Moss Hanging off the Trees. It´s only for very specific parts of the trail so its considered quite special by the locals.
in a full week later and I´m finally going to tell the adventure of the final day of treking.. It was… um exciting. Well the trek itself was fantastic. Woke up after an amazing night of sleep in the little Cabanas in Latuvi and ate some of the snacks we bought the night before for breakfast. Was a perfect light snack to get started. Then it was down to the guide office to get going. The office guy greated us and then started the news… Well he said it was going to be troublesome for us because the little collective taxis that run between the villages.. Well they don´t actually run on sundays and since it was sunday well they really weren´t sure how we were going to get back. I asked a few questions and stayed as calm as possible and we figured otu that a bus left the town we would be hiking to at about 4 pm.. Not quite the 1pm we had hoped to get headed back to Oacaxa, but being in the middle of the mountains we didn´t really have much in the way of choices so we got started on the hike. The hike was right away better for Scott and I because the woman who had been hiking with us the day before was headed in a diffrent dirrection so now it was time to turn on the gas and push ourselves a little. I think we also did because we held out a little hope the if we hussled we could make it to the village and that minibus would have really been canceled.
It started off with a nice 2 km drop down into a beautiful river canyon, lush and green and just starting to grown with the rainy season. In some areas what looked like spanish moss, but was a slightly diffrent central american version hung down 4 to 5 feet off of the trees. This was for about 8 km and you will see the interesting excerpts of it in my photos. The weathers in the canyon was amazing too, a perfect day for hiking. I think the guide was having fun too because we talked abotu native agriculture and substinence economics and we didn´t take breaks.
Nice View right?
The last part was what was sold to us has a hard 4 km climb. It was really about 2 km of challenging climb up small trails and then 2 km of gravel or even paved roads into town. Amatlan and it´s sister town were night and day to Latuvi the nigth before. Where Latuvi was a spread out very very poor substinence farming community. Amatlan was still quite poor but because of being inhabited by the spanish in the distance past it was graced with slightly more prosperity, a new government building, and a cute rural church.
The guide dropped us off and helped us confirm that the ONLY bus really wasn´t until about 4 that afternoon. So we found the little comedor and had the plate of the day ssome egg and vege mix and to the greatest suprise also found out that the little cafe doubled as a internet cafe… in the middle of a mountain village ok well whatever works. The other big suprise was that the carne asada was served with the best salsa of the trip. I complimented the chef and got the recipe. Dried Chile de Arbol, Garlic, and rosted tomatillos or green tomatos…. I´m not really sure. So afterthat well we waited…. and waited.. and napped on a bench.. and waited a little more..
Crazy bug outside of the Comedor where we ate.
FOOD
The bus finally got moving and it was going to become quite a cattle car as it was the weekly municipal bus that takes the kids back to school for the week in the city. It was a long, slowly, badly driven, windy, 3 hour ride… fantastic.. In which we were dropped off somewhere sorta near the central station more or less. We then found our way to buy 4 am tickets to the coast and found some food in the Market… I had meat and veges and Scott got a terrible rendidtion of enfrioladas… kindle like enchiladas but these werent. The real treat was a cup of hot chocolate local style mixed with corn masa to make a almost pudding like consistency of goodness. Then it was back to the hostel and SLEEP… One more day down.