Introduction

July 1996

Tales From the South, indeed this entire Web site, was inspired by letters sent home to Pa from the distant land of Oaxaca. Letters which carried the freshness of new experience. Their content is well introduced by these paragraphs from a letter announcing the arrival of e-mail to Eric's Oaxaca adobe, which carry the promise of yet more tales to be related...

 

Of course there are many things to be related. Stories of coastal trips, the dark, warm ocean whispering in the heavy fall of the afternoon rain with us in the thick of it riding to shore the waves that come in like rolling emerald velvet. And the tropical storm that turned all to white froth and fury with the wind and tide carrying palapas and beach together into the deep blue. There are tales of going on beyond Tamazulapan in the white van to the other side of the mountains, to the slopes that take the heavy breath of the gulf, and there tumbling into the high cloud forest where not a soul is to be found and everything everywhere is soft and green and misty, all riddled through with cold, clear and swift creeks and falls.

Or about the trip to Yojuela last week, where the road was washed out (remember that tropical storm?) and I got a kid to rent me his bike to make the last five miles fly by. The bike had no brakes and the chain skipped off when pressure was put on it. The road to Yojuela from the washout begins with a steep long drop into a canyon, five cold, sketchy river crossings and a climb into the hills. As is the case with such bike rides on such bikes the down hills passed rather quickly and the uphills didn't. There are many other great tales too, containing moral lessons and insight. A few of them are even based on actual experiences.

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