Walking in the mountains just to the north of my home in the San Felipe del Agua section of Oaxaca City

Out my front window, and all around the Oaxaca City neighborhood of San Felipe del Agua, where I stay, there is a view of mountains to the north. Recently I've been hiking up into those hills, hoping to still take in some green, as our dry season is fully underway here in southern Mexico.

For those of you reading this who actually live or visit Oaxaca, and might want to try such a hike yourself, the trail head is a continuation of Loma de Guajul where it hits Libramiento Norte, or just west of the earthen barricade that marks the west edge of San Felipe del Agua. 

It's a steep uphill climb as you leave pavement behind and hit the trail, and the uphill barely lets up for the three plus hours of roughly northern hiking I adventured on.  Coming back south, although faster, still was pretty slow because of the steepness of the trail, and the rocky and eroded conditions, and so took another two or so hours.

My ending point was close to the small "notch" on the ridge line, seen in this photo just to the left of the photo's center.  

In the early sections of the hike, there were many plants turning brown, but green was still much more common.

 

Here I leaned my walking stick against what seems to be a very old grave site.

Many places along the trail provided sweeping views back towards Oaxaca City and beyond

Older trees become soil for wandering Agave Plants.

Trees that have had limbs die, and then cut for firewood, can turn into fantastic shapes.

Often underfoot were these little lavender flowers

I had long hoped to reach pine forest in excursions into these mountains, and here, after about 3 hours of uphill, was the first pine sapling. The long drooping needles though, made me wonder if it really was a pine tree, or perhaps something else entirely.

Soon, when larger pines came into view, and there were a few pine cones on the ground, it was clear that these long needled pine tree were indeed the real deal.

By the time I was near the highest point of my hike, it was well after noon, but temperatures were cool at the higher elevations I had reached, and there was also a wonderful cloud layer that had moved in.

Two hours of careful descent, and I was again back in the area of corn fields, and snapped this photo of a cactus, where I can't quite figure out the stage of the flowers .... finished blooming? fruit harvested? I'll be curious to see what this plant looks like next time I pass this way, hopefully soon.