Oaxaca——> Vera Cruz

El Copal is a little piece of heaven. After having licked our wounds for a very relaxed two days we got back on the road.

The decision to skip Chiapas was a hard one. We loved Chiapas the last time just as much as we loved Oaxaca but the roads are even worst most of the time and we want to see new things.

So down the coast from Mazunte to Salina Cruz, a quick goodbye to the Pacific and up in the Oaxacan highlands.

It got really green really fast up here. We didnt stop to make pictures because we lost a lot of time with all the road building sites. But the beautiful thing is when the tropical vegetation mixes with pines and mountain flowers. Again no good pics but beautiful nevertheless.

Surreal landscapes and abandoned buildings , hippie communities and truck graveyards. Wild nature and tons of goats. Oaxaca really is absurdly beautiful.

And yummy! When we stopped for snacks we scored cocos , mangos and a strange pumpkin that they heat up. Its really very sweet in taste.

As soon as you get to Vera Cruz the vegetation explodes even more.

We saw a lot of beautiful ranchos and little settlements on the side of the road. Having had that as an intro to Vera Cruz we expected great things and kept on heading to Vera Cruzs main port: Coatzacoalcos.

Coatzacoalcos comes from a Nahuatl word meaning “site of the Snake” or “where the snake hides.” According to the legend, this is where the god Quetzalcoatl made his final journey to the sea in around 999 and he made his promise to return.

But as we drove in, it was hard to believe that the mighty snake ever set foot in this godforsaken place.

The entire city looks like this. And worst. Tons of homeless people, tons of drug addicts, even more total abandoned building. We had a quick snack by the main road and gazed at our first caribbean sunset.