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Of all the thousands of possible day-trips from tourist centers in Mexico, perhaps none is as varied, educational, beautiful and just plain fun as that along the eastern part of the Valley of Oaxaca. One of the great attractions of this trip is that it is less than fifty kilometers drive along a good highway to reach the furthest point. Numerous tours (out of Oaxaca) ply this route but few do justice to the extraordinary diversity that awaits you in the valley. An alternative, preferable if you really want to do justice when exploring this area, is to hire a car or car with driver and do it yourself!
Start early because there's lots to see. In fact, it's impossible to see everything here in a single day so either be prepared to come back, be selective as to which stops you make, or be ruthless as to how much time you allow yourself in each place.
The route follows highway 190 (which continues to the industrial port of Salina Cruz) and all the places mentioned lie very close to the highway.
Just 15 minutes out of Oaxaca city is Santa María del Tule, a village which would probably have been consigned to a very minor role in history, and the guidebooks, were it not the home of the world's largest tree. This monster tree, the largest-girthed in the world (35.8 meters or 117.6 feet at 5 feet above the ground) though not the tallest or most massive, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is simply humungous when approached from ground level. For that matter, it's probably pretty big if you're a bird! In the past, cynics could be heard claiming that this tree - a Moctezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) - was really two trees with abutting trunks. But the definitive proof is now in. A study published in 1997 (quoted in Plant Talk) and based on random amplified polymorphic DNA testing (whatever that is!) confirms that the many hundreds of tons, metric or imperial, of this tule or ahuehuete definitely belong to the same, single, mammoth, 2000-year old tree. Protected by a wrought-iron railing and with its own irrigation system, this is one tree that definitely looks healthier now than it did ten years ago. If it were only easier to photograph, it might even be better known... To one side is its "little" child, big enough to be considered a giant in its own right anywhere else in the world except here.
After your brief stop in Tule, and your inevitable disappointment at failing to find a really good camera angle to remember the tree by, continue further east and take the turn (south) for the village of Tlacochahuaya. Here, an impressive former monastery, dedicated to St. Jerome, the patron of hermits, is delightfully decorated in brilliant colours. Worthy of admiration, too, are several old plateresque rococo altarpieces.
Back to the highway and only a few kilometers further east brings you to a roadside "pyramid" sign pointing the way to the small but important archaeological site of Dainzu. As you step out of your vehicle and look around, you'll quickly realize that its name, derived from "hill of the organ cactus", is certainly appropriate. Dainzu flourished as a smaller settlement, alongside Monte Alban until about 350 A.D. Look for the striking jaguar-bat which decorates a tomb and for the depictions of the headgear, armgear and ball of the famous Mesoamerican "ball-players." The ball game had mythological significance throughout central America although no-one has yet worked out precisely how it was played. Despite its significance, depictions of the ball game are frustratingly rare, hence the importance of Dainzu. The people hereabouts must have been very proud of some of the game's players to have undertaken such a time-consuming task as laboriously chipping away at their rock walls to create such significant emblems.
Continuing east along the highway you soon reach the sideroad on the left (north) to Teotitlan del Valle, a town to which early Dominican missionaries introduced sheep - and wool. Teotitlan is famous today for woolen rugs, with designs ranging from animal motifs and Picassos to the geometrical, this latter style echoing the superb pre-Columbian stonework found at Mitla, the furthest point on this self-guided route. Indeed the skilled weavers of Teotitlan will happily craft by hand a customized one-off special design of any idea or picture you like, but be sure to allow plenty of time for them to complete it! Most modern-day production uses synthetic yarns and fibers and chemical dyes though traditional pure wool designs, using "natural" colours (which are generally less gaudy than their chemical equivalents) can still be found. The natural colours employed in Teotitlan come from recipes handed down through the generations and utilize such raw materials as pomegranate, pecan bark, prickly pear fruit, cochineal beetles and Pacific coast snails.
If buying wall-hangings or blankets here, expect to be engaged in a possibly lengthy bargaining session. If your Spanish is weak and you still want to drive a hard bargain, try writing the numerals constituting your offer on a scrap of paper. At least that way you avoid the ignominious difficulty, not to say embarrassment, afforded one of my friends who once bargained for almost an hour in the mid-day sun in his determination to beat the salesman's "quinientos" down to the "cuarenta" he was prepared to pay. Only after lots of head-shaking and heated exchanges did it become clear that "cuarenta" was not the same as "cuatrocientos" and did not mean 400 as my friend had intended, but a positively miserly 40 pesos!
Furthermore, don't expect to find...
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