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....
