Dead Dog Alley and Beyond

Dead Dog Alley and Beyond

We live pressed up against the mountains – the Sierra Juarez. Oaxaca city sits in a valley at about a mile’s altitude; the mountains across the road from us rise to nearly 10,000. Some mornings the mist shrouds the ridge; other windy days, the forested peaks are brilliant against the blue sky. When we can work up the strength for a vertical run, we jog up into the foothills.

But first you have to make it through dead dog alley.

Dead dog alley is the unfortunate road that leads from just outside our little community to the road, first asphalt, then dirt, then rocky path heading up towards said high ridge. What gives dead dog alley its unfortunate name and powerful aroma is – you guessed it – discarded corn sacks stuffed with dead animals, disguised among a strew of garbage that adorns the road (garbage service here is a bit spotty). The dog population around here grows exponentially – packs of randy street dogs congregate on dark street corners. Some people unhappy with the canine gangs take the situation into their own hands and feed the starving dogs poison. They either end up in a corn sack, or worse, paws up bloating on the side of the road, sometimes sprinkled with lime to keep the stench down.

I apologize for the discouraging detail; the glory lies just ahead.

In an apparent act of resistance, a highway traversing the foothills was cancelled leaving a deteriorating path that is perfect for running and walking. (I say apparent because much as we try to untangle the politics behind the demise of this road, we can’t seem to get one story. Alas, that seems to be true of much political intrigue down here.) Nearly all of the many walkers and runners carry a staff to ward off the dogs – those that haven’t met their maker on dead dog alley.

The dogs thin and the forest grows as we pant up the hill, past fields of corn and maguey (the primary material for mezcal). The temperature cools and the relief of the valley below smoothens – it is sensational to look up and down upon a valley that has been cultivated for thousands of years. Oaxaca sprawls below, what was once a provincial backwater cut off from the rest of the country now counts nearly half a million residents and is growing at 9% a year. Mexico City, the western hemisphere’s largest city at 20 million strong, lurks just 300 miles to the north.

The lands that we jog through are ejidal lands of the municipality of Donají. Ejidos were born from the Mexican Revolution in 1910 in a massive land reform program which expropriated lands and distributed them to millions of peasants in the form of ejidos - collective land titles. (Unfortunately, a 1992 amendment to the Mexican constitution – timed to lubricate land markets for NAFTA - allowed for the ejidos to be broken into pieces through sale of individual plots. This undoing of the ejidos is blamed for much of the current rural crisis.)

Among these trees and arroyos gurgle the springs that provide water to communities downstream, with Oaxaca city taking the lion’s share. Pine trees appear the higher we go… and the more beauty the more tired we get. We choose a patch of shade in a ravine as our destination and then turn back for the knee-crunching slog back down the hill, back through Dead Dog Alley and home to the shower.