16
Jun

Pits and Parrots – Parque Nacional Cañón del Sumidero & Sima de las Cotorras, Chiapas, Mexico

Posted on June 16th, 2011 :: Posted in birds, Canyon, Mexico, National Park, Outdoor, value for money, video

In many ways it was very hard to leave San Cristóbal de las Casas. But in one way it was very easy: it’s all downhill from there. Between San Cristóbal de las Casas and Tuxtla Gutiérrez the well-maintained road drops 6,000 feet via the non-pay highway out of town. We didn’t touch the gas for 20 miles. Heaven.

Chiapa de Corzo & Tuxtla Gutiérrez

Our first stop, once we reached the bottom of that massive hill, was the colonial town of Chiapa de Corzo which was charming but way too expensive for us (a festival was on so hotel prices were all jacked up). We quickly moved on to Tuxtla (no one uses the second half of this city’s name) where we found the biggest hotel values on the Journey so far.

Fuente Colonial, a brick fountain built in 1562 in Chiapa de Corzo.

Hotel San Antonio in Tuxtla has four rooms around a small back courtyard that go for 200 pesos (about US$17). Each is spotlessly clean (they have a gadget that dusts the ceiling fan blades and they use it!) with cable TV and a double bed and a private bathroom.

The courtyard is lovely and the WiFi works. For some reason the rooms upstairs are more expensive (perhaps because they’re larger) but they’re stuffy and dirty and the WiFi signal is weaker up there, so don’t get fooled. If you can get into one of the 200 peso courtyard rooms downstairs you’ve scored.

During an evening stroll around Tuxtla (not much going on) we discovered that the city’s cathedral was brutally “renovated” in the late ’80s and now holds no charm except for the hourly parade of saints out of its clock tower. We ended up at Jardin de la Marimba (Marimba Garden) where a dance festival was taking place featuring fairly aged dancers. Each surprisingly spry troop performed traditional regional dances in traditional regional costumes. Of course the troop representing Chiapas got the loudest applause.

See for yourself in our video, below.

Another Tuxtla bargain? The Zoologico Miguel Alvarez del Toro Zoo on Mondays when the zoo is free to nationals and visitors. The zoo is laid out on a sprawling, wooded, shady chunk of land just outside the city and it features a gorgeous black panther and some jaguars, a resplendent quetzal bird and a couple of sadly stuffed harpy eagles, among other things. The enclosures are decent and its a very popular place for families.

Parque Nacional Cañón del Sumidero

Part of the dramatic canyon that makes up Parque Nacional Cañón del Sumidero in Chiapas, as seen from one of the view points on the rim.

Between Tuxtla and Chiapa de Corzo is the entrance to the Parque Nacional Cañón del Sumidero. We opted out of the pricey and loud motor boat rides up the river at the bottom of this deep, steep canyon and chose to see its massiveness from above from a series of five miradors (view points) off a central road along the canyon’s rim.

Part of the dramatic canyon that makes up Parque Nacional Cañón del Sumidero in Chiapas, as seen from one of the view points on the rim.

The 10 mile road that connects the miradors was as close to a US-style National Park road as we’ve seen since leaving the US: narrow, winding and full of slow moving buses, passenger cars and tourist vans full of gawking travelers. The turnouts to the miradors had ample parking and paths to the canyon rim. All of the miradors except #5 had picnic tables too.

Sima de las Cotorras

The Sima de las Cortorras is 525 feet wide and 460 feet deep and full of parrots.

From there we headed to Sima de las Cotorras (Abyss of the Parrots), a massive almost perfectly round sinkhole that’s 525 feet (160 meters) wide and 460 feet (140 meters) deep. That’s amazing enough, but there’s a forest at the bottom of this sinkhole that’s home to hundreds of green parrots which fly out en masse each morning and trickle back in every afternoon.

A tame parrot amongst hundreds of wild ones at Sima de las Cortorras in Chiapas, Mexico.

Tourist facilities around this amazing bird-filled hole in the ground were created with the help of Sendasur, the same orgnization that helped created Las Guacamayas (where the main attraction are scarlet macaws) and they’re both impressive places.

At the sima we checked into a room in the small two story stone guesthouse on the property. For 300 pesos (about US$25) we got a charming room with a great bathroom and a private furnished balcony. There are good raised-platform camping sites here too (100 pesos) that come with flush toilets and sinks (but no showers). The on-site restaurant also served great food, including some of the best hand made tortillas we’ve had in Mexico.

The pet parrot kept by the folks who run the restaurant loved the tortillas too, as Eric found out. Watch them sharing breakfast in our video, below.

Sima-de-los-Cortorras_many-parrots-flying

Those bright green specks against the gray karst rock are parrots emerging from the Sima de las Cortorras at dawn..

Wild parrots emerging from the Sima de las Cortorras in Chiapas, Mexico.

A trail has been built below the rim inside the crater which takes you around the hole. A badass local guide named Nancy will lead you around or even harness you in for a rappel a bit deeper into the ground where you can see more than 40 pre-Hispanic paintings and hand prints which were somehow put on the walls more than 200 feet below the rim between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Wild parrots emerging from the Sima de las Cortorras in Chiapas, Mexico.

But the real attraction is watching the mass exodus of parrots at sunrise. Around 6 am we heard a tentative “buenos dias” outside our room and that was our cue that the birds were on the move. Sound is amplified inside the sinkhole, so the birds wings and cries sounded extra loud. They flew incredibly quickly (making photograhy and video tricky in the early morning light) as the first handful of birds grew into a crescendo of green wings.

Wild parrots taking a brief break after emerging from the Sima de las Cortorras in Chiapas, Mexico.

Like the thousands of swifts which saw emerge from the Sótano de las Golondrinas in Aquisimon, Mexico, this mega flight was amazing but brief.

Not so amazing? The nearby Aguacera Waterfall. Feel free to skip it and its 25 peso per person entrance fee.

Eric and his new friend.

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10
Dec

You Can Get There From Here – Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico

Posted on December 10th, 2009 :: Posted in Canyon, Drive, Mexico, Mountains, SPOT map, Town

This post is part 8 of 9 in the series Copper Canyon, Mexico

We’d taken the el CHEPE Copper Canyon train. We’d used our feet. We’d even conquered two of the most dramatic driving roads into and out of individual canyons in order to visit the towns of Batopilas and Urique. All that was left was to drive from one end of the Copper Canyon region to the other.

Many locals had assured us that it was possible to drive across the Copper Canyon region from Creel to El Fuerte (even though the region looked completely roadless on every map we looked at) and that the previous rainy season hadn’t done too much damage to the area’s network of dirt roads. Feeling encouraged, we left Creel bound for Cerocahui and the first leg of our intra-canyon road trip.

Driving across the Copper Canyon most of the roads, nearly 10 hours worth, were simple dirt roads which weren't even on our detailed road atlas. One of the many switchback roads up, down, over and around the mpountains can be seen in the background.

The "roads" that traverse the Copper Canyon region of the Sierra Madre mountains are simple dirt tracks. You can see one switch-backing up, down, over and around the mountains in the background.

We left the pavement behind in San Rafael, not long after leaving Creel. Many of the simple dirt roads that eventually took us all the way to El Fuerte were built to give access to the mines in the region and most were not on the detailed maps in our Gia Roji road atlas. The locals and the mine employees all know exactly where they’re going so no one ever bothered putting up any signs either.

The ever present Virgen de Guadalupe watches over the roads through the mountains.

The ever-present Virgin of Guadalupe watches over the roads--and the drivers--throughout the mountains.

The route that first day was pretty straight forward, however, and we found our way to Cerocahui via surprisingly smooth dirt roads that followed lazy streams and passed small fields of corn and beans.

After passing Cuiteco the scenery got particularly gorgeous as we drove through pine and oak forests. We were almost sorry when we reached our final destination but we cheered up knowing that we would have the chance to see Alberto and Francia at Hotel Centro Jade in Cerocahui for the night.

Unlike this doomed truck we were heading out of the Sierra Madre mountains down to the Rio Fuerte.

The second day of our intra-canyon road trip got a bit more challenging. The road itself remained in remarkably good shape (though there was still no sign of signs). However, they roads became so narrow in places and the mines create so much big truck traffic that it was slow going. It doesn’t help that the Copper Canyon is a network of different canyons, not just one big canyon, which makes it necessary to drive way up to peaks and passes, then way back down to riverbeds over and over again to get across different canyons. We averaged less than 15mph.

Panorama from the bridge over the Rio Fuerte. At this point we thought we were done with the mountains, but there was still a bit more to go on the remaining three hours to El Fuerte.

As we crossed over the Rio Fuerte we thought we were done with the mountains but there were still more ups and downs ahead of us before we reached El Fuerte. (Click image for full size panorama)

Road along the Rio Fuerte heading out of the Sierra Madre mountains and the Copper Casnyon region, heading down to El Fuerte.

That faint ribbon of road visible to the right o the bank above the Rio Fuerte is what took us out of the Copper Canyon region toward El Fuerte.

The road followed the river for some time. Here an old church lays in ruins.

The road followed the Rio Fuerte for quite a while but we passed very few villages. This one was dominated by the picturesque ruins of an old church.

All told it took almost 12 hours over two days to drive less than 135 miles (more than 100 of them unpaved) from Creel to El Fuerte through mountains, valleys and many different environments and climates–when we left Cerocahui it was 60 degrees and forested and when we arrived in El Fuerte it was nearing 90 and desert-like.

Despite the heat shock, El Fuerte charmed us. It’s the most recently anointed of Mexico’s 35 Pueblos Magicos, honored as havens of traditional architecture and religious signifigance.

The picturesque colonial town of El Fuerte.

The colonial town of El Fuerte was recently designated one of Mexico's Pueblos Magicos.

The church on the plaza in El Fuerte.

All of El Fuerte’s central buildings are freshly painted, very well kept and traditional and food stalls in the market serve a mean birria and delicious tacos. When we were in El Fuerte it seemed like half the town was out scraping old paint off the iron benches and metal work in the town plaza as part of one big proud community beautification project as well.

For reasons we're still puzzling over almost all of the lamp fixtures on the outside of buildings in El Fuerte had this same gargoyle design.

El Fuerte also has a fancy Balderama Hotel which has a huge statue of Zoro who, according to a half-hearted local legend, came from El Fuerte. However, we agree with Lonely Planet on this one: a better bet is to check into the Torres Del Fuerte Hotel.

You’ll be greeted by Jesus, who was actually born in what is now room #2 in this eclectically-restored hacienda just a couple of blocks off the plaza. Jesus is dapper and charming and, along with his wife and son, has brought his family’s former home back from the brink of ruin and opened the hotel.

Parts of the property are 350 years old and by the time Jesus started the hotel project it was in pretty bad shape and most of the original furniture and fixtures were beyond help. Out of necessity, Jesus has amassed a collection of period replacements–from antique wood doors and cast iron railings to furniture and tile work–from around Mexico and the US. Jesus’ wife then placed each piece, adding modern touches (sinks carved from solid stone, plenty of sex appeal (massive candles and plushly upholstered couches) and a little bit of whimsy (bright colors and a leopard-print wool rug) as she went.

Add in a sprawling lush garden, an on-site bar and restaurant (that’s a shocking bargain) and, of course, Jesus and we were tempted to spend an extra day in El Fuerte.

The sexy and eclectic open-air lobby of the Torres Del Fuerte hotel.

The Rio Fuerte.

El Fuerte is also known as a haven for more than 60 species of bird and for its bass fishing. We don’t fish but we did take a morning ride in a rowboat down the Rio Fuerte with local guide Chico who was quick to point out osprey, herons and kara karas (which are scavengers like buzzards, but much prettier).

Chico, a guide in El Fuerte, took us on a birdwatching boat trip on the Rio Fuerte.

We stopped along the way for a quick stroll to a collection of rocks covered in petroglyphs. Once located on the top of the highest point in the area, an earthquake knocked the rocks down and they now lie in jumbled piles not far above the riverbank.

Cerro de la Mascara (Mask Hill), near El Fuerte has many Nahuatl petroglyphs.

We were also thrilled when Chico’s son, Sergio, took us on a tour of the Rancho Chinobampo organic farm where he oversees the organic fish project. The farm also currently grows mangos, basil (some of which ends up in Whole Foods), medicinal herbs and lots of experimental plots of staples like jalapenos and cucumbers.

Rancho Chinobampo is one of just a handful of officially certified organic farms in Mexico and it’s taken a unique approach even among that rarified group. The family that owns the farm also owns successful zeolite mines and they’ve chosen to combine the two ventures by using zeolite (a natural substance commonly used in gardening but rarely on this scale) to supplement or even replace soil. Bat guano, harvested by hand, is mixed with it for nutrients. They spray an all-natural garlic mixture instead of pesticide. They also get help from the University of Havana.

Coming soon to a Whole Foods near you! Basil growing in a mixture of zeolite and bat guano at Rancho Chinobampo organic farm.

Drive Across the Copper Canyon, Mexico from Creel to El Fuerte

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2
Dec

Camping and Hiking at Basaseachi Falls – Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico

Posted on December 2nd, 2009 :: Posted in Camping, Canyon, Hike, Mexico, National Park, Outdoor, video, waterfall

This post is part 7 of 9 in the series Copper Canyon, Mexico

Basaseachi Falls is not technically inside the official boundaries of the Copper Canyon Natural Park (Parque Natural Barranca del Cobre) but it’s close enough for us. Actually the 812 foot cascade–which is the second highest waterfall in Mexico and/or the highest year-round waterfall in Mexico (depending on who you ask) and the 28th highest in the world–is the center piece of its own park, the Basaseachi Falls National Park. And rightly so. This gorgeous unbroken ribbon of water that made us think of Yosemite Falls, the seventh highest waterfall in the world, more than once.

The CHEPE Copper Canyon train doesn’t go to Basaseachi Falls so we drove there taking highway 16 which was marked as a major highway and looked pretty straight in our Gia Roji Mexican road atlas but turned out to a narrow winding road full of 18 wheelers. At one point we watched in horror as the pickup truck in front of us nearly got wiped out by an oncoming big rig which has taken a corner way too wide.

A view of Basaseachi Falls from high above on the rim trail.

Basaseachi Falls and the Candemeña Canyon from high above on the rim trail.

Around 5 pm we finally pulled off treacherous highway 16, reached the town of Basaseachi safe and sound and found our way out to the Basaseachi Falls National Park. Happily, the park gates hadn’t been closed yet. We’re not exactly sure there are any actual park gates, come to think of it, and we never passed a ticket booth or an entrance station either.

Anyway, with the light fading we hurried to find a spot in the park’s campground where we had our pick since we were the only ones there. The campground is rocky but each of the vaguely demarcated sites has a spot that’s smooth and flat enough for a tent. Some also have solid metal park benches bolted into place. We picked a particularly grassy site on a bluff above a river and spent a good part of the night wondering who okay’d the budget to install a half dozen huge fancy metal street lamps throughout the campground instead of improving the mostly-not-working bathrooms. And where do they get a budget anyway if there’s no entrance station or fee collection?

We're not sure what this sign is supposed to be warning us of (falling Gorillas?), but it doesn't look good.

We're not sure what this trail sign is supposed to be warning us about (falling gorillas?) but whatever it is, it doesn't look good.

The next morning we hit the trail headed for the bottom of the waterfall and what we believed would be a stiff two hours or so down a couple thousand feet then back up again. We didn’t even bother with hiking boots or our Mountainsmith day packs–just one liter of water and our sneakers.

We reached the top of the falls in less than 10 minutes but you can’t actually see the falls from there since the cascade is directly under the viewpoint so we started down the trail into the canyon. Then we came to an unexpected fork in the trail.

Of course we took the fork and ended up hiking way back up to the opposite canyon rim until we were substantially higher than the top of the falls where we’d started. This delivered us to a group of three overlooks including San Lorenzo. They were spectacular vantage points on the full face of the waterfall but we’d unexpectedly added a couple of hours and a couple thousand feet of climbing and descending to what was supposed to be a moderate hike.

Weirdly, long sections of the trail on this side of the canyon have recently been widened and paved with large flat stones and concrete–most likely because you can just drive to this chain of overlooks and the tempting trails are meant to entice people to stroll from point to point.

Basaseachi Falls from the San Lorenzo viewpoint.

We, however, hiked on. After getting our fill of the hard-earned view we descended back down to the fork in the trail, then continued on our original route to the bottom of the waterfall. This trail was steep and exposed and hot but spectacular and heading back up proved to be a long hard slog (did we mention that we’d run out of water by this point?) made only vaguely easier by the promise of a sandwich once we got back to our campsite.