unknown road to unknown road

The year previous the front of the municipal building in Oaxaca de Juarez was occupied by an indigenous group called the Triquis. I added this pigs head to draw you in and get you to read an otherwise biased and rambling rant about another repressed indigenous group. I am not sure why I am writing about this, other than the fact that I passionately told the Triquis that I would do so. I remember walking past and not thinking very much of the shanty town in front of the government building, my Spanish likely insufficient to understand anyways. I choose to stop this time as I walk past and figure out what is going on. I am quickly drawn in and told a harrowing tale. Many simply look on as I speak with one of the leaders as they do not speak Spanish. The group initially drew the ire of the Mexican government and the state of Oaxaca by declaring their desire to live autonomous from the state, in accordance with their customs. A demand similar to that of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, where several indigenous villages have lived independent of the Mexican government since the revolution in the mid-1990’s. This declaration made San Juan Copala politically unpalatable and divisive, but the Mexican government had a response derived from the Zapatista rebellion: use paramilitaries instead of actual government forces to wage a proxy war. Through promises of land, political power, weapons and money the government convinced members of another nearby village to form a paramilitary group called MULT to assail the village. Dozens were murdered in cold blood, their bodies littering the bullet riddled town square. The population of the village was forced to flee, seeking refuge in the city center of Oaxaca de Juarez with the hopes of seeking justice and recovering their village. Both state and federal governments have conveniently turned a blind eye.

Several military and police assaults have attempted to violently evict the blight that the occupiers pose. The night before Christmas Eve police forces descended upon the makeshift slum with force, literally beating the hundreds of homeless people away in preparation for the celebrations in the square. After another year they still huddle on a sidestreet during the cold nights, pictures of bloodied corpses taped to the plastic tarps flapping in the wind.

Oaxaca de Jaurez, Oaxaca to outside Cerro Pelon, Oaxaca

We set out in the morning to a flurry of goodbyes, it is strange when you get to a place and all the right people come together. Energy builds rather than dissipating. After two weeks in the city, a diaspora sets out: April and Chelsea on their bikes towards Palenque, Kyleen and Chris towards San Cristobal. The feelings of doubt and exhaustion have lead me to reevaluate my approach to riding, to eschew goal oriented thinking and focus on simply being mindful. To honor the piece of me that revels in connecting with people, of staring in wonder at the world that abound in life and beauty, to commit myself deeper into this trip than before, to lose myself in it. GO.

I do some research on the hypothetical route that I have seen only vaguely traced in my map through towns with names like Poblado 1-14. There is not much to be found, beautiful. The other options are riding either on the Carribean or Pacific coast highways, either of which sounds like a boorish slog. Damien and I set out together planning to ride the following route through the Sierra Mixe, through the center of the Isthmus de Tehauntepec and on backroads into San Cristobal. Google titles the map: Unknown Road to Unknown Road. We don’t discuss it too much, we simply agree to leave one morning.

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We will try to follow the faint lines that wander through the jungle, not overly concerned about where it leads us. Turns are subjectively judged wrong only by certain premises, viewed with a different perspective they are whatever you want them to be. Pay attention. Confused readers or family members begrudgingly wading through my musings through some sort of obligation stemming from your desire to avoid awkward Skype phone calls: in all of my writing I am trying to share a philosophy that does not simply apply to cycling or traveling, it applies to every facet of life. It is my life’s work.

The city characteristically challenges our egress through traffic spilling uncontrolled and violent from arteries radiating from the city center in a blur of glass and steel. We ride shoulder to shoulder to continue conversations that seamlessly sweep from Noam Chomsky, finding meaningful happiness, economics, topes, Spinoza, agriculture, cycling, indigenous rights, environmental degradation, inequality, interconnectedness, mining, literature, our feces, globalization, the impossibility and undesirability of unconstrained growth, Wittgenstein. The challenges of our generation. Damien unselfconsciously unleashes a contagious roaring laugh at the world as he passes through it, whether canoeing through the Yukon Territories, walking the Pacific Crest Trail or cycling through the Americas. Cars narrowly pass with Doppler shifted horns wailing, protesting our egregious occupation of an exorbitant extension of the thoroughfare. This leads to more laughter.

I lead us to a mescal factory, called El Espadin, outside of Mitla. A mule tows a massive stonewheel in circles which grinds roasted maguey over a stone slab, the juice is collected for fermentation. We knock back a few sample shots that give the morning a strange texture. The walls are lined with jars of mescal with snakes neatly coiled inside, scorpions arching in a final death throe and tarantulas preserved in poise.

‘We need to shake it mate!’ Damien exclaims with a grin. (I am going to give Damien a more Australian accent for my own amusement.)

‘Why?’

‘I reckon if I stay here any longer I will wake up here in 20 years with an ungrateful wife and a half dozen children that I struggle to support with a corn farm in the desert. Mescal will give you roos loose in the top paddock.’ He roars.

This mescal factory served as the starting point for several adventures the previous year. I am riding a nostalgic road, one that lead to one of the stranger experiences that I have had on the road: a predawn gringo hunt in the woods outside of a small town called Cerro Pelon that lead to some sort of loose imprisonment for the night.

As we eat a woodfire cooked chicken on the roadside we laugh as a big white dog with something stuck in its foot prances instead of walking, all the while viciously lashing out at other dogs on the street.

Deciduous trees dot the mountainside of the Sierra Mixe, smearing brilliant reds and yellows across the landscape. Water cascades in waterfalls, trickles from cracks and slowly rolls off the points of leaves of grass. The chaos of the valley fades behind and below.

We crest a pass and are sent on a precipitous, curvaceous downhill marred with irregular deep potholes. I am nearly bucked off my bike several times, holding my breath as it miraculously does not explode on impact with the unavoidable. I keep my eyes on the road, reading the map of the surface. A driver approaches doing the same, she swerves completely into my lane as I silently approach at 45km/hr. I cut hard right and nail the brakes, adrenaline instantly coursing through my veins as I struggle to regain control of the bike.

After 15 minutes we are ejected into a small town that appears to grow nothing besides tomatoes. I harass the driver of a potato chip truck about the route forward. Coca-Cola, Frito Lay and beer penetrate into every crevice and niche of this country, and likely the world, that is accessible by bike. This is the reality of our world, making the drivers are a valuable resource. He draws a detailed map for us of the road ahead, far more detailed than the blurry, discontinuous lines on Google Maps.

We begin climbing again. The afternoon heat radiates off the pavement, each breath seeming to heat my body further, stoking me like a furnace. Pines dominate the landscape.

I find myself once again outside of Cerro Pelon with the night closing in upon us. I debate boldly entering town with a smile on my face and asking the head of the agency if we can stay in the cell where I slept last time. We ride on until spotting a small trail cutting up into a canyon. We pass the bikes over a guardrail before cooking one of my signature questionable dinners cobbled together from random items we bought on the roadside. Sardines, beans in a bag, rice, butter, bullion cubes full of MSG, chiles…..

Outside Cerro Pelon, Oaxaca to Santa Maria Alotepec, Oaxaca

I awake to a sky filled with shifting and rising clouds, the sun occasionally winking through. We hit the steep gradient as soon as we pass the bikes over the rail. We reach San Pedro and San Pablo Ayutla where we restock and eat breakfast above the gaping chasm that the city is anchored above. I seek out deep yellow handmade criollo tortillas, my journey leading me to a small lady at the end of an alley. She claps out tortillas in a smokey room so small that you couldn’t spin a cat by the tail without hitting one of the fire-darkened walls. She cackles as we talk about tortillas, her face hovering over the comal as the corn rises on the heat of the red embers.

We take a right hand turn on the outside of town that cuts steeply upwards. The towns water is supplied by pipes that funnel water pouring off of a sizable waterfall, as it should be.

I paperboy up the precipice that leads to Tierra Blanca. Chickens and turkeys disproportionately react to my incredibly slow approach, scattering in a racket. I build a map of the cloud shrouded sierra as my tires traverse the serpentine jagged spine: it looks like a mad tangle of yarn with little to no order. A man seems to be climbing a cliff with corn growing out of it, I gasp as he risks loosing his handhold on the surface as he waves.

We ride a road that is simply a gash cut into the mountainside by machinery, the road littered with rocks and debris from above. A town looms ahead on the spine, its sky blue church catches my eye first. We roll into Ascencion Cacalotepec where we lunch in a small shack that hangs over a cliff, we look down through cracks in the irregularly planed wooden floor to see clouds below.

A little girl of eight brazenly and uncharacteristically approaches us while her mother heats tortillas for us. She has never spoken to any foreigners before and asks us about what it is like where we live and why we are riding our bicycles.
She hands us some fruit as we set out, the whole family coming out to wish us the best.

A descent begins here that is strewn with potholes, landscape debris, animals and all manners of hazards that we navigate as we pedal and lean through the turns. What lies ahead is unknown. The mountains here are the most rugged and steep that I have encountered yet. There are gradients that deceptively lead into medieval tope traps. We cross a saddle that is just wide enough for the road, sheer drops on either side. I frequently brake and stop to take in the rugged landscape with bold outposts of civilization dotting the flanks. I am far away.

We pass San Isidro Huayapan, drop towards Estancia de Morelos in the river bottom below before winding our around the mountainside to Alotepec. A man who has returned home after 15 years in the United States chats with as for a bit at a fork in the road.

‘It is great since I have been back here. You have to pay for everything in America. Freedom to me is owning your own land, having free water, producing your own food, owning your time.’ He passionately explains. I vehemently nod my head in agreement.

The landscape at the river bottom is comprised of coffee and banana fields. Flowers waver around the small homes with coffee drying out front.

We pass men and women returning from the fields, wrestling loaded bags  of coffee with machetes dangling by their side. Laughter emanates from the rows of coffee trees. This sierra represents a surreal paradise to me. On the final climb into Alotepec I am pursued by a burro burdened with wood, I struggle to keep ahead. Several men emerge from the trees on the roadside carrying rifles, giving me a little bit of anxiety as they stand in the roadside and stare out at us from behind blank faces hardened by life here in the mountains. At one point more than half of the road has been consumed by the cliff that it dangles over, a gaping hole into nothingness. The white church of Alotepec stands like a beacon in the distance.

I ride into the town square and make a few circles in front of the municipal building, before sitting down sweatsoaked to shiver and wait for Damien. The sun has been lost in the gray sky.

‘Where can we sleep?’ I ask a few men sitting on the steps of the municipal building.

‘Anywhere? Over there?’ An old man in a cowboy hat points to some steps in front of the municipal building.

Friday night unfolds in a cacophony of dog barking, music, giggling teenagers as we cook dinner and relax. People stare at us and talk amongst themselves in Mixe. I feel like an exhibition, a representation for gringos in general. What rumors will start about gringos based upon my behavior? What if I ate an onion like an apple? What if I Damien and I did headstands and carried on a conversation for a while? What if I sacrificed something? Or build a shrine to an inanimate object?

They move us into the police station as night falls, the police sleep by our side waiting for….. I am not sure. We sleep under a mural with a quote from Benito Juarez that says the following: ‘Damn those who defend the town with their words, but betray it with their actions.’

Alotepec, Oaxaca to Puxmetecan, Oaxaca

Someone pounds on the door until the policemen wake up, which disconcertingly takes a few minutes. I stroll out to have a leak and am greeted with a luminous blue sky. The towering cliffs that back the town are illuminated. I stand transfixed with genitals in hand. I spend the next hour or two answering questions about how expensive my bike is and doing alternating impressions of the billowing loudspeaker that presides over town. The quality is mediocre and the Mixe sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Here is a rough translation from what I could gather, ‘The white devils have arrived and have arisen to drink the blood of the pure. We must eliminate them before the ball of fire in the sky reaches its apex. Assemble in the town square for the reckoning. There will be free flan courtesy of Mrs. Martinez. Juan, your mother called to notify us that you left your sack lunch at home.’

Turkeys and chickens peck the square.

I look at Cotzocon in the distance in sheer bewilderment, unable to discern a way. There are several ridges and valleys separating us. We start with a descent down a loose rock filled road, my hands cramping from perpetual braking. In Cotzocon we stop in front of a school to ask directions, the small schoolhouse empties rapidly. Dozens of children stare at us, refusing to answer any of our questions.

Over lunch I try and learn some Mixe words from the locals, they fade from my memory within minutes. Wizened old men burdened with coffee beans and firewood smile as we pass. We dismount and walk past packs of wary donkeys.

The road is wet red clay that sends us sliding occasionally. Damien falls to the ground several times on one descent, laughing the entire time. We rattle over solid limestone slabs in dark verdant tunnels. The air is fragrant with flowers and the smells of the jungle.

We reach our nadir for the day, Rio Puxmetecan. We peer off the bridge as a few men walk upstream in their underwear wielding spears. We ride down to the river and swim in the cool water of the river, white flowers dangle over its surface and drop petals. The young men show me a bag of fish they speared. A truck crosses the bridge, a rare bit of traffic on this stretch of road. Everyone starts screaming and running in their underwear up the river bank after the truck.

‘Watch out for the crocodiles!’ One of them shouts as he takes off. They catch a ride back to town.

We make our final approach as the sun cuts horizontally through the trees, slogging upwards towards Puxmetacan on a distantly near ridge. The sun sets as we ridge into town. I set a group of girls hysterically laughing by merely saying ‘hola.’ The gringo payaso.

We ride up to the municipal building drenched in sweat and delirious. I take off my bandana and comb my hair with my hand. I straighten the shirt that is stuck to my skin. I suavely explain to a group of men who we are and that we need a place to stay. I am told that I need to speak with the authorities.

I am ushered upstairs in a very formal manner, where I am told that I have to wait until the authorities are ready to see me. I am given a plastic lawn chair. I wait a minute before I am brought into a nice office with four men sitting behind hardwood desks with stacks of paper on them. They wear collared shirts like me, a sign that we are all respectable and trustworthy. I greet them and then give my story, being as polite as possible. They say that they have a spot for us and that we can wait below until we are notified that it is ready. I thank them and say a few kind words about the village.

‘Also, a kid told me that there were crocodiles in the river while I was swimming, are there?’ I ask hesitatingly.

‘No.’ They all laugh at me in a way that says hopeless gringo.

We wait on the municipal steps and watch young and old play futbol, basketball and light of fireworks. The futbol pitch overlooks a steep drop, it is the centerpiece of town. We are lead to a freshly cleaned house with matresses  laid out for us. We cook dinner and make hot chocolate, we accept many visitors who we regale with tales of our distant lands.

‘I am from America, but he is from Australia. The other side of the world! There are kangaroos there and women three meters tall. There are more toads and sheep than people and there president can’t read.’ This is generally how I shift conversations over to Damien so that I can write or read after a long day of riding.

The town, like most Mixe villages, operates relatively democratically. Land is communally held through the ejidal system, there is no buying or selling. It is given with the explicit agreement that one will serve a year working for the municipality for one year out of every two or three performing a variety of different functions that are randomly given. Although the nature of the job rotates, one stature or rank within the municipality increases over the years. The townspeople work together constructing houses, planting and harvesting. All community gatherings work like potlucks, with everyone contributing. It is hard not to idealize this place.

‘Can I live here?’

‘If you agree to work we would give you land.’ One of the village leaders sincerely tells me.

Massive moths circle the room and a gecko clicks on the ceiling. The PA here is preceeded by a futuristic sound effect, which is where most of its authority is derived from. The monotone Mixe message that follows seems inconsequential after such a regal introduction. Damien rolls around on the ground laughing everytime. I think about accepting the free land, but the PA system really lowers real estate values.