Speaking the Global Language of Mushroom

Mushroom Hunting Queen Reina shows off her triple find of Amanita basii. Photo by Eli Garcia-Padilla.

Things have been accelerating here in Oaxaca for our tour season, as well as making new partnerships and friends! So read on for a journey with the People of the Clouds into the ludic realm of spores and forest games of discovery.

On Tourism..

We at The Fungivore started with our first mushroom tour in Oaxaca in 2019— and as we are in the midst in 2023, I am happy to say that 5 years in, the form of this project that best suits our attitudes, our dreams and our particular skill-sets is really coming into a sharper focus, and our mission and dreams are in hi-def, compared to when we began. It seemed we were starting a business for tourism; but…

...tourism is a loaded word. There are so many flavors of “tourism,” but so much of the industry does little to preserve our world and our heritage, natural and historical. And therein lies the tourism rub: how do you attract people to show off the wonder of the your world (and profit from it) without aiding it’s destruction?

Most don’t try. They simply create a demand for a location, and extract as much as they can, from both the vacationers, but also from the environment, in some cases eventually causing so much destruction that the place itself is effectively destroyed.

What if there was an alternative? What if at the end of a visit the attendees, the communities & the tour leaders all felt inspired, replenished and excited for the next opportunity? What if instead of the familiar dynamic of the “served” and “servers,” experiences were designed specifically for everyone involved to leave feeling full?

We think we may be on to something…

Two-time attendee Reema shows off her first A. basii; Our Fellowship of the Shroom;photos courtesy of Eli Garcia-Padilla.

The Mycelial Network

We have just completed our 6th mushroom tour, and the first of five this season. Over the last year, we have deepened our comprehension of Spanish to the point of full—if not halting and broken—conversations without English; we have spent quality time with new friends in the Mexico mushroom sphere; we have created a brand for ourselves, even among our neighbors, as ‘the mushroom couple.”

And it has made all the difference.

Since our first introduction to the mancomunádos—a group of 8+ communities of the Sierra Norte near the edge closer to the valleys of Oaxaca—in 2019, we have found that language barriers just melt away when two or more people let their inner nature geek shine. Wonder and curiosity will get you everywhere.

As a result of our continued push to grow our mycelial network (and to meet new friends and spawn new partnerships in the process), we have greater enhanced our tour adventures, as well as our own experiences as Americans living so close to home, yet so far away.  There is obviously so much more than can be shared in a single email, but I want to highlight our just finished tour, “MyComida: Ruprestre Tour.” I can say with certainty that this tour week was the highlight of my entire career in fungi to date…

Our group had been hiking 8 km a day (or more!) for 4 days, had visited multiple ruins, eaten at fantastic restaurants, tasted mezcal, participated in the Cuajimoloyas mushroom festival, crossed terrifying suspension bridges, and found & eaten countless mushrooms—ALL at 10,000ft (3000m) elevation —before we settled into the tiny pueblo of El Carrizal.

Photos, left to right: An afternoon rainbow blesses our adventure; Omphalatus mexicanus; Photographer Eli-Garcia Padilla Is captured capturing a donkey.

El Carrizal is made up of about 250 people, situated on a ledge and surrounded by canyon-like walls, a wonderland of waterfalls and woods. It was already hard to imagine how the trip could get much more amazing, and though Kim & I had arranged the experiences, this year, the second time around, something happened that accelerated the magic already present in Southern Mexico, and this small canyon valley in particular.

We spent the next 2.5 days exploring three different forests, caves, waterways and canyons, found a rare (and deadly!!) baby pit viper that our biologist was so excited by, and racked up nearly 150 species of fungi, which we arranged for public display for the community to join, and observe the process of finding and identifying.

On the final day, something miraculous happened: despite the village losing all electrical power for the previous 36 hours, 'El Equipo Fungivoros' (Team Fungivore) put on a mini-mushroom festival, designed and curated for the community in particular—all in Spanish—using only the mushrooms and lichens found in their forest.

With the help of our orchid-loving, mountain-biking nature guide, friend and partner Celestino Mendez, Biologist (Herpetologist) Eli García-Padilla (who also gets most of the photo credit for this email) shared the sciences dangerous and not-so-dangerous reptiles to help dispel myths (and save reptile lives); team mycologist Iñaki Oyervide-Ibarrola led an intensive on cultivating, both capturing spores for germination, as well as inoculating bags of boiled straw—something this community had asked of us in 2022; my wife Kimberly Hunter demonstrated the process using mushrooms for dyes, but also taught the methods for testing unknown fungi for their color potential.. so much of Mexican mycology is still unexplored!

With Iñaki’s guidance, we all participated in a Mushroom Table Talk, in Spanish [and English when necessary], about how to recognize various mushrooms families, how to be sure of what is toxic, what is edible, what could be medicinal (and how to extract compounds), and what can be used as a dye mushrooms; answering questions as they came up… many of which become full conversational explainers!

Finally (since the comal was already hot), I cooked up a few of the mushrooms using fresh wild pericón (“Mexican tarragon”) as the herbal highlight... something which—despite its abundance—surprised the locals with just how well it accented the also common Amanita basii, with which they are so familiar. (The locals use pericón as tea for stomach problems, and also as a deep yellow dye, but not, apparently, for cooking.)

To our joy and surprise, a large portion of the community that came mid-afternoon stayed with us for 6 hours, straight into the dark, taking notes and recording videos of the process. The looks of joy and wonder and conversations loaded with excitement were more than contagious. I believe it was in that moment that our project crystalized: this isn’t tourism. We are playing our part in the grand goal to connect people and places globally, to amplify the differences and celebrate the similarities, and most importantly, move forward together.

How can one not become high and filled with hope after so much conversation, dialogue, exchange of ideas, active listening, humble learning, patient teaching, group laughter, & shared smiles with no words?

In Oaxaca, the month of July is the month of Guelaguetza, a Beniza’a (Zapotec) word meaning ‘to give & to get,’ a crucial axiom of their 3000+ year old culture, and a reminder that open honest exchange is the way of joining people together, locally and globally.

This exchange is the future (and the past) of community.

We hope you’ll come and build with us.