Day 18

It’s funny how much this trip reminds me of backpacking through southeast Asia, and that’s not at all what I expected. On that trip I tried to live on $10/day. I stayed in grubby places and took cheap forms of transportation. On this trip we have arranged to stay in nice places and spring for 1st class buses and the like. Nevertheless, it’s a challenging place to get around. Yesterday we wanted to head to hierve el agua. Our two guide books listed tour companies that would take us, and it sounded beautiful—natural springs that bubble out of the ground and leave mineral deposits in cool formations, including a “frozen waterfall.” Some of the spring water is dammed into pools for swimming. We asked our host family about it and they said it was really nice.

We headed to the tour company headquarters and bought our tickets. They promised us a 1.5 hour ride, 3 hours there, and 1.5 hours back. The ride turned out to be 2 hours long up some of the most terrifying mountain roads I’ve ever been on (and I didn’t realize it was even in the mountains). There was road, no shoulder, no guardrail, and a steep drop off. I was sitting on the side of the bus where I could see how close we were to the edge and had to change sides. Once I could contain my fear I could appreciate, somewhat, the extraordinary scenery of mountains and valleys. We passed lots of butterflies, donkeys and little villages. The ride was further complicated by my very unhappy stomach and I had to get Jim to ask the bus driver to make an unscheduled bathroom stop. Then the driver almost left without me until Jim told him not to. Once we arrived at the springs the road was closed to the bus. We were forced to pay more money to get to the site, and the way there was riding in the back of a covered pickup truck. They stuffed us in there with about 8 other people, and the back gate was left open because more people (Jim being one of them) had to stand on the back and hang on. I clutched the kids and held on a rail until my arm was stiff and sore. Once we finally made it the driver informed us we’d only have 1.5 hours at the site!!!

The site was beautiful though, we went in the pools and marveled at the limestone formations. The views were spectacular and it was really cool seeing the water bubble out of the ground. The kids loved it so much that we hated telling them that we couldn’t stay all that long. They cried when we had to leave.

The ride back was just as bad, and the driver stopped at a Mezcal fabrication tienda so we could all sample (and buy) mezcal. It was probably his brother, and this unscheduled stop was probably why we had such a short time at the springs. Jim tried the Mezcal but my stomach was still so unstable that I abstained.

Once back in Oaxaca I marched into a pharmacy and bought our second bottle of Pepto Bismol. That stuff is amazing. I chugged some right in the street and within a few minutes my stomach felt great. We serendipitously stumbled across one of the most wonderful restaurants I have ever been in in my life, called Bisnaga just like the amazing cactuses that grow here. I don’t know if it was because the food was so good, or because I was so happy that I could actually eat it—but it was such a welcome relief. Creative, inspired dishes, the best glass of wine I think I’ve ever had, and, best of all, they served the kids plain chicken and organic, disinfected carrots. We all ate like kings.