San Jose del Pacifico, the mushroom town

Completely not on our list but happily fell into our way, San Jose del Pacifico, located (2,705 meters above sea level) on the way from Zipolite to Oaxaca city. Its very small, about 5 stores, 3 restaurants and bunch of houses on the hill. It’s (w niebie) in the mountains surrounded by many different types of greens from pine trees, ganja to psychedelic mushrooms. It’s also known as the Mushroom town.


There are mushrooms everywhere, from sculptures to mushroom shape earrings, to tons of drawings and paintings of smiling mushroom, it’s quite magical in its own way.

We came here with Ivan, one of the drummers that we met in Zipolite. A 22 year old who wanted to get away with two polish chics and get some weed for Semana Santa. Thanks to him this was a stop we will not forget.

We stayed in a small place on a steep hill, very psychedelic. Amazing drawings of everything and anything all over, it seems like many peoples mushroom journeys were recorded in every room. I loved the room that we stayed in, wooden interior with amazing view of the clouds below us, and mountains around us. It was very cozy, maybe not the fact that there were 4 beds and 7 people sleeping in the same room but it was something else. This was a place that I never expected to come across in Mexico.

“Hola!!! How are u? What do u need??
Here in San Jose del Pacifico we have marijuana, opium, hash, mushrooms, DMT…”

What!??!! Where are we?? I don’t know, but I like it!

Everything about this place was magical for me, Johnathan the owner of the place was an amazing cook, who made us organic, breakfast, lunch and dinner, very different from traditional Mexican cuisine.

One of the days, after our lunch we took a short walk up the mountain, which got us some ganja and mushrooms in honey. It’s off season so they preserve the mushrooms in honey!! Genius idea! The three of us, shared the honey dessert and hiked up the mountain through the village and eventually into the forest. We admired the amazing vivid views and laugh so much that we cried and almost died. We came across many different obstacles like attacking dogs, sharp needles and giant cactus. We truly felt like Smurfs, everything around us was huge!! The agave looking cactus was 100 times bigger then normal and the trees were way too tall. At one point, we were totally in the clouds, with the rain drops, dripping harder we hiked and wondered.

Ivan turned out to be very awesome, picture a guy who is very handy and just kept on making things. He made me a pair of earnings, and digg deep into the agave looking giant plant to make natural thread. I needed the thread to fix my shoe. His features were quite unique and he had the best looking eyes I’ve seen in Mexico. I hope we come across more people like him.

At night it was very cold, and it was Ivan’s favorite thing to say “sandwich time, sandwich time” the three of us slept in the same bed as the other beds were taken. The night was interesting, many weird noises like roosters, dogs, and people talking in their sleep.. Weird to hear French and Spanish screams and mumbles at night. Iza could not sleep all night and probably had the worst morning that I’ve ever in. Actually I barely saw her eyes.

This was definitely one of my top locations in Mexico, absolutely amazing views and the entire experience was something out of the ordinary.