Hotels in Mexico
What a journey! Driving Highway 175 through the coastal Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains of southwestern Mexico must be one of the most scenic drives in the whole country.
The experience begins in Oaxaca City - but not before you’ve explored this UNESCO World Heritage Site with its fine colonial architecture and rich cultural traditions. But it's soon time to leave cosmopolitan distractions behind, finding Highway 175 and heading south. It won't be a straight forward trip - in fact just the opposite. This two-lane road twists and turns violently as it winds through the mountains, to the point where motion sickness is a real possibility.
What's more, the road surface is rarely the best - rainy season always sees damage to 175, which in true Mexican style barely gets repaired before next rainy season, so there's every chance of coming across a rockslide or collapsed section that slows traffic to a crawl.
That's just fine. There's no point in hurrying. The Sierra Madre del Sur are noted for their biodiversity, and this extraordinary road reveals stunrung new vistas at every turn - take a spare memory card for the camera! You will have pictures of cloud forests with pines in the mist and lush tropical forest when the road descends. What's more, the small villages along Highway 175 often have wonderful indigenous crafts on sale, and the variety of colourful birdlife is mesmerising.
But all good things come to an end, and eventually the road runs down out of the mountains towards the Pacific Ocean. At the junction of 175 with the coastal highway (200), cross over and continue to Puerto Angel, an old-fashioned harbour town crouched around an enclosed bay that provides safe haven for its fleet of small fishing craft.
WHEN TO GO
October to April
TIME IT TAKES
A day - it's a 240 km (150 mi) journey
HIGHLIGHTS
Oaxaca's Zocalo, one of the most beautiful central squares in Mexico, and a vibrant hub of city life.
San pablo Guelatao, the village on Highway 175 that was the birthplace of self-made Mexican President Benito Juárez - take a break beside the lake and admire a statue of the great 19th century liberal as a boy shepherd.
Roadside banana sellers - be amazed by how many varieties you'll be offered, and as a bonus you get to see · what a freshly gathered cashew nut looks like.
San Jose del Pacifico, a hillside community about halfway through the trip - a good (maybe the only) place to spend the night if you decide to break the journey.
YOU SHOULD KNOW
Never attempt to drive Highway 175 at night - it's cold, lonely and hard to spot potentially dangerous potholes or l other more serious water damaged places in the dark.
