The road to the coast

Oaxaca is known among biologists and botanists as the state with the largest biodiversity in the country of Mexico.  It has many climates represented including mountainous regions, dessert regions, and tropical regions.  It has high forested mountains and deep valleys as well as a long coastline.  It is the location where North American plant species meet and mix with plant species coming from Central and South America.

To travel from Oaxaca City to the Puerto Escondido, we took a very windy two lane "highway" over the mountains.  It was a trip of roughly 180 miles, where our maximum speeds due to the constant switchback turns was around 45 MPH and an average speed closer to 35 MPH.  It took about 8 hours to traverse the mountains.  And we had various cases of severe car sickness, despite reaching for Dramamine.  Hence...the camera pretty much stayed packed for the duration of the trip.

All that said, the scenery was fantastic!  The mountains were incredibly steep, going straight up on one side of the road and then down on the other.  And yet, even on a 60 degree incline, there were countless patches of corn planted on the mountainside in clearings between the trees. 

Leaving Oaxaca City the temperature was a dry 85 degrees.  When we stopped for lunch in a mountaintop village, it was not even 60 degrees.  Then as we drove down the other side of the mountains, we watched the evergreens give way to coffee plantations and eventually banana and coconut palms.  By the time we reached the coast for dinner, we were back up to around 90 degrees with high humidity.  Quite a trip!