Mirrors and windows

The original plan was to rent a motorcycle and ride around from the cloud forest north of Oaxaca city down to the beach coves along the Pacific. That proved impossible; there were no places to rent, only buy. So the unnamed point-and-shoot digital camera I brought as a safety precaution for the road (and not the Canon 5D Mark II or Contax 645) existed only to vex me. I’ll never shoot digital on a trip again.

Over 11 days, I traveled from Mexico City to Oaxaca City, spent four days hiking in the Sierra Norte north of Oaxaca, passing through Caujimoloyas, Benito Jaurez, Neveria, Latuvi, Amatlan, Yavesia, back to Oaxaca City, spent three days at beach cove Mazunte, tourist hole Puerto Escondido, mangrove lagoon Manialtapec, then back to Mexico City.

The history of Capadoccia dates back to the late Bronze Age when the area served as the power center for the Hittites. That’s 4000 years ago. Since, this jagged and wondrous region, right in the middle of Turkey, has been conquered by the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Anatolian Selijuks, the Ottomans and others.

The soft rock of the area, named tuff, comes from the hardening over time of the ash spewed by volcanic eruptions, and in places was covered over with basalt, from the lava flows. Millions of years of alternating hot and cold weather, torrential rains and other weather extremities, and decay and erosion, have produced a land that’s terrifically surreal.

The rock is soft enough to be dug out with simple tools. And it has, harboring settlers from invading armies and bandits since the Hittites. Excavation continues to this day, uncovering the physical details of entire societies that lived underground, including early Christians, that delved as deep as 30m below, with vast stores of supplies and many hidden passageways.