How ecotourism in Oaxaca is helping communities reconnect with their Indigenous roots

The pine forest cloaking Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte mountains was deepand dark, haunted by the spectres of white-tipped deer and murderous raptors. At a wooden tablehewn from a tree trunk, guide Jonatán Cruz Ceballos demolished his hot chocolate and pan dulce (sweet bread) at such speed that his earring wobbled like a turkey’s snood. This earring has troubled local residents of his village in the Pueblos Mancomunados for seven years, ever since Jonatán returned from university in the city of Oaxaca. Zapotec men do not wear earrings; in fact, there’s even a law against it.

“Life in the Pueblos Mancomunados is beautiful, but it robs you of your individuality too,” reflected Jonatán as he reached for more bread. “Ultimately, the good of the collective always comes first.”

Social accountability is the central premise of usos y costumbres (uses and customs), the pre-Hispanic system of governance favoured by Indigenous Peoples throughout Latin America, which is legally recognised by the Mexican government in Oaxaca. This particular group of Zapotecs retreated to these knife-edge peaks from Oaxaca’s central valley in the 16th century, when Spanish settlers first arrived; their eight villages, known today as the Pueblos Mancomunados, float as high as 3,200m above sea level, and indeed often above the clouds. It’s this isolation that has helped to preserve their unique way of life; it has also resulted in poverty. Oaxaca was the third poorest state in the country last year, and a steady stream of young residents tiptoe over the border into the United States, where they work illegally for nominal pay.

Residents of Benito Juárez, one of the eight Pueblos Mancomunados villages, opened the first ecotourism project here in 1994 to offer employment that didn’t involve cutting down the forest, explained hiking guide Faustino Martinez Perez, manager of Ecoturismo Amatlán, as he led us along a ribbon of a path beside a thundering river.

“Now all other villages in the Pueblos Mancomunados have followed suit,” Faustino told me. “We’ve been working for decades to reopen the trails our grandparents used, replant trees and build cabins.”

The social accountability that makes Jonatán’s earring such a talking point is also what allows the project to thrive. From managers to guides, the staff work on a voluntary basis as part of their community service, something all Zapotec must do. The profits are reinvested in communal projects such as replacing the school roof or paving the main road so it can be used in the rainy season. Both times I visited, I was welcomed with warmth by locals – in part because of the culture of hospitality that still rules, but also because they were benefitting from my presence. In tourism hotspots such as Tulum, internationally owned hotels syphon profits out of the country and leave locals with little more than water shortages and skyrocketing rental prices; here it is different.

“The project has helped us to stay connected to ancestral knowledge like adobe building techniques and plant medicine,” continued Faustino, pushing on pasta boulder caught in the strangle hold of a yellow oak, its roots resembling petrified lava. “During the 1980s, there was a huge campaign from the Mexican government to nationalise Indigenous communities – for example, by banning the teaching of our native languages in schools. When we realised how interested tourists were in learning about our culture, we spoke to the old people and relearned things that our parents had forgotten.”

As the sun began its downward journey, we arrived at Comedor el Respeto, a restaurant on a wooden platform overlooking the river. Over steamed trout in chipotle sauce, Abimael Lopez Martinez, an oval-faced 20-something who works for Ecoturismo Amatlán, explained that he’d returned to the village recently, after a few lonely years in Los Angeles, and had no intention of leaving.

“When the money’s here, life’s good. And when the money isn’t, it’s still good. We grow all our own food and have the forest on our doorstep. What more could we need?” he asked.

As if to prove him right, I noticed an octogenarian with a red ribbon woven into her braids at the next table; she was surveying her large family with contentment.

The following morning, we hiked 17km from Amatlán to Latuvi along the Camino Real. This pre-Hispanic trade route once connected the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, although many sections have since been reclaimed by the jungle.

“The Indigenous Peoples created a relay system that ran the 150km between the coast at Veracruz and Tenochtitlan,” said Jonatán. “They say the Aztec king Montezuma ate fresh fish every day.”

The oak leaves beneath my feet were biscuit brown, and wisps of Spanish moss trailed from the canopy like ghostly beards. The mist hung low over the valley, creating a soothing colour palette, and every so often wild orchids sung through the haze. At one point, a farmer using oxen to plough his field gave us a beatific smile and enthusiastic wave as we passed. ‘You wouldn’t get that in Tulum,’ I thought to myself.

In a tiny restaurant in the village of Latuvi, a voluptuous cook offered us seconds of chicken drenched in spicy tomato sauce barely moments after we’d started eating. We were joined by Delfino Hernandez Lazaro, manager of Ecoturismo Latuvi, who explained the details of social accountability.

Team members work unpaid on the community ecotourism project for up to 14 hours every day for two years; in the meantime, their spouses support their families single handedly: growing food, looking after the animals, caring for any children.

“It’s very hard, but it’s also an honour to front the project. When my wife is called to do her community service, I’ll take on her roles. I think they call it gender equality these days; that’s just how we live.”

Outside, everything was beginning to feel hushed and heavy. Three turkey vultures glided lazily above and an elderly couple coaxed a donkey along the dusty road. Down the mountain, Marta Santiago Cruz pricked her agave plants to collect the honey water that she ferments into tangy pulque, a milky-looking alcoholic drink with roots in the Mesoamerican era. And as night’s cloak swallowed the valley, we settled down in our cabin to be warmed by a crackling fire.

The next morning, we drove 45 minutes to La Nevería, the smallest of the eight villages with just 85 residents. When we set off into the forest on foot, it was immediately obvious that we were at the highest point of our journey so far. Yesterday’s carpet of oakleaves had been replaced by bouncy pine needles, and the path wended between monumental abies pines, which typically grow between 750m and 1,500m above sea level and are all but extinct in most parts of the country. Local guide Adan Lopez Cruz led the way through the forest to his farm, a vertiginous clearing that he maximises using the companion planting technique, creating areas of plants that benefit each other. He then led us to his home to meet his wife, Juana Luis Hernandez. While we sipped bowls of steaming atole laced with cinnamon, she showed us how to pat tortillas and reminisced about her childhood, long before the ecotourism project was born.

“I remember eight people having to share a single scrambled egg. When we baked bread, we made it last two weeks by adding a bit of water and heating it so it was soft enough to chew,” she told me. The intensity with which the heel of her hand pounded the dough belied the softness in her voice. When we arrived at Benito Juárez, the final village on our hike, the entire community seemed to be gathered around the basketball court to cheer on a match between children that had significantly more enthusiasm than skill. When one of the pint-sized players touched the ball, their extended family rose up and roared, nearly sending the ranchero musicians flying.

The sun was growing buttery as Jonatán led me across a hanging bridge to perch on a volcanic outcrop that’s still used for sacred ceremonies. The plain unfurled thousands of metres below like an old map; on the horizon, blue smog signalled the presence of Oaxaca city. It seemed very far away.

In the morning, we walked down the hill to Granja del Señor Eli, an organic farm that has been in the Ramirez family for 76 years. Eli Mecinas Ramirez’s white hair gleamed beneath his hat as he showed us a calf and picked radishes from his greenhouse, then led the way inside in his home. Rufina Santiago Hernandez, Eli’s wife, had all the ingredients for the family’s signature mole recipe laid out: thyme, chocolate, aniseed, bread, cloves, sesame seedsand ancho rojo chilli. As they prepared the dish over a wood-fired fogón (stove), they reflected on the wider effects of ecotourism in the Pueblos Mancomunados.

“The great-grandparents dreamt of us being eight communities sharing this land as family. As in all families, we have our disagreements over politics and how to handle natural resources. The ecotourism project is the vision we all share,” Eli said.

As we got ready to leave, stomachs tight with mole and heads heavy with the afternoon heat, Rufina came over to me, a pair of Sketchers trainers unexpectedly peeping from under her apron. Shyly, slowly, she spoke the first English words she had uttered all day.

“Come back whenever you like. Here you have a h- h- h-” she stammered, then stopped.

“Home?” I suggested.

She shook her head and then traced the shape of a heart on her chest. Mine pulsed in response. ‘You really wouldn’t get that in Tulum,’ I thought to myself for the umpteenth time.

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