Oaxaca

Oaxaca was always to be the apogee of this trip. I think many would call Oaxaca a heartland of Mexico, for among 31 states it boasts the greatest diversity of indigenous cultures, with many of their languages and crafts still in use.

Sadly, upon arrival things weren't going my way. Hobbes was acting up again, and it was clearly more than just a case of bad gas. To no avail I spent the day searching for an English speaking mechanic and a hostel with parking for the bike. To top it off, I received an extortionate $395 bill for my pre-depature flu shot - which insurance refused to cover. For my friends in the Eurozone, that's 99 Le Big Macs. Oh mon dieu.

On the heels of quaint towns like Guanajuato, Oaxaca City just didn't do much for me. I headed to Hierva Al Agua, one of only two petrified waterfalls in the known universe (the other is in Turkey). As soon as I parked, three guys came up to me, put their hands on the bike, and asked me how much it cost. I humored them for 30 seconds, then rode as far away as I could, which was all of 100 feet. Unfortunately the "campsite" was just the side of the parking lot, so I pitched my tent and stayed right there for the rest of the day.

By 7pm I was eerily alone, when with a violent thunderclap, the heavens opened up. Within minutes a deluge had engulfed my tent in at least an inch of standing water. Lightning began striking far too close for comfort, with each blinding flash revealing that the floor rippled like the surface of a waterbed. The ear-splitting protest of oxygen molecules being rent apart reverberated through the canyon as I considered bugging out. But it was nighttime and the nearest town was 45 minutes down a precarious, now muddy road. I kept my things dry on my sleeping pad/raft until the rain thankfully abated around 11pm, and I managed to get some sleep.

In the morning, I had the place to myself, so I hiked around the "waterfalls." They're cool, but not worth all that fuss. I didn't know it then, but on the way back I ended up riding mere feet from the largest tree in the world. Missed it by a bee's dick, which is a saying I recently learned from some locals (they were local to London, I believe).