San José del Pacífico

San José del Pacífico is a small mountain village in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, strung along Federal Highway 175 where the old road from Oaxaca city to Pochutla and the coast crosses the crest of the range. It sits at roughly 2,400 to 2,500 m among pine and oak forest, about 140 km south of the state capital. Administratively it is an agencia of the municipality of San Mateo Río Hondo, in the district of Miahuatlán; the 2010 census counted about 550 residents. On clear days the Pacific can be made out far to the south, beyond the folded valleys, and that view is what gave the village the second half of its name.

For centuries this was simply forest country. Highway 175 was paved as far as San José in 1975 and pushed on to the coast and Highway 200 in the early 1980s. Around the same time, travellers who had come to Miahuatlán for the total solar eclipse of 7 March 1970 heard that hallucinogenic mushrooms grew in the nearby mountains, and some stayed. San José became a rest stop for people heading to Zipolite and Mazunte, and the first guesthouses appeared. A 2019–2020 field survey counted 28 places to stay, from family rooms to pine cabins with balconies over the valley.

Today the centre is a cluster of cafés, restaurants, craft stalls and colectivo stands along the highway, with lodgings climbing the slope of La Postema hill above. Visitors come for the cool air, the walks in the forest, sunsets and the morning 'sea of clouds' that fills the valleys, and for temazcal steam baths, which more than a dozen places offer. Local artisans knit woollen hats, ponchos and small figures, many shaped like mushrooms. The village is still best known for psilocybin mushrooms, which appear in the rainy season; they are sold openly but remain illegal under Mexican law. Since a new freeway from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido opened in 2024, fewer beach-bound travellers pass through, and the village is quieter than it was.