Xalapa to the Hill Country (Orizaba to Texas)

Greetings all, glad you could join in the fun.
We just wanted to include a bit more of the sights around Xalapa, Veracruz and then on to good ole Texas.
The following are a few pics of the fantastic gardens found in Xalapa.
This garden is the sister garden of Fairchilds in S. Florida.
I hear they have the largest collection of pine trees in Mexico. (click on pics to enlarge)....

 

 This garden is right in central and is loaded with palms and huge sycamores. 

 

Can you find the zip-liner??

 

From another park on a mountaintop we snapped this photo of Pico de Orizaba looming above all in the far distance.

(Back in the USA) First camp spot in the Hill Country of Texas ....
Garner state park and the Frio River...

The Frio River is lined with huge old cypresses.....

Second spot was sort of a strange place called Utopia along the banks of the Sabinal River.....

And then on to Lost Maples State park.

Lost Maples has some nice hiking along big boulders. We even saw our first porcupine! Didn't know they were such great tree climbers (sorry no picture of the little critter though)

Our pasta diner one night was laced with these fresh pink pine nuts from back in Mexico. Allot of work but yummmmmy!

We had timed our trip through the Hill country just right (Apr-May), as the wildflowers were in full bloom.....

Our 4th spot was at Kerrville-Schreiner Park, just outside the town of Kerrville. One day in Kerrville the ole Vanagator had a big kiss with a telephone pole, which sent the bike rack clear thru the rear window into the bed! We ended up staying here about a month waiting for a new window sent from California. All in all, not a bad place to hang out for awhile.

It's right near the beautiful Guadalupe River. Great day for a swim!

It's a nice town with a round library a few miles from the park.....

The town also has a nice nature center along the river. It has a nice collection of plants and trees and uhhhhhh...

We slowly pulled out of Kerrville on our 25th anniversary with some some fond memories....and a new back window!


Excited to return to Mexico, we went through ole Hondo, Texas where you better slow down.....

The Hill country surprisingly proved to be a very beautiful place. Not the kind of scenery one would expect to find in Texas. Huge cypress trees along some really nice rivers, hills, long horn steer and incredible wild-flowers.
Well, until the next post y'all.....

Stacked Rocks (Orizaba to Texas)

Continuing on our way to Texas (March/April), we spent a few days camping at this incredible park in the state of Puebla. There are thousands of these stacked rock formations throughout this beautiful valley.

The valley is up at 8,000 ft......

We were the only campers... and how you could feel the stones staring at you...

 We almost had the place to ourselves...

 We did some great hiking and were blown away by the many forms one can see in these ancient rocks..

...many thanks to our camp hosts....

night-time was peaceful yet eerie, and the dreams we had!!! bye for now...KnJ...

Orizaba to Texas

Still high in the mountains, our 950 mile trip from Orizaba to Laredo, Texas started out slow with a road closure after only 25 miles! Luckily, we were very close to a nice town called Coscomatepec de Bravo, where a few weeks before we had gone to their huge Monday market. Here, people sold everything from pigs to pineapples. (Click pics to enlarge)...

So, we decided to camp out in the center of town and get a fresh start in the morning. The historic town has cobblestone roads and a beautiful plaza. After a fresh hot cup of java we moved on....

 Our next stop was Jalcomulco on the banks of the Pescado river. This is white-water rafting and eco-adventure country. After checking out the town we picked a nice spot on the river near the long, swinging bridge to set up camp. Remember the film "Romancing the Stone"? Well, some of the scenes were shot right here in Jalcomulco.

We took a hike outside of town along the river and among the thousands of huge mango trees here.....

 The town is opposed to the idea of a dam (presa) being built up river and so have fish painted all over. We heard that the paintings were done by a foreign woman, I think from Europe. Kudos to her and we hope the idea of the damn dam goes away!

 We went river rafting one day and it was a blast. Quite a bit of white-water and incredible scenery.

Our zip-lining tour was killer, as we whizzed over the river gorge on 4 different lines.

 Being very fond of burros, I was impressed to see so many here in the town. Many of the men ride off on them in the morning to tend the mangoes and you can hear the "hee-haws" everywhere.

 

 About a 5 mile bike ride away we find these excellent thermal water pools/falls. They were a bit of a challenge to find, but along with a guy from Holland we met, we had them all to ourselves!

 After a fantastic week in Jalcomulco it was time to move on to our next stopping point... the capital city of Xalapa. We rented a furnished apartment here for our one week stay. Xalapa is a rather large city, but has a big university and many parks and botanical gardens. But for this post we're just going to highlight the incredible Museum of Anthropolgy. We were thoroughly impressed with this museum. Here they have a collection of the mammoth Olmeca heads found in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Veracruz. These date to about 3,000 years ago!

and here's the colorful apartment we had for the week.....

Hope you enjoyed our little adventure this time and stay tuned as we will be catching up with our stay in the Hill country of Texas and the return trip to Orizaba!
bye bye now....