Oaxaca

 On a walking tour of Oaxaca we are taken to an art library established by the sculptor Francisco Toledo, an indigenous Zapotec artist and something of a local hero. When the library became too much of a financial burden to maintain, he sold it to the local government for 1 peso on the condition that it would remain free and open for use. It’s a beautiful space. As we arrive there is a talk underway in an auditorium which is not quite open air. Rather its roof is of tangled vines, allowing only slivers of the sunset to penetrate through to the stone tiled floors and neatly-arranged chairs. The speaker is struggling to be heard over the sound of hundreds of birds, returning to their nests for the evening. 

Oaxaca is a city of artists. Walk down the street and it is more mural than wall. These are load-bearing. Rows of shops sell pig-shaped pots made by indigenous pottery collectives in the Sierra Nevada mountains, or brightly coloured rugs and wool, or handmade soaps, or screen prints, or carved wooden spoons. Mexico’s first and only indigenous president, Benito Juarez, was born here. On International Woman’s Day there is a horseback ride through town, and later a small riot, with fire being lit, and the names of rapists and abusers written in blood-red paint across the walls of a Banco Aztéca alongside a spraypaint stencil of a severed cock. 

As you might imagine it’s my kind of place. 

Oaxaca state in general is home to the greatest linguistic diversity in Mexico. There are sixteen indigenous languages spoken here in addition to Spanish. On a hike around Hierve el Agua, a set of mineral pools and one of the largest petrified waterfalls on the planet, the local guide passes around mezcal and then dabs some around his neck for good health. It’s very good. I think I could get into drinking spirits in the morning. It feels good for my health as well. I manage to burn a whole new part of my body - the back of my knees. Have you ever burned the backs of your knees before? I’ve never even thought about the backs of my knees. They’re a completely inert zone. They’re probably the single part of my body I care least about. No wonder they wanted attention.

One evening a group of us from the hostel climb to the top of a nearby hill to watch the sun set, perched on a concrete wall overlooking the road below. The wind threatens to pluck us off. A group of dirt bikers practice jumping off walls. A local couple snoozes together below in the amber light as two dogs saunter along the wall with complete impunity. Animals don’t understand heights. 

Oaxaca is good. I have a good routine in Oaxaca. I wake early, I work, I write. I eat expensive pastries and drink good coffee. I manage not to get sunburned or have too much mezcal, with the notable exception of the one night I get roped into playing beer pong and Reza, the hostel’s entertainment guy, who fires off delightful high-pitched laughs like a machine gunner, ends up pouring it into mouths. We lose the beer pong, obviously. I did have a catty remark about Americans taking it too seriously because they don’t have any culture but my team loses to two racist French girls. They do cheat, however, as both lean forward and pucker their lips to blow a steady stream of air across the top of the cup to stop the ball from going in. This is not against the rules apparently. I have lodged an appeal with the ICC. 

After Oaxaca city, a winding minivan to the town of San José del Pacifico. A few miles away is the town of Huautla de Jiménez, once home to María Sabina, the sabia (wise woman) credited with, or perhaps blamed for, the rise of the spiritual practice of taking magic mushrooms in the West. Several books, a flood of hippy visits and one murder later and Huautla de Jiménez is off limits to mushroom tourists, but fear not - they’re all in San José del Pacifico now.

If it wasn’t in such an extraordinarily beautiful setting - at the top of one of the most breathtaking mountainous valleys I’ve ever seen - you’d say San José was a bit cheap. It’s Shroom Disneyland. Murals, statues, figurines, hotels, everything is mushroom. They know why people come here. On an overlook in the middle of town (technically the highest mirador but not the best) I climb past so many chest-high painted wooden mushrooms that it feels like I’m in a children’s play area. 

The hostel is in sharp contrast to this. It is extraordinarily bougie. It feels like being in a Swiss skiing chalet. A high-ceilinged wood cabin with an open fire (it gets cold at night), several terraces from which to watch the sunrise, an on-site restaurant which verges on fine dining. Views in all directions of conifer woodland, rangy cacti, plunging valleys. It is serviced by slightly comical little taxis which look like the cars that children push around with their feet. I choose to walk, if only to maintain a little dignity. 

Up a dirt track past the hostel, higher up the ridge on which it sits, I participate in a Temazcal ceremony. Seven of us are led in chants around an increasingly large pile of red-hot stones inside a clay hut. Water infused with laurel, rosemary and eucalyptus is thrown onto the stones and the faces of the others are lost in fragrant steam. Sizzling water splashes over my bare legs and on my chest. I feel certain that the hair on my body is crisping and withering away in the intense, gasping heat. 

At the beginning we are asked what we are hoping to get out of the experience. One man says that he wants to attain a higher plane of consciousness. Feeling somewhat ambushed, I say I want to decide whether to take mushrooms or not later that day. This is treated like I’ve said something funny, but I thought it was a reasonable question. Then again, I do have quite a personal history with mushrooms. 

The answer, as I emerged shakily back into the daylight, soaked to my skin, was that yes, I would take mushrooms. I ate a few handfuls of peanuts and chilli sauce, I checked the football score (2-0 to Arsenal), we bought the mushrooms, and then after showering I made the tea. I’ve expended enough words in my life on the experience of a bad trip. Suffice it to say that a year was not long enough for my body to forget. As I felt myself slithering back into it once more, a climber clawing at the earth after a snapped rope, I was at least able to comfort myself that I had taken a sensible amount. And so I had. I got through it without major additional psychic damage. Everyone else had a nice time. I can’t do mushrooms any more. So it goes. 

After San José del Pacifico, a bilious, winding van ride to the coast. I’ve had some bad times in motor vehicles, but the constant rattling, swinging, stomach-churning of this one will surely breach the top 5. The Gods saw fit to bless us with a flat tyre so there was a few minute respite while the drivers whipped it off and replaced it as we milled around, crisping in the sun. 

I made it to the town of Mazunte on the Pacific coast, where I’m writing this from a hammock. There may be more to say about Mazunte, there may not. 

Travelling for me involves constantly swinging between the need for privacy and the need for company. I get sick of being around people and having no privacy or peace fairly quickly, but it doesn’t take me that long to get lonely either. Not so desperately that I can’t endure my own company but it’s not good for me to go whole weeks without saying anything out loud except buenas dias, por favor, gracias and puedo pagar con tarjeta. I’ve been very lucky that since getting to Oaxaca I’ve met a lot of kind, interesting, funny people. Sometimes several times. You can’t draw too many conclusions from this, though the thought did cross my mind that maybe this particular route is taken by a particular kind of backpacker - absolute legends. That’s us. More likely is just that the world’s full of kind, interesting and funny people, and all that’s missing is a pretext to talk to them. 

All of this in combination means I’ve had a very memorably great time in Oaxaca so far. And I’ve also managed to get this far without mentioning that I’ve had Down with the Sickness stuck in my head for the entire time after noticing that Oaxaca sounds a bit like the ooh wah ah ah bit if you say it completely wrong.

Ciao.