The Tule Tree

     This past weekend Sam and I headed to Oaxaca – a beautiful city about four hours away from Puebla.  Sam will be posting more about the trip later, so I’m just going to write about one particular excursion.  On Saturday Sam and I decided to check out the Tule Tree.  The Tule Tree is a massive tree in a small town about fifteen minutes outside of Oaxaca.  To get there, we jumped in a Taxi Colectivo, which is a taxi that has a set destination and multiple people get in together so it’s a lot cheaper than a regular taxi. In fact, the fifteen-minute trip cost about 80 cents per person. When we got there, we saw exactly what we expected, a giant tree.  

The tree is only about 135 feet tall, which is big but not super-big.  However, the trunk is 45 feet wide, by far the widest tree I have ever seen in my life.  Also, they say it weighs 630,000 tons, though I’m not sure how accurate that is considering they have obviously never weighed it.  The tree itself wasn’t the best part of the trip though. What was, you ask? The food, of course! After seeing the tree and walking around the town a bit, we stopped in a nice little restaurant.   Sam ordered Tacos de Barbacoa de Chivo, or Barbecued Goat Tacos, and I got Carnitas, or Carnitas. Both were absolutely delicious and something we haven’t tried yet in Mexico.  After the food we sat in the park and played cards for a while before hopping in another colectivo back to Oaxaca.  I feel ready to get back home, but experiences like that make me just a little more reluctant to leave.