NAMA_MX25: Journey to Ixtlan

If you are anywhere near the orbit of anyone who took the leap to attend this first or second NAMA Mycological Forays in Mexico in 2023 and 2024, you know, because they haven’t shut up about it. What started out as a tantalizing idea in early 2022 became a pivotal and ground-breaking interconnection between mycologists in Mexico and the United States; long-time coming connections between the indigenous communities of Mexico State, attendees and visiting chefs… connections that will last a lifetime! After two runs at the incredible Hotel Rodavento in Valle de Bravo, we felt it was time to expand the range of NAMA programs to beating heart of ancient and modern Mexican mycological history: Oaxaca.

We shoot to pierce even deeper into the endless font of wisdom and knowledge that Mexico represents: This time, in Book 3–sorry our third year–of our NAMA_MX Saga, we take our Journey to Ixtlán.  Ixtlán de Juraez is the largest community within the Zapotec speaking Sierra Juarez, part of the Sierra Norte mountain range of Southern, Mexico in the state of Oaxaca, comprising about 2500 people. Through collective community action, they have created amazing infrastructure at their EcoturIxtlan adventure camp, for lack of a better word: complete with conference center, hikes, natural beauty, restaurant on-site, temescal, and wood-fire heated cabins for about 65 people to stay comfortably, this mixed pine forest hideaway is a biodiversity playground… and literal playground! Oaxaca has been in the consciousness of the mycological world since the 1956 LIFE magazine featured a Oaxacan ‘shaman’ Maria Sabina and blew the lid off of “magic mushrooms.” Yes, that was the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca!

The Fungivore has been operating in Oaxaca since 2019, and in Ixtlan de Juarez since September of 2021, our inaugural adventure with native guide Celestino Mendez. We are so excited to share this very special location with NAMA and the rest of North America.