Pueblos Mancomunados Trek - Day One - Benito Juarez

Hi all. Thanks everyone for all your comments. Its great to think that people are actually having a look at what were sticking up here. Although both of us seem to be enjoying writing this quite a bit more than we imagined.

So our plans are currently pretty reliant on the lonely planet for suggestions for places to go and things to do, apart from the occasional idea from the nice people we have come across. Fortunately, whilst having a look at the possibilities around the gorgeous little city of Oaxaca where we were currently residing we came across this ecotourism project called the Pueblos Mancomunados - Its a collection of 8 villages up in the Valles Centralles, some vast mountains to the north west, that have worked together to achieve various goals for years. They've recently set up a set of trails for walking and mountain biking, so that others can come and appreciate the stunning scenery.

It sounded just about ideal, and there is an office in Oaxaca where we got to chat to a nice lady who spoke very little english about what we would like to do. We paid her the the park entrance fee and she let us know where we needed to get to hop on the bus to get to the first village called Benito Juarez.

Now this was the first time we were going to get our camping stuff out, so being rather over excited we packed up 6 litres of water (just in case we got lost - kind of sensible and yet not, it turned out) a vast amount of food, all our camping gear, a minimum of clothing and stashed the few items that we didn't need at the hostel we'd been staying at. Our bags did seem rather heavy, but our enthusiasm was so vast, we were sure it would not be a problem to cover the mere 4.1 miles we'd planned for the first days walking.

The lonely planet suggested SPF30 suncream, hats and sunglasses were essential due to the altitude. the first village we were staying at was 3200m above sea level. Here's a little piccy of me getting into into the spirit, shortly after purchasing said items.


The 2nd class (read chicken) bus ride up to Benito Juarez was genuinely amazing. Just a few miles out of Oaxaca and we were on a dirt road heading up a very steep massively pot-holed dirt road at an impressive speed.

Here´s a picture of the inside of the bus (it was a bit much even for the image stabilization of our nice little camera).


The view just got more and more amazing as we went up

Me looking out the window. God what fine features.


We arrived at the village and the bus made numerous stops dropping off various supplies on the way, and ours was the final stop. We hopped off and the bus drove away, fortunately for us revealing the tourist information hut full of exceptionally helpful guides, one of whom was well chuffed to be able to practice his immaculate english on us.

They showed us to our nice little camp space, and proceeded to knock us up a ludicrously huge bonfire. I have to say Í´d been looking forward to a fire since we´d first started getting our camping stuff together, and this beast did not disappoint.

Check it out!


There were also a couple of neatly chopped up logs idealy suited to our respective bum sizes. It really was an extremely easy first introduction to camping. Note the vast mugs of Clipper fair trade tea behind Clair, a very sensible addition to our vast backpacks!


We both slept pretty darn well on our super comfy thermarests, and here I am packing up ready for our first bit of trekking (Note vast fire still smoking)


Just as we were ready to set off, a tiny emerald green humming bird popped up in front of us. I've never seen a non stuffed one before and it was bloody incredible. We felt it had to be a good omen for the day to come......unfortunately, we were wrong. But you´ll have to tune it again to find out exactly why that was.

Thats all for now....xx