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On the road to CatemacoToday was our day for Catemaco. Though the town is only maybe 40 miles at most, the trip was going to take 3 hours. We got up at 3 a.m. our time, got ready and headed out the door to meet up with Karla's aunt and cousin who were tagging along. This time I was driving.
We had no trouble finding the road we wanted, but the road was less than stellar. There were many little towns and the towns consisted of no more than topes, restaurants, and muts. The topes were always exciting as some could be massive whereas others you'd hardly feel. We were on the free highway and I was quite surprised to see that it was full of trucks. Apparently they can take the extra time to save some money.
The road meanders through lovely green fields with swamp areas and the occasional cow. Mango trees and almendra trees seemed to be the dominant trees in the area. After 2 hours the road leaves the little towns behind and takes you up a somewhat windy road up the mountain heading due east. There where they cut the road, the locals would take advantage of the
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Almost there free soil and plant small gardens consisting of primarily corn, though I did see chile peppers and some other vegetables growing. The "farms" were maybe 10 feet wide at most and could continue for a mile or two. They were literally up against the road.
Somewhere out in the fields we passed a paisano. There a lonely hippy, with the hair all knatted up and the unwashed clothes to match meandered down the highway. I could have sworn I'd seen him in Eugene a few times before. He didn't look like he knew where he was going, or even cared.
The road finally crested and makes a turn around the most gorgeous lake I've ever seen. We took the first exit towards the malecon down into town and drove slowly debating amongst ourselves what to do next. There were many people willing to offer some assistance, for a price. We found one gentleman who looked rather honest and who offered us a boat ride tour around the lake to see the sights. We agreed but decided that we needed some fuel before heading out.
We parked the car and stepped out onto the damp sidewalk. With my
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Catemaco first step I noticed that the ground seemed to hop about. The more I walked, the more it hopped. I stooped down and discovered the cutest little frogs. They were everywhere. Little black frogs no more than a dime in size. I picked one up for the girls' entertainment, played with it some, then released it back on to the sidewalk. We found a nice restaurant, ate very delicious food at a good price and head out to find our boat.
The boat ride took us past mangroves, thick vegetation, and millions of herrons, egrets and other fishing birds. The first stop was to visit some lady who claimed to have natural medicines for all the ailments one may have. Catemaco is known for its voodoo like culture and is full of shamans of all sorts. We declined her goods and we were off to the next stop.
The next stop was an area with a spring that fed the lake with clean water. We took a few pictures there but nobody was brave enough to drink the water. With that we were on our way to see La Isla de las Garzas which is an island the
fishing birds use for refuge and mating. There I saw the elusive green heron that I have yet to see in the US, as well as egrets, blue herons, other other miscellaneous birds.
From there it was on to another springs, this one a mineral spring where the water came out of with its own gas. Sure enough you could bottle it, shake it up and the gas could be heard exiting the bottle upon opening. The water was quite delicious here and everyone had to try a little.
The next stop was Nanciyaga, a small ecological reserve on the water's edge. The rain forest here is stunningly beautiful. They take you on a small guided tour through the forest then leave you to yourself to observe its beauty. But, like the boat tour, they try to get you to buy all of their magical products, mud baths, and even visit their shaman. We declined to receive the services of their shaman, who was hiding in his hut. He became somewhat enraged, throwing items against the inside of his hut. I think we made the right decision there.
The ecological preserve may have animals but the trails
are so close together and the area so small that I doubt you'd ever see a tapir or pecari or even a monkey for that matter. The area has quite a bit of human traffic with tourists.
After an hour or so enjoying the preserve, we boarded the boat again to head back. On the way back we were to stop by the famous Isla de los Changos where a local university decided to unload their test monkeys once they were done testing them. I was somewhat disappointed with what I saw. The monkeys looked to be in terrible health, deathly obese and even appear to be diseased. Whether they are or not I cannot confirm, but some looked to be carrying even tumors. The island itself was no more than a few rocks. It sort of reminded me of the cages used during the 1950's at zoos which still exist in some areas. These monkeys were very limited in their capacity to move. With that, we were ready to head out. But they were monkeys and everybody likes to see monkeys, so life was good.
We got off the boat and were immediately accosted by vendors. This
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Garza nests is something you get used to in tourist areas. This one had a cup of clams from the lake and we decided to try them. Tegogol they called them. They were delicious, of course, but the pico de gallo he threw in had some of the hottest peppers in it that left even Karla's aunt and cousin were crying. But it was worth the experience.
We got back in the car and headed to find the Salto de Eyipantla, a massive waterfall somewhere nearby. It was very easy to find. Just head east of the Libre, when you get to the blue waterfall sign pointing left, turn left. Keep driving until the road ends and there you are. But beware, here the vendors were even more aggressive. We got to a point in the road where it looked like the road was blocked. A large truck had parked perpendicular in the road, blocking it entirely. A random little boy, no more than 9 years old flagged us down and we rolled down the window to ask what was going on. He wanted to take us to the falls. We acquiesced, thinking that he knew someother way. Silly us. This
is Mexico. If the truck is blocking the road, drive off the road and around it. That was our instructions and sure enough it looked like they did it on purpose to dupe unsuspecting tourists like ourselves and it worked.
So here we were with this little boy now in the car, making that 3 in front and four in back, and I was feeling a little shammed, because you drive around the truck and there is the parking lot. We parked and opened the door only to have a least three or four more littel kids with bags of goodies trying to get you to buy them. Karla wanted some tamarindo snacks, valued at 40 pesos, offered her 2 and it was a done deal. Funny how that works. Now, mind you, we still had this little boy and he was going nowhere. He stuck like glue. To reach the falls you pay some 6 pesos and head down hundreds of steps until you reach the bottom. The waterfall is gorgeous and is worth the price of admission. It is the one where the hero in Apocalypto jumps off. Of course he didn't, because he would have been
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Volcan San Martin torn to shreds on the jagged rocks below, but it works in the movies. So there we were with our self-proclaimed tour guide. He didn't offer us anything. He didn't really have any information to give about the falls. What he did have were rhymes. We somewho found ourselves a little rapper. He waited for his moment, as we were all gathered together for a picture, to start rattling off verses. At first nobody could really understand, but we gathered something about his ladies, his love affairs, booze and some other topics little 9 year boys should not know about and that was the clue for Karla's aunt to ask him, mid verse, "Is that some kind of verse?" Our little rapping tour guide felt stupid, as he should have speaking like that in front of ladies and children, and shut up. But that didn't get rid of him. We found a spot along the river to play in the rocks and he just stood there. It had been at least two hours and he was still there. Out of pity Karla gave him some pesos and he disappeared in a heartbeat.
We eventually got hungry again and decided
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Mangrove tree it was time to trek back up the stairs. Karla was holding Mia's hand and Mia was tired, hungry and angry. She was going to complain every step of the way, and there were many many many steps. Tia wanted to carry her but she was not going to let her. I was behind them, getting ready to begin our climb, when a little girl came up to me. She was maybe 10, nearly the same age as the little boy and she began to walk with me. She turned to me and offered me an ordinary vine rose. Being unimpressed and somewhat hungry myself, I declined. She insisted I take the rose and that it was a gift. So, not to be rude, I took her rose. Now with the rose, and another random little kid stuck to me, we began the ascension. She stayed the whole time. Shouldn't she be in school studying somewhere? No. Was she disheartened by Mia's complaints? No. Was she disheartened by the fact that I paid no attention to her? No. Did she care that I was ignoring her verses? Yes, that is right, she too was a rapper. She had many verses
that were drowned out by Mia's crying. When we finally reached the top she demanded money. Now I was somewhat mad and told her to scram. She responded, "But I gave you a flower so you owe me." So I politefully gave her back the flower with the kind words, "I never asked for your flower. Take it. I don't want it." I felt like I was in kindergarten again.
We walked towards the car and found a gentleman offering food. His restaurant was his house. There was an aluminum roof, dirt floor, chickens running around and no electricity from what I could tell. We asked to use the bathroom to change and he directed us to public bathrooms they use across the street. There was no menu here. The menu was whatever we so desired. The cook did it all. Sure enough, she did. We ordered food and it was some of the best food yet. The tortillas were by far the best we had eaten. The tortillas were made by the man's wife as we ate. The food fell into the stomach and the anger subsided and life was all peaches again. We headed back to the
car and found that our windshield wipers were up, as if somebody cleaned the window. There was a guy standing there expecting money. This was too much. We put the wipers down, got in the car and left an unhappy man standing there. Sure enough, just as I expected, the windshield was still covered with bird droppings. He wanted money for pretending to wash the windshield. Do I look that naive? He must have learned that trick after his rapping career failed. But he was the last of the vendors. We were on the road and heading back to Coatzacoalcos.
Since I had no trouble leaving Coatzacoalcos, I should have just found it no problem. But instead I found myself in the wrong city heading in the wrong direction. I took a few u-turns, one right before entering the highway towards Villahermosa, Tabasco and finally found my way back. At least we saw some new areas, saw the beautiful bridge Coatzacoalcos II and made it back before the rain began.
We snacked some more at Karla's aunt's house after which Karla and I headed out with her uncle to climb a nearby dune. He was telling us that
the city wanted to develop the area but a certain group blocked construction because they suspected the dune was covering a sacred Olmeca pyramid or temple. The dune did look suspicious the way it was so perfectly formed in a triangle, so we decided to go climb it. It was only drizzling now so the weather was cooperating and the lightning appeared to be a few miles to the north. But it was dark now and there are many poisonous snakes and other creatures that live in Coatza in the tall grass. The grass was anywhere from 1" to 4" tall in areas. You could not see where you were stepping, and less so because we were walking through it at night. We all agreed that we were deathly crazy attempting this stunt, but we needed to climb the potential Olmeca pyramid, and we did. We only encountered one creature on the way that fled so we were ok. We couldn't see what it was due to the darkness and it was better we didn't know I suppose. Unfortunately the pictures we took did not come out with the lack of light. In any case, we climbed the pyramid and
enjoyed the experience. The only casualties were our legs that came back covered in mosquito and gnat bites. With that we called it a day.
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