I’ve been cycling from the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina for the past 8 months and arrived in Oaxaca city just in time for New Year’s. After the famed “Oaxaca Escondida Terracería” and “Cuatro Venados” dirt road roads, I’d spotted a hidden waterfall and hot spring area tucked into the bent corner of a map, so we risked an endless dive into the canyon of San Baltazar Guelavila to investigate.
A kind family speaking indigenous Zapotec let us camp on their land, from which cousin Felipe (wearing a Los Lakers jersey) insisted on touring us around the valley in his bright green tuk tuk mototaxi to all his mezcalero friends and extended family, tiny private distillery operations where the Dons and señors pulled generous shots of robust homemade mezcals to share. We asked about their ancestral processes; they asked why we’d chosen bike travel. I told them it was my favorite way to explore the world, slow enough to enjoy its wildest places while still fast enough to watch the kilometers pile up across the horizons behind us.
In the morning (and luckily without hangover) we descended the last of the dirt roads toward Las Salinas, a subterranean waterfall pocked with iridescent spring pools and dripping waves of rock formations. It was an icy polar plunge, breathsnatching, perfect for escaping the sunny Oaxacan heat.
We ran into Felipe in the streets once again before hitchhiking out of town in the back of an empty cattle truck. His eyes were bloodshot but kind. Mine were bloodshot but grateful. The three of us wore exhaustion across our shoulders like a crushed white shawl of surrender. He’d been called into the adjacent valley with his mototaxi and wanted to make sure we’d had a nice time. His jersey was a brilliant kelly green this time, matching the tuk tuk with chic precision, hunched behind the steering wheel with his hat turned backwards and squinting in the sun. I questioned how his three-wheeled wagon could possibly survive a life inside this canyon. He wondered the same about our funny little bikes.
by donivanberube