Hey, Babe, Take a Walk on the Oaxaca Side
By: Daniela Velázquez
Tags: Traveling Alone, Mexico, Hiking, Oaxaca, Spanish Language

In a four-day stretch, I managed to get booted out of a hotel, got my ass kicked during a cloud-covered mountain forest hike, then canceled a beach trip with a no-refund flight because, somehow, my intuition told me at the last minute it would be a bad idea. Oh, and I experienced my first México earthquake. Hey, life is an adventure, right?

So, as we say in the U.S., “What had happened was…”

As magical México would have it, my friend and neighbor from St. Louis planned a trip to visit his family in Juárez de Oaxaca, a quaint town known for its gastronomical delights, abundance of mezcalerias, and all-around artsy vibras.

During my first few days of my extended weekend trip, Alejandro and I walked around the colonial city, taking photos with the brightly-colored casas and edificios in the background. I met his family and friends, and really, really tried to love mezcal as much as I love tequila. At this beautiful, high-end, art deco-meets-tropical bar called Selva, a mixologist specially made a custom mezcal cocktail for me. In between outings, I worked remotely from my hotel.

When I travel, I like to leave room for both spontaneity and activity. (I also have an innate fear of being somewhere I don’t know and being bored. Blame my Gemini-ness.) On Saturday, I had booked a hike up to La Cumbre de Ixtepeji, a stunning, mountainous and wooded region outside of Oaxaca in Región Sierra Norte. It would be the peak (pun intended) of my trip — then the next day I’d fly to Puerto Escondido, a beach town in the state of Oaxaca, about 140 miles from the city of Juárez de Oaxaca. I’d stay until Tuesday and then fly back to CDMX.

Ixtepeji is in one of México’s richest zones of biodiversity. The region, with 400 species of birds and 350 species of butterflies, is a gorgeous eco-tourism spot that feels as if you found yourself in an earthly version of “Where the Wild Things Are.” The paths are slim and steep. An assortment of tall trees provide a gorgeous backdrop for rolling, greenery-filled hills dotted with brightly colored, wild flowers and an assortment of cartoonish mushrooms in a hazy, wet cloud. It’s almost pure wilderness. There is no cell phone service. (This detail becomes important later.)

The mountain’s 1,600-foot elevation had Pandemic Daniela, who is not in nearly as good shape as Powerlifting Daniela, huffing and puffing all the way to La Cumbre. When I got to the top, I was shivering as my sweat seemed more wet on the cooler mountaintop. We were about halfway through the 10-kilometer/6-mile hike — but the descent was a different kind of strenuous — running down parts of trails commonly used by extreme mountain bikers, including one named “Double Stroke,” after a biker had two strokes following a crash into a tree.

In the final 1–2 mile stretch, the rain cascaded on top of us from the clouds above. I had put on my rain jacket, but it was no match for the downpour. At the time, I felt great. “This is what being alive is all about!” I exclaimed to myself as I trudged through the muddy trail. “This is what you wanted to experience!”

An hour later, I felt like a drowned rat. Sitting in a mountainside cafeteria, I tried to warm myself up with hot atole, a pre-Columbian drink made of corn and cinnamon, and soup. I reminded myself that the shivering, uncomfortable cold feeling is also part of life — I should be equally grateful to feel it, though I was keenly aware of my wet socks and soppy hiking boots and daydreaming of a long, hot shower.

I had booked the tour through an adventure travel agency. Our party of four — the guide and two other solo travellers — had met at the adventure tour shop early in the morning. The guide had driven us up through the mountains where we stopped for breakfast, then hiked and then finished up our lunch. I took my single, leftover chicken taco to go — para llevar — at this rustic mountain eatery, that meant I was carrying a taco wrapped up in a piece of pink construction paper. It looked like a taco-sized, homemade telescope that a child would use for pirate cosplay.

As we were talking on the ride down, I was chatting with one of my fellow hikers, a powerlifter-CrossFit-yoga teacher-graphic designer from the Netherlands, who was traveling through Mexico by herself. She told me about a Dutch expression that she thinks about often:

“We suffer more when we fear the uncertainty of life — and life is always uncertain. We do better to accept it than to suffer from worry.”

Just a few minutes later, I finally had cell service again. A flurry of text messages in Spanish came through from my hotel:

“Hola, this is the hotel. Today is your check-out date. At noon.”

“We can hold your things until 2 p.m., but if it’s after then, we will have to clean out your room and pack up your things to prepare your room for someone else.”

It was 3:15 p.m.

I immediately replied. “Is there another room available?”

“No.”

“Well, I won’t return for another 45 minutes or so.”

I sat in the car, with these three strangers riding down from the mountains on the way back to Oaxaca, half laughing to myself and half wondering: “WTF? How did I manage to not book the right amount of days?” “Do I try to explain everything?” “And what am I going to do with this taco wrapped up in paper?” It was slowly becoming more and more limp in my hand. “Maybe it’s still edible?” I had another three-quarter-mile walk back from the tour shop to the hotel and I was, as they say in Spanish, empapada — soaked.

I calmly got out of the car, said my goodbyes and started to trek back to the hotel in my mud-covered socks, damp leggings and wet sweatshirt. Then, I just had this feeling that I needed to come back to Mexico City as soon as I could. The past few days, I’d tried no less than six times to book a return flight from Puerto Escondido to CDMX — the internet timed out a few times and the website rejected my credit card twice. I had managed to reserve a seat but had to find an ATM and pay for it en efectivo (cash) before 5 a.m. The trip just felt all wrong.

Still holding the taco, I walked back to the Oaxaca hotel. I cancelled my hotel reservation for Puerto Escondido and told myself that a hot shower was on its way, followed by decisions. I could always book another room somewhere if I changed my mind.

Two blocks away from the hotel, it started to rain again. My first decision was that my leftover chicken taco was no longer appetizing, so I tossed it. I clomped a little bit faster in my hiking boots through the cobblestone streets and made my way to the hotel lobby. All my things were behind the front desk.

“Do you need a recommendation for another hotel?” The receptionist asked, before she gave me an additional bill for the maids packing up my things.

“Uh, no. I’ll find something.”

I quickly checked to see if everything was there (it was), used the restroom (after all, I’d only had the forest all day) and started searching for a hotel room. I hailed a taxi (no Uber in Oaxaca) and made my way to Las Amantes (The Lovers). I figured I’d love myself with a nice room.

I peeled off my wet clothes and took the longest hot shower ever, put on the lovely waffle-knit hotel robe and laid down in bed. What to do about tomorrow? I had a non-refundable flight from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido, no hotel room or return flight, and a weird, anxious feeling that I should skip the beach.

So, I called my mom.

“Yo, Ma, here’s what happened (we laughed as I told her not to tell my dad, who would panic). I have this flight and this feeling. I have an important work presentation that requires a good internet connection and I just think I should not be down there this weekend.”

“You’ve always had a strong intuition, hija. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t go.”

There’s an apt Mexican dicho, or saying: Más vale decir, aquí corrió que aquí murió. Translation: it ‘s better to run than to die.

It basically means that when there’s a risk, it’s better to do what you need to do in spite of what others may think of your decision.

After I got off the phone, I booked my flight back to Mexico City for the next morning. I then took myself out to a fancy dinner across the street.

56 hours later at 8:47 p.m., as I was sitting in my Airbnb in CDMX working on my laptop, I felt the building start to move back and forth. Immediately, I was confused with the unfamiliar feeling. I stood up and realized it was not in my mind. The building was indeed swaying. I braced my legs, and felt my apartment rocking from side to side. I was almost in a meditative state, I could see the movement happening beneath my feet, as if my legs were connected through the building’s foundation to the earth. Then, there was a bright flash of light. The alarms started to sound and the dogs across the city barked, creating a cacophony of sonidos.

This was an earthquake. A 7.1 earthquake that originated 230 miles away from Mexico City, under Acapulco — and was felt much more near Puerto Escondido, the beach town I had planned on visiting before my intuition kicked in and I canceled the flight.