When some person unknown decides to call their campground “The Jungle” I consider that a challenge not to avoided. After we failed to find the waterfalls in the village of Los Organos near the coast we followed the main road to Catemaco, an intersection on Highway 180.
“We buy cattle (ganado=livestock)” reads the hand written sign specifying cows and bulls. A nice change from the US advertising with offers to buy ugly houses, whatever they are.
Layne was watching Google’s blue line counting off the turns. I pulled off a minute to let laggards get by and then we crawled up the road looking for a dirt track described on the iOverlander app as overgrown.
It was obvious when we got there and the road led off into the trees. It was a jungle all right. Five bucks a day each to camp. Fair enough.
The first time you drive a track like this it seems to take forever. I disengaged the electronic stability control button, ESC, which locks the front wheels together to reduce slipping (similar to a differential lock for a front wheel drive van) and put the gearbox into first manually. It was unnecessary it turned out as the trail was firm and rocky which felt lumpy but never degenerated into slippery mud or soft sand. We lurched along just fine at walking pace.
The overhanging branches much discussed on iOverlander have all been cut back so we did fine until we met a pick up driver who expected me to make room for him and his little truck. Lucky I knew how to manage that or we might still be there!
We arrived of course and walked into an open air restaurant with two large German shepherds ( described as friendly on iOverlander - useful app isn’t it?) and they gave us a nickel tour.
The camping area is a field with no facilities, no power plugs no water faucets and no sewer drains. No problem for us as we dump our porta potty into the toilet when we have to ( we put no toilet paper into our toilet to avoid blockages) and our batteries were fully charged. It’s cool enough at night a fan is all we need to sleep.
We settled in, which takes not much in a van, and walked over to the restaurant for lunch. We had tortillas cooked with fried pork skins (chicharrones) on them. They make burgers from meat sourced locally and hot dogs and chicken nuggets for the kids who show up to swim in the vast pool while their parents do their thing.
Three dollar plate of food and an ice cold beer by the pool. Do you ask yourself why van lifers freeze in Arizona in winter instead of sitting here?
It really is a jungle.
I took the pictures below on my phone as I walked Rusty around the campground after he declined to stroll down the entrance road with me. There’s no one in the pictures because it’s so early. And no we didn’t take the slide…
You can swim in the lake they say but we saw no reason to try it as the pool is huge and beautifully eccentric.
Me walking all three dogs! It was a short trail as it was cut by the power company to install power lines but for Rusty it was enough.
Every paradise has its serpent and a group of college kids camped one night. Right next to us. In a huge empty field. Grr. Mexicans do not understand personal space!
Actually they were very low key and quiet and no problem at all. They left the next morning after one night and we were alone again.
We get up early and exercise, have a swim in the huge pool which is an uneven cement lined hole under the trees and probably the best pool I’ve ever swim in it’s so eccentric. Then we do some camp chores ( this is me doing a chore…) then lunch at the restaurant and… soon we take off to hunt for waterfalls. 
I haven’t told Rusty Tuxtla (tooks-la) Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas State is one hundred degrees this week. There is a Hilton Hotel in our future, Layne says!
We are planning a hotel stay for a couple of nights and then we’ll drive toward the Guatemalan border, the southernmost point we can’t cross just yet as we do have to return to the States. Chiapas, mysterious land of disaffected Indios, mountain landscapes and all sorts of vaguely terrifying bandits and other such nonsense. I can’t wait.
