El Tule, Mitla and Hierve el Aqua were the key sites that made up the day tour we took, whilst in Oaxaca. The Mezcal and textile factory tours, which felt like add-ons to the tour, were nice to visit but had a very commercial spin to them.
El Tule is worth visiting, and as it is only a short bus ride away I would recommend it as a morning outing. The site itself is not big but the sight that awaits you is truly unbelievable.
At present the tree is over 2,000 years old and has a trunk diameter of over 42m, which makes it the world’s largest tree. It lives in a church yard and is fed water daily to sustain it.
Mitla is a small zapotec site with palaces. One of which is still very much intact and gives you a very good idea of how the rest of the site would have looked. However, this is not a day out site as it is small enough to comfortably do in 2 hours.
Hierve el Aqua, the furthest of the sites we visited, is located about an hour and a half away. Our guide books did not prepare us for this place. We expected to find some sort of waterfall with stalactites but instead found this…
Apart from the amazing petrified waterfalls, which we unfortunately did not have time to trek to the bottom of due to the time restrictions in the tour, are these amazing natural pools of water which form at different areas of the rock tops.
The water itself is filled with minerals and these give it the wonderful colours, but also make it an amazing place to go for a swim in, and you really can’t beat the view!
