San Mateo Del Rio Hondo

In the inebriating petrichor of morning, I decided that my El Dorado would surely be found on the shores of the Oaxacan coast. And to get there, I would take the famous Mex-175. Clad in scales of dark bitumen, this serpentine road slithers blithely from cool pine forests to sweltering jungles to white sand beaches. I broke the ride into two sinuous days, staying overnight in the curious mountain town of San Mateo del Rio Hondo. A more enchantingly peculiar place I may never happen upon.

Nestled on the hillside of a deep, misty valley, an organic network of well-worn footpaths compensates for the total lack of planning. Exposed rebar yearns aspirationally from the top of every unfinished cement home. In the gardens, wilted plastic bags and shards of broken toys are strewn among the roots of beautiful bougainvilleas. Carefully potted plants lie on their sides. Scorch marks tell of burn piles lit right in the middle of the yard. The marijuana plants clearly get lots of attention. These gardens are microcosms and metaphors. Created with great care and ambition, but left to fallow and never return. It seems that life just tends to get in the way here

And in this humble town you will find an unlikely diaspora of expats (read: immigrants) from every corner of the world. They haven't bent this place to their will - they don't have the money nor desire to do so. They have gone native, electing to live in what many of us would consider undesirable conditions. Like my host Tibor, who wears a tattered poncho and strolls barefoot among the bric-a-brac littering his property. But it's with a proud, nearly toothless grin that he says he hasn't been back to Hungary in 16 years. Apparently there's an American named Terry who has the only lawn in town, which he cuts with tweezers. He might have done too many of the psychedelic mushrooms that are cultivated openly here.

Clearly these folks have found - or escaped - something here. But no matter the impetus, it is nice to know that every place is somebody's Shangri La.