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San Blas, on the Nayarit coast between Mazatlan  and Puerto Vallarta, sits on an almost-imperceptibly high spot amidst a sprawling, swampy, jungly mangrove. This means many things, both good and bad. Mosquitoes and other mercilessly pesky and blood-thirsty insects abound, for example.  It also means that the sleepy town’s secluded, wide, white beaches aren’t the only watery thrill to be had.

For around 360 pesos (about $25) for four people one of the captains for hire who loiter in a median in the road as you enter town will take you on a three hour cruise up the Estuary San Cristobal through the federally protected mangroves and jungles and waterways that lead to the La Tovara fresh water spring (add about an hour and another 80 pesos if you want to continue past the spring to a crocodile farm where the animals are bred and released).

Our prow pushed silently through still water as we floated through the jungle toward La Tovara Springs in San Blas, Mexico.

A juvenile osprey eyed us as we passed under it during our float through the jungle and mangroves.

After waiting around for over an hour hoping two other travelers would show up to share the cost of the boat, we finally gave up and convinced a captain to take just the two of us for 300 pesos. The moment we stepped into the small, open, brightly painted wooden boat and started to move we relaxed thanks to a shockingly quite and non-stinky motor, a languid pace and plenty of eye candy. All told we saw dozens of birds, at least a dozen crocs and just two other boats.

You can get the trip for less if you walk or drive across a bridge or go even further out of town moving closer to the springs itself. However, if you ask us, the most serene and “mangrovey” sections of the trip occur in the first 20 minutes so cutting out that stretch to save a few pesos doesn’t make sense, even to us.

This small crocodile, one of many toothy terrors we saw during our boat trip, didn't budge from his sunny log as we floated by.

An egret stood motionless above the glassy water looking for the almost imperceptible movement of lunch below the surface.

Our ultimate destination was the La Tovara fresh water spring where the boat docked and we got out to gawk at the amazingly crystal clear water (this spring actually feeds the town of San Blas) and its population of happy fish. There’s a restaurant here, shady tables and you can even swim in the natural pool that’s been discreetly built up at the mouth of the spring. Be warned, however: at least one swimmer has been attached by a croc here and though there’s now a big weighted chain link fence separating the large natural pool at the mouth of the spring from the river itself we decided against taking a dip.

The crystal-clear waters of the La Tovara Spring.

This bad boy was the largest crocodile we saw and more than big enough to satisfy any Wild Kingdom dreams.

A black Iguana warming up.

San Blas’ other (absolutely unprovable) claim to fame is as the birthplace of banana bread. All over town bakeries swear they invented the stuff and you can hardly turn a corner without bumping into a chance to buy a slice or loaf of pan de platano. We sucumbed at a bakery called Juan Bananas. Why there? No idea, but the bread WAS tasy and the label that came on it can’t be beat: it’s a crude line drawing of a palm tree and a banana tree with a hammock strung between them in which a sated customer (one supposes) slumbers as gargantuan mosquitoes swarm about. We told you there were epic bugs here…

This great blue heron stood almost three feet tall.

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The drive to the trailhead down to Havasu Falls on the Havasupai reservation is gorgeous. Winding, deserted, rising and falling through desert into forest and back into desert again. It dead-ends in a parking lot, pack mule hitching area and helipad grandiosely named Hilltop, AZ. This is the only point within the Havasupai reservation that’s connected by road. From here its about eight miles down, down, down to the lone Havasupai town, Supai. From there we’ll have to walk another two miles to Havasu Falls itself, famed for its blue-green water (the word havasu actually means blue green water) and impressively tall cascades.

From the parking lot at the end of the road in Hilltop, AZ we hit the trail and descended more than 1,000 in the first 1.5 miles of our 1o mile hike to Havasu Falls.

As usual we didn’t get as early a start as we’d hoped so it’s after 11 before we’re on the trail under a blazing Arizona sun. The first mile and a half of the trail is wicked steep and very dusty from all the pack animals that travel up and down all day long. As we round one of the very first switchbacks we encounter one of those pack animals and it appeared to have had enough. It spooked, bolted, pulled on the other horse it was tied to ultimately seemed to collapse. Scary stuff as the frustrated wrangler tried to get the animal to stand up again. No dice, so he began unloading the poor thing. Frankly, some of the hikers heading up the trail looked like they were about to collapse too.

A few miles of the hike down to Havasu Falls took us through this beautiful winding canyon.

Much of the trail down to Havasu Falls travels over deep river rocks in the dry river bed that winds through a canyon. It’s beautiful, but not easy hiking through all those stones. It sure beats the other predominant trail condition, however: sand. In a truly evil turn of events, the sand gets particularly deep in the final two miles of the trail between the village of Supai and the campground itself so save some energy for that last push!

After 10 miles of hiking we near the top of Havasu Falls. However, we weren't there yet. It was still another half mile or so to where we pitched our tent.

We’d planned to hike to Havasu Falls last September but terrible flash flooding in August of 2008 closed the area until June of 2009. Near the end of the hike down we saw the first signs of flood damage as we passed what used to be Navajo Falls but is now a scarred bank and two new weaker falls.

A quarter mile further along we finally reached the top of the campground and got our first view of Havasu Falls itself. It too was changed by the flooding and water that used to fall via two side-by-side cascades now tumbles down in one single stream.

Our long hot hike down the canyon was rewarded with this first glimpse of Havasu Falls.

Havasu Falls is still a spectacular sight, however, and the Havasu people have done a good job of repairing damage the flood did to the pool below the fall by shoring up areas with sandbags to preserve the weirdly resort-like swimming hole beneath the cascade.

Havasu Falls finishes in a pool that's still lovely and inviting despite damage caused by the flash floods of 2008.

The campground was also heavily damaged in the 2008 flash flooding but we found a comfortable spot by the river and set up home for three nights.

Tree stumps, piles of debris and half-buried picnic tables attest to the havoc the flooding wreaked on the Havasu Falls campground as well and there’s still a lot left to clean up. Thankfully the camping area is huge and there were plenty of flat, sandy, shaded places next to the now-placid river to pitch a tent. We even inherited a hammock and a couple of blow up water mattresses from people heading out. Tip: the most private sites are down by Mooney Falls at the far end of the campground, so keep walking.

Another tip: it’s generally pretty warm at the campground even at night and we were very glad that we’d decided to leave our full sleeping bags in the truck and bring our Cocoon Silk Tropic Traveler warm weather bag instead. Not only is it a fraction of the size and weight of our regular bags, we also have a coupling sheet that makes it double-size allowing us to sleep together.

One great side effect of the flooding is that the campground now has a vastly improved toilet system. Gone are the porta-potties that used to inefficiently serve the campground when it was maxed out at 300 or more campers. In their place are clean composting toilets built up the bank away from the river to avoid damage from any future flooding. The things even have motion-sensor solar lighting at night!

There is a pure spring at the campground for drinking water but the steep, hot 10+ mile hike and 2,200 foot descent made us reluctant to get up and walk to it from our campsite. Luckily, we’d packed in our SteriPEN and that’s all we needed to make perfectly pure drinking water in 60 second straight from the river using safe, tasteless ultra-violet rays.

Karen put our SteriPEN to good use purifying river water in 60 seconds using nothing more than ultra-violet light.

At the far end of the campground lies 200 foot high Mooney Falls.

Rested and revived, we spent the next day hiking down to Mooney Falls, a 200 foot cascade at the far end of the campground, via an incredible “trail” carved out of (and sometimes through) a rock face. Crude footholds and chain hand rails only made the trail moderately more manageable.

Getting to the bottom of Mooney Falls required an interesting climb down a sheer rock wall.

From Mooney Falls we continued about four miles down river (sometimes literally in the river) to Beaver Falls. The descent was gradual and the weather was perfect. Most people never hike beyond Havasu Falls but for us this walk was the highlight of our visit.

From the bottom of Mooney Falls it was another four miles or so gently down the canyon to Beaver Falls including several refreshing river crossings.

The river pools and cascades as minerals in the water form crusty enclosures.

The way down to  Beaver Falls included trails through lush vegetation, many river crossings and the ever-changing river itself which rushes in places, pools up in others and was always that gorgeous blue green color.

At one point we even encountered a small band of big horn sheep feeding near the trail. Startled, they leaped across the trail not more than five feet in front of us, each of the four animals looking us in the eye as if to say “what are you doing here?”  before bounding away.

On the way down to Beaver Falls we ran into a family of big horn sheep. Or did they run into us?

The top of Beaver Falls.

Yet another inviting pool in the river on our way to Beaver Falls.

On the return trip back to the campground Eric got pummeled as he attempted to get close to the awesome force of Mooney Falls.

To say we weren’t ready to leave is an understatement but after three days of swimming, hiking and hammocking it was time to go. We gave our inherited hammock and blow up mattresses to other campers, packed our bags and headed out.

For one split second we contemplated tossing our gear onto a horse for the hike out, then laughed at oursleves and hit the trail. This time we did manage an early start (6 am) and the canyon walls kept us in the shade until about 9 am. The final two hours of the climb out, however, were in full sun including that final brutal mile and a half during which we steeply gained 1,000 feet.

After three days at Havasu Falls it was time for the long hot climb back up, up, up.

Hike to Havasu Falls – Havasupai Reservation, Arizona

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For a tiny town, Bernal–less than an hour from Querétaro–has a lot going for it, including Peña de Bernal (Bernal’s Boulder or Bernal Peak) which is, according to some estimates, the second largest monolith in the world after Mt. Augustus in Western Australia. At 350 meters (1150 ft) tall it’s also the fourth tallest (or third tallest, again, depending on who you ask) monolith in the world after Mount Augustus, the Rock of Gilbraltar and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio.

As you can imagine, a pedigree like that attracts a lot of rock climbers. The rest of the scant visitors to Bernal come for the town’s own unique brand of peace and quiet.

Peña de Bernal, seen from the porch of our room at the Parador Vernal, is one of the largest monoliths in the world.

Bernal was designated a Pueblo Magico by the Mexican government in 2005 so it delivers a pleasantly stuck-in-time look and feel with simple buildings, festive colors and a central square dominated by a lively church. Old men sit around and do what old men do while younger men gallop down the cobbled streets. Every once in a while a woman pokes her head out of the shop or restaurant she’s running. It is altogether nap inspiring.

While in Bernal we stayed at the Parador Vernal about a 10 minute walk above town itself. The hotel’s mediocre and poorly translated web site doesn’t do its quirks and charms justice. The lobby is largely populated by big colorful birds in even bigger ornate cages. Our room, #8, had one wall that was painted entirely electric green and featured a huge loosely looped wool area rug that felt like walking on a sheep. The bed was comfortable and the view of Peña de Bernal couldn’t be beat. Some of the hotel’s other rooms (there are 13 in total), however, seemed a bit small and dark so ask for room 7 or 8 if you plan to stay the night. Or just pop up for a bite or a drink in the dining room or outdoor bar with an unobstructed view of the monolith.

Peña de Bernal rises above the tiny town of Bernal.

A wedding at the church of St. Sebastian in Bernal.

Throughout Mexico it seems like we rarely see beer on tap, so we were surprised and delighted when we walked past a pretty cafe with outdoor seating and cerveza de baril on the menu. And that’s not the only beverage surprise the area had in store for us…

Peña de Bernal features a hypnotic light show every Saturday that goes on for more than an hour.

If you don't have a horse you can flag down the Asian-style tuk-tuk that plies the streets of Bernal.

About 30 minutes from Bernal in the town of Ezequiel Montes is the Cavas Freixenet winery complete with tours and wine sales and a kind of manic crowd on weekends that seems intent on downing as much of their newly purchased wine and sparkling wine right then and there at tables and chairs set up in an open-air courtyard.

We missed the last tour of the day so we just wandered around trying not to get between the Mexican couples and families and their wine. Weirdly, there wasn’t a single black bottle of too-sweet Cordon Negro sparkling wine that we associate with the Freixenet brand in the U.S. In fact, none of the wine for sale even had Freixenet on the label–the sparkling wine was called Petillant and turned out to be just as sweet as Cordon Negro.

There's more to drink in Mexico than just cerveza and tequila.

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Near the tail end (get it) of the whole hysterical and (in our opinion) unfounded swine flu mess in Mexico where it all began, we found ourselves walking down Calle 5 de Mayo in Queretaro. As we passed an ultra-hip clothing store the window display caught our eye. There, next to dangerously low-riding jeans and pricey canvas handbags, was a t-shirt with an adorable pig on the front (shades of Charolette’s Web) captioned with the words “el cerdo es innocente,” the pig is innocent.

We balked at the roughly $15 price tag, then we saw the model number:

Virus H1N1.

Priceless.

The Pig Is Innocent! Eric's new favorite t-shirt shot in front of the main cathedral in Zacatecas from the balcony of awesome room 404 at the Santa Rita Hotel.

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The plaza in Arandas is dominated by a huge Gothic cathedral which looms large over the entire town remarkably like the much more famous cathedral in Chartres, Paris.

Not only were we treated like family (our eternal thanks to Jakeline’s family for being so generoso), but we had our first brush with politics during a hastily arranged meeting with the Presidente, or Mayor, of Arandas who was really nice and accommodating but short on time (he had to hurry off to attend the laying of the cornerstone for a new hospital), just like politicians everywhere.

We ended up in a brief meeting with the Presidente (Mayor) of Arandas. Here's Karen, El Presidente, our friend Jakeline and Eric in the Presidente's office.

Arandas has something of a reputation for exquisite tacos, a food we’ve come to not only love but appreciate having eaten hundreds of the things by now. Jakeline and Pascual took us to Tacos Sanctuario where their buddies worked the grill and the brassier to produce really wonderful tacos. The el pastor tacos we had there were the most unique and most flavorful of any we’ve eaten in Mexico. So far.

We (heart) good tacos and the ones at Tacos Sanctuario are great.

As if there could be any doubt that a visit to any destination is always richer when you’re with a local, Pascual and Jakeline capped off our first perfect afternoon in Arandas with an evening visit to Hacienda Santa Maria which we wouldn’t have even known existed, let alone gained entry to, on our own. Their barn full of pure-breed stallions in training rivals many of the hotels we’ve stayed in. The stalls were so clean and airy we wanted to curl up in them ourselves! And there’s really nothing better than sipping tequila on the tailgate watching newborn foals learn what their legs are for as the sun sets.

A nine day old foal and its mother at Hacienda Santa Maria (aka horse heaven) just outside Arandas.

An evening stroll to the plaza is an excuse to do some snacking and Jakeline took us to her favorite churro vendor, Mario’s Churros where fatter and puffier than usual churros are churned out from the cleanest churro cart we’ve ever seen. Filled with cajeta (a thick concoction that’s halfway to caramel) and rolled in sugar, the things are deadly delicious.

 

Churros (basically deep fried bread) are found everywhere in Mexico but Mario made the best we've had to date.

Yes, we’re still eating.

Pig, in almost any of its many guises, is delicious but nothing beats good carnitas (except for bacon and braised Berkshire pork belly). Carnitas Jaime's served up some of the best we've had.

A shot of local tequila (more about that in our next post) and a rousing version of  “Arandas”, courtesy of one of the Mariachi bands that troll Carnitas Jaime’s looking for customers, helped us digest a half kilo of pork.

Team Mariachi after serenading us with their version of a song dedicated to Arandas while we literally pigged out at Carnitas Jaime's.