San Jose del Pacifico...

...is a beautiful little mountain village that rests atop a very high ridge in the state of Oaxaca. Our first visit there was to break up the tedious seven hour trip from Oaxaca City to the coast on winding narrow roads that make you feel like the speedracer van you are being transported in is sliding into the great abyss of thick white fog that shelters your view of the incredibly steep drop. The quaint village is sprinked with alpaca artesenia, small corn fields, and donkeys. Everywhere you look there are tributes to Maria Sabina and the fungi that flourish up in those mountains, and everyone always has more to offer than just a meal or a room. The pine tree air is so fresh and cool, and very welcomed after the heavy stick of Mexico City. In the evening we sat and ate dinner on the balcony of a restaurant watching the thick layer of clouds below us reflecting the pink, purple and orange hues of the setting sun. I felt like I had found the land where the unicorns roam.
Our second visit was the day after the full moon, and began with Tyler and I cramming into the backseat of a yellow VW bug with a pair from Oakland we met in the back of truck. We loaded up with fresh fruit and tamales and began to ascend, noticing how quickly the environment changes as you climb the mountain, leaving behind the banana trees and mosquitos, and entering the hills that look like they are covered in dark green and burgandy fur. When we arrived we were kindly excorted by a young poet from Puebla into the forest where we could truly experience the magical reputation of San Jose. It is so mystical it makes you feel like you should never talk above a whisper. When the sun went down and the cold set in, we drank bowls of the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life and got a log cabin style room decorated in peacocks and thick shiny lacquer.
When the moon was high in the sky, we walked up the road and sat on a bench looking down at the village. It reminded me so much of the miniture Christmas town my mom sets up during the holidays, complete with twinkling lights, and cotton ball snow clouds. There´s just something about San Jose del Pacifico that is hard to put your finger on. It you makes you all warm and fuzzy inside and you suddenly find yourself talking to shrubs.

Plan of Escape

It has taken months but at last we will begin the formal documentation of our adventure. Until now we have let our inability to formulate any sort of plan prevent us from doing, well, anything. Now we have an idea of how to proceed; a strategic three-pronged plan to help gradually, thoroughly and creatively document our lives as we sink further and farther southward. Using email, the blog and photo sites, and our personal journals we would like to meet multiple goals with this project including:
1. Providing content to suit the varying levels of desired engagement amongst our followers.
2. Recording accurately details of both personal and historical importance for posterity.
3. Establishing a forum for the discussion of the ideas that drive our lives with you, the people that drive our lives.
4. Initiating a chain of contact that will not fade or weaken over months or miles.
5. Inciting untold numbers of said followers southward with tales of expanded horizons and newfound freedoms.

This is how we'll start. Group emails will continue at as regular an interval as we can maintain and will be signed "Tyler y Emily". We really appreciate even the tiniest of replies and will gladly exchange personal emails as well. These will contain information regarding: our whereabouts, collective well being, personal/political developments of historic note, and whether or not we need money. They will not include: stories that only some people will want to read, stories that will make people stop reading, and/or any of the good stuff.

The really good stuff goes in the personal journals and stays there. But for those who would like a closer look at our individual perpectives, daily lives, or stunning surroundings there is this, "The Great Escape." We envision this space as a collection of short stories—our trevails disected into pleasantly digestable chunks, an e-canvas onto which we may pour our hearts, minds, and guts. Simultaneously serving as our creative, journalistic outlet and your window to another world we hope that this process will be a dialog, an open invitation to a place of honest expression and mental freedom. Stories within will be singularly authored and signed as such. As much as possible stories will be illustrated with corresponding pictures from our Picasa web albums which are publicly viewable. Together we think this approach will allow you to choose-your-own-adventure while avoiding serious cases of too much information.

And now, without further ado, we bring to you our first flawed flight of fancy, our dreams transcribed but not translated, our amateur attempts at describing an impossible world, our realizations, our re-educations, our plan of escape.


Vamos al sur!