time to suspension fork issues, and spent time riding up to Villa Díaz Ordaz and San Miguel del Valley (we’d intended to enter the Norte by way of El Carrizal but at the time of writing, this climb now requires the company of a guide). No matter. 2 nights in the balmy valley affords plenty of time for life chats, food sampling, and off-the-bike trots… checking out the likes of Dainzú and Yagul’s Zapotec ballparks and stone structures, for instance, or gawping at the mighty Árbol del Tule.

We also took ‘Vulture Road’ back from Tule; it’s a favourite dry season doubletrack that eeks out time on dirt, reconnecting with the Oaxaca-Tule bike path to soften re-entry into the big and noisy city. To wrap it all up we ran the trafficky gauntlet back to Centro, before steeling ourselves for the final climb to Ejido Guadalupe Victoria (aka home). All in all, this is a great ride for the time of year, perfect for getting your Oaxacan feelers out and getting a sense for what this beautiful area is about. Expect toasty temps come February and March though. Or just wear a sombrero!

BIKES BIKES BIKES

Jeremy rode Emma’s Hayduke, replete with various pieces of Tailfin luggage (and a sombrero). Its suspension fork is shot for big trails right now, but just fine for valley dirt.

I floated along on my Jones Spaceframe – I love its upright riding position for big sky touring especially, and its monster 29 x 3.25 tyres keep the vibes perma-mellow and smooth… This said, valley riding in Oaxaca is great on just about any bike;.I reckon a vintage mtb would suit both the terrain and its aesthetic especially well!

All pics taken on the little Fuji x100V.

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