Badger On Tour

OAXACA

Unbeweavable! The land of the loom and the mighty Mezcal.

After arriving late into the night i was up bright and early to meet some friends from Mexico City for a day of market touring and city strolling. After a week in a busy city i was good and ready for some relaxing and sunning, we had some great cooking party's and enjoyed drinking on various roof terraces but the main attraction of Oaxaca for me was visiting Hierve el Agua and the petrified waterfalls. I liked it so much i went twice! Once with an organised tour and once under my own steam. Ill tell you about the later as it is way more insterrested...

After a night of enjoying Oaxaca's finest drinking establishments myself and three fellow travelers (Olivia, Emily & Byron) set off to get to Hierve el Agua. We took two buses and a  collectivo taxi to the closest town; all of which were very easy and cost around 30 pesos. After this we were lucky enough to find 4 other people waiting to take the truck up the mountain, you need 8 people to go up and the driver won't leave until there are enough people. 

The truck is an open 4x4 and it was a real white knuckle ride to the top through some small rural towns and along the winding roads. After 40 minutes we finally reached the top and we walked down to the pools for a much anticipated swim! It was amazing and i had an amazing time on both trips. The added bonus of the tour was that we went to visit some of the local weaving family's just outside of Oaxaca and learnt about how they use local plants to dye the wool before hand weaving it. A large rug can take up  to a month and even smaller pieces are relatively time consuming, i wanted to buy everything!!!! 

The final highlight was a visit to a Mezcal farm for a tour of the production process and some free samples. Mezcal is made from Agava which is locally grown, harvested, roasted and crushed by a stone wheel pulled by a horse. They then leave this to distill for 10 days in water and finally distill the alcohol off. The Mezcal is then aged and the older it is the smoother it is. You traditionally sip it with a slice of orange dipped in worm salt. Delicous and powerful!