Mexico Travels

I've been in Mexico for the better part of this month. One of Dave's best friends and his wife live [t]here in a small town called Jalcomulco in the state of Veracruz. It's a little adventure town in the mountains with rock climbing and a class V whitewater river. If it weren't for the difference in vegetation, language, and culture, it could be mistaken for Fayetteville, WV on most days. Green abounds.

The people of this little town are beyond friendly. And while the culture in this town is much of what I learned when I was in Spanish courses in HS (I learned just as much about the culture of each Spanish-speaking country as I did grammar and speaking), Jalco has some unique tendencies all its own (as any place does). My favorite of these, is that the locals communicate with various whistles before speaking if the person they're seeking isn't in sight. Different whistles can mean anything from, "Hey, how's it going?" to "Anyone home?" or "Let's go do something!" and those are just to name a few.

We've left Jalco to see adjacent towns like Coatepec and Actopan, but mostly, we ended up staying pretty local. This part of Mexico doesn't get much tourism by gringos, which is sad because it is absolutely GORGEOUS. Below, enjoy a chronological journey through our trip via my photos (all cell phone). We head home later today. It's been a fun few weeks.

Life in a hammock...that's basically been my trip. This is the communal kitchen/living room area in their house.

Enjoying the hammock on the first night while Michele, Roberto and Dave play music

More hammock the following AM

And more music before walking up to the climbing wall

View of Jalcomulco from the climbing crag

A need treehouse fort Sohoda (who developed the climbing area) built

Cerro Brujo, the climbing wall outside Jalco

Where Sohoda sleeps; his family have a house in town but he prefers this

Sohoda and friend playing instruments while Dave and Roberto gear up to climb.
I have a rotator cuff injury and sadly cannot climb.

Up, up and away!

One of many dogs I've encountered on my trip. This girl was standoffish but still wanted to
sleep on my foot!

They weren't sure if they'd max out the 70 meter rope, so Dave went up on Sohoda's
kitchen roof to lower Roberto. Rope wasn't maxed out fortunately, but better safe than sorry.

More time in a hammock while they climbed. 

And another evening of music playing at the house.

The donkey parked really close to our bedroom window. There are a lot of working donkeys around here and they bray 24/7

Enjoying the early sunshine

Sun beaming through the kitchen in the morning. Everything is open air - no glass windows!

We had to make a fire to help with bugs at the crag. The no see ums are no fucking joke down here. You should see my legs...

Such beautiful vistas! 75%+ of those trees are mango trees by the way. Jalco is a ecotourism and mango town.

Jalco and fires to burn the "trash" that are fallen leaves. They've got no concept of compost and just burn the understory.

Such a beautiful crag area. Sohoda has done an outstanding job.

Roberto and Michele's house. Rooms segmented out like pie slices below, open common area above (where hammocks are)

Sugar cane to the right, mango trees to the left

Gorgeous sunset vistas from the car on our way to Coatepec

Um yeah. Rattlesnake in the tequila....

And a....king snake? Roberto is not drinking the viper tequila, but mezcal, another agave liquor

Tacos al pastor and a corona

Tacos al pastor....more on this later...

Plaza within a bar we went to

It was a chilly 64°F this night, hence my jacket.

Pork rinds and tamarind margaritas - so freaking delicious!

The biggest freaking chelada-mix beer ever.

Streets of Jalco

Dave deciding which meat and cheese to order before going in, running his Spanish by me

The three amigos one morning

Puto = bitch. Dave and Roberto end many sentences in conversation to one another with "puto!" so it was only
 appropriate to pose with the graffiti lolol

A hobbit-esque home near the swimming hole we went to

Poza Azul (Blue Hole) local springfed swimming hole. Totally and completely gorgeous

Nature's infinity pool!

It certainly didn't suck ;-)

The drop here is deceiving, we were a good 30' above the next pool

Swimming selfies

Enjoying the cool escape from the heat - this redhead doesn't mesh well with hot weather!

An indigenous woman is causing quite the political stir in Mexico much like Bernie Sanders did in the
 US - we went to a part of one of her rallies in Jalco

Me. In a hammock. Again. 

Michele is a ceramist and taught me a bit about throwing pots

She made it look so easy!

Michele's quick example bowl on the left and my bowl on the right...

Mine was far from perfect, but it was okay for my first time!

Not going to fire it and take it home as their kiln isn't complete, but it would suffice as a dog bowl if I did.

Beautiful river views....

One of my favorite views of the whole trip! From a restaurant/wedding venue. They also have zip lining...one of the
zip is actually right in front of me in this photo but you can't see it due to the trees/clouds

Enjoying the view. We ate dinner right at this table.

The wedding area.

Similar topography to WV for sure.

A poinsettia relative...

One of many puppies encountered this week <3

Beans cooking in a crock outside someone's front door in Jalco

Local swimming hole in a pool between rapids

Roberto and Michele's backyard complete with pine apple, lemongrass, aloe, and other yumminess

View of the upstairs common area from the back yard

And again...

Michele's ceramic studio

Nice complete view of the upstairs area.

Tacos al pastor...a lot of pork that is repeatedly marinaded as it's rotated into the flame

And then they shave off the outside to be served a little at a time as they're ready

Roberto and Dave freaking love this place

Evidence of the unhealthy Mr Taco love of tacos al pastor

Neat composting toilet Sohoda built for the cerveceria (brewery)

Mike (originally from New Orleans) showing Roberto and Dave his cerveceria outside of Coatepec

He and his wife have done a beautiful job!!

There's even an outside area (featuring one of his wife's paintings) for bands, this was a local jazz group

Yet another vista of Jalco

Nubes (noo-behs, clouds in English) one of few huskies I saw on this trip...his "owner" would leave him tied and crying
without water most of the day (he'd dump it out in his distress) and I started taking him water and going over to console him
It isn't easy being a dog in a culture that sees animals more as things that serve a function than companions. This guy tore
at my heartstrings a lot. He was a total sweetheart - just a typical husky who needed more exercise than he was provided
and acted out as a result.

Another evening jam sesh

Eating pizza!

Bunch of climbing friends at dinner another night. Many of our dinners were on tables like this in the middle of the street
in Jalco outside of someone's home. They'd take your order and cook for you in their kitchen and serve you on the street.
We brought our own beer. Dave and I ate like kings most evenings for a whopping $2.50-5 total for us both.

Gecko on my yoga mat

A butterfly in a butterfly garden

Unfortunately all of the orchids in this garden had just completed their blooming period so there weren't any magnificent
flowers to enjoy, it was beautiful all the same.

Near Actopan above El Descabezadero, the birth place of rivers

Yep. That's a waterfall basically coming out of the middle of a wall of rock...

Another view. Waterfalls to the right and left of this staircase

With the water coming out of the wall....

And behind us

Loving the water and the cooler temperatures

Cheesin'

So uniquely beautiful

Lesser falls coming out of the same wall of rock further downstream, that is a swimming hole at the base

People for scale

Bizarre unreal looking flowering structures on a plant

A very cool series of cascading pools elsewhere in the park

There were about 7 hottub sized pools where you could sit and enjoy the water.
 If someone in the top one pees in the water though everyone below will sit in it we joked.

Bananas

The biggest waterfall...see the trail to the right? Yeah, we got a bit wet...

But it was so cool! Roberto and Michele

Dave and I

Always climbing something somewhere...

Picturesque swimming area above the falls

There was NO ONE up here. So obviously, we took advantage of the quiet and had a peaceful swim

Look closely and you'll see my stark whiteness as I launch off a small rope swing into the water

One more parting shot of the waterfall as we headed out

Central church near the central square in Actopan