Sierra Norte

The mountains separating the Valles Centrales from low-lying far northern Oaxaca are called the Sierra Juárez, and the more southerly parts of this range, closest to Oaxaca, have become known as the Sierra Norte. These beautiful, forested highlands are home to several successful community ecotourism ventures providing comfortable accommodations and a wonderful opportunity to get out on foot, mountain bike or horseback into some of Mexico’s loveliest landscapes. peoples of the region : Zapotecs, Mixes, Chinantecs, Tlaxcaltecs and the Nahuas.

A bit of History

It is known that the first settlers of the territory known today as the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca were 10 Zapotec families, who abandoned their native land Zaachila, with the hope to find more fertile lands than the ones from the Oaxacan valley. Since that moment, the Zapotec communities settled in the highlands of the sierra have called themselves “Gente de las nubes” (people of the clouds) due to the winds from the Golf of Mexico that drags cloudiness up to the Sierra Norte, surrounding and wrapping with fog all the Serrano Pueblos.

Region

The altitude gradient in the Sierra Norte goes from 100 meters above sea level to 3,300 meters above sea level, constituting Mexico’s largest natural corridor of well-preserved forests and jungles, considered the most diverse in the world (WWF, 1995). The Sierra Norte is home of 50% of the flora of the state of Oaxaca.

This region has broad climatic zones: the windward side facing the Gulf of Mexico has from cold to warm climates and the downwind side, that experiences the shadow effect causes the weather to become drier and warmer as elevation decreases towards the valleys of Oaxaca (from 3,300 to 1,500 meters above sea level) providing favorable tropical and temperate flora and fauna conditions for its development.

Flora

From the tropical forests with deciduous cactus and a great variety of endemic species, you can get up and trough to the pine and oak forests, reaching the top of the mountain, where sub-alpine meadows (similar to Swiss meadows) await your arrival

Among these forests we find some very old ones: Mexican Oreomunnea forests, a tree species similar to those that existed 22 million years ago during the Miocene age, and that today exist only in humid lands of the Sierra. Nationally these forests are classified as the richest plant species.

Fauna

Mexico is a bird Paradise. Our country ranks in the fifth place with numerous endemic bird species worldwide, inside Mexico, Oaxaca is home of most of them. For reasons like this, the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca is an important area for bird conservation, a category declared by the government of Mexico. Nationally this mountain system ranks in the first place in endemic species. We will show you some of the most relevant species:

More than 400

...