Oaxaca Part I: Sierra Norte, La Ventanilla, Mazunte

Mom came down to visit me for a week and we headed down to Oaxaca for some mountains and the beach.

Oaxaca Coast Sites

We first went to the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, the mountainous, northern region of Oaxaca, where 7 villages have organized to form what is called the Pueblos Mancomunados. These are 7 villages that offer ecotourism options like hiking, cabins, mountain biking, and other things, and are all linked by trails. We chose to stay in a town called Cuajimloyas for 2 nights and do some hiking.

View from the cabin

After the mountains, we took a van from Oaxaca city down to the beach (a winding, curvy ride, not recommended for those that get motion sick, but with gorgeous views). Our 1st stop on the beach was a place called Mazunte. The 1st morning, we headed to a community known as La Ventanilla (the window, named for a rock formation that looks like a window), that runs a community based ecotourism project with boat rides into their lagoon. In addition to a lot of birds, the lagoon also has a lot of crocs (many of which are raised and released by the community) and iguanas.




After the boat ride, we rented horses and went on a horseback ride along the beach. Other than gorgeous views of the Pacific, we also went to another lagoon and saw wreckage from a plane that crashed 3 years ago (supposedly a drug trafficking plane that crashed into the sea just off shore as it was being pursued by federal agents).

Later that night we took a walk out to the rocky point called, Punta Cometa, which is the southern most point in Oacaxa and has spectacular views of the Pacific and rocky cliffs.


On Wednesday morning, we went to the turtle research center before leaving Mazunte and heading to Puerto Escondido……continued in the next entry.

Oaxaca Part II: Puerto Escondido, Laguna Manialtepec, Puerto Angel

The 1st night after arriving in Puerto Escondido, we released baby sea turtles on the beach at sunset. The funding for this turtle "campamiento" is from the singer Mana and from the cellular company, Moviestar. We released Laud (leatherbacks) and Golfino turtles.

On Thursday morning we went on a boat ride in the near-by Manialtepec Lagoon and saw a bunch of birds and iguanas. Some of the birds are nesting so we were even able to see chicks in the nests.

Woodstork with chicks

Dead sea turtle on the beach

Dead croc that was found the night before in a fishing net

In the afternoon we headed to Puerto Angel for a last afternoon on the beach before heading back to Oaxaca City and finally up to Puebla.

A last cup of coffee in Oaxaca