Tampico--Pazo Rico--El Tajin--Casitas (Costa Esmeralda)--OAXACA

Note: drafted this over the weekend and forgot to post, but here's the last leg of our trip for those of you who dream of driving through Mexico.

check out this Map of our Drive--fingers crossed I am learning how to embed hyperlinks. Next up: figuring out how to DRAW the actual driving route on this or any other mapping site someone cares to recommend. In any case this shows the key stops along our entire route from Atlanta to Oaxaca. {correction, it does not even show the key stops but I can't figure out how to post my first effort and I think I lost it in any case. enjoy a view of the Gulf of Mexico.)

We arrived here safe and sound on Friday. Before I forget, I want to STRONGLY recommend the drive through Veracruz and Oaxaca states. We left our hotel in Tampico without ever seeing the ocean, but spent the next night at a town called Casitas on Mexico's "Emerald Coast"--a term quite possibly adopted solely to generate tourism, unless Brahmin cattle grazing seaside below coconut palms remind YOU of emeralds...

Meantime, between Tampico and Casitas we had quite a trip. Took the inland route of 2 local highway options to our next stop, planning to detour at El Tajin, an important Mayan archaeological site. The drive through hilly/low mountainous rain forest was fascinating, with mango, pineapple, cherimoya, cactus fruit and local honey stands lining the side of each small town we encountered. Unfortunately the limited speed on the 2-lane highway resulted in our arriving at El Tajin just 5 minutes before closing time, so we squinted at a few stony pyramids in the distance and spent the remaining time checking out a small exhibit on indigenous vanilla production. Read in our guide book about a local tradition of "dancers" who descend from an enormous pole simultaneously, falling upside down and rapidly untwisting from ropes around their waists--saw a pole but no dancers. Concluded the day with a final drive back to the Gulf and a chance for the boys to swim in the Atlantic as the sun went down. Amelia remembered being afraid of the beach at Tybee Island "when I was three" and either this memory, or her intense fear of the tiny sand crabs near the surf, led her rapidly back to the hotel pool.

I'm looking out our front window at a little burro who has just wandered up to check us out. She's nibbling on the grass outside our front gate.

Last day of the drive, slurping Moka Frio (oversweetened chocolate coffee drink from the Starbuck's knockoff Italian Coffee Company) and heading for the autopista (high quality toll road alternative to "libre"=free local highway). Harper saw the Italian Coffee Company sign, in English, and assumed everyone would speak English inside. Led to interesting conversation about the fact that they don't speak, or list their name in, Italian, either. :-)

Again, FASCINATING landscapes. The first hour or two led us again through rain forest, but (forgive my limited terminology, forestry friends) higher and steeper and with much denser green growth. As the mountains grew higher we saw fewer private farm plots along the road, but just as many amazing terraced fields even on slopes of 60 degrees or greater. More trees; banana, orange, then gradually shifting to a variety of pines as the temperature dropped from upper '70's near the coast to '60's and finally a low of 54 degrees and thick clouds at the highest town, Teziutlan. Found our connection to the autopista, paid our toll, hit the highway for even higher mountains of the "Reserva Biosfera" as we climbed into the Sierra Madre del Sur and its drier desert conditions. Cactus replacing and intermixed with pine trees, deciduous varieties, disappearing, more and more red clay visible in the canyons.

Finally pulling in to Oaxaca in the p.m.--more on that to come!