Did you ever swim under a waterfall? I’m 64 and I did just that for the first time this weekend. Youngsters like to over use the word “awesome” but in this case I’d like to join them. I had never understood the power of falling water but this modest 15 foot waterfall pushed me away easily as I approached swimming through the crystalline waters. It pounded the deep pool of water below it, the pool I was swimming in and I felt the power of the water such that I felt new respect for idiots leaping over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
It was a primal moment. I looked around and it was us alone swimming in a deep clear pool of cold spring water. How extraordinary was that? The river tumbled over a whole lot of rocks on its way to the sea.
It didn’t last. A whole bunch of people showed up to see what we had found, the garden of Eden on a Mexican hillside just out of sight of the Caribbean Sea, near Montepio (“Pius Mountain”) in Veracruz State.
After we had screwed up finding a waterfall last week we stopped for two nights at the Jungle Campground on the shore of Lake Catemaco. I took the time to figure we could make a day trip around the peninsula and see what we could see driving from Catemaco north to la Nueva Esperanza. The blue dot that marks our position on the map is a mere thirty miles from the lake. More than an hour’s drive for us cautious van lifers. We found a smooth well paved road with millions of topes. We counted seven speed bumps in one small village. Seven, and they gave me a gringo moment.
We overshot the Cascadas Gemelas (Twin Waterfalls) site the first time as there is only one sign for traffic coming from the other direction, and we drove through Colonia Revolution (Revolution Village!) without noticing the turn off. We got it right on the return and found ourselves bumping down a rocky dirt road. Layne wanted to see waterfalls so by God we were going to see waterfalls!
The sign said one kilometer to the falls and we just kept going assuming the best. I was not keen on the possibility of having to reverse long distances between trees and barbed wire fences but there we were!
Yes, there were cows in the road, but we were visiting a privately owned site in the middle of farming country so we had to nudge them out of the way slowly, coming and going from the waterfalls. A large Promaster van is good for that. Finally we arrived and a woman came out to meet us to take our visitors' fee of $1:50 each. We parked and went for a swim.
We looked around and found the twin waterfalls, the main one above was not swimmable, at least not by us. Further on we found the swimming pool over a wooden bridge, of which Layne was not a huge fan.
We decided we would stay the night if the gatekeeper was okay with the plan. There were of course no signs or advertising or encouragement for such a rash course of action. We returned to the parked Gannet 2, in splendid isolation in a vast field and got dressed to swim under the dark cloudy skies which looked pregnant with rain.
The young Mexican couple that were swimming on our arrival left before we arrived to join them so we had the pool to ourselves, and yes it was cold to get in but we were soon used to the temperature and didn't notice it. Ron who we met in San Carlos taught us a lesson about cold water swimming we have never forgotten, swimming in cold water is a matter of adaptation.
Rusty is not and never has been interested in water, other than drinking it.
There was plenty of water to go round.
The swimming hole was under the lesser of the two cataracts and was the prettiest spot, possibly in the river system that ran alongside the field where we were parked,
Naturally we weren't alone for long and even a tour bus arrived bringing twenty five people on a three day tour of southern Mexico from the capital city.So much for our concerns about the narrow access road, as the coach did just fine.. We approached the lady at the gate and she charged us eight bucks to stay overnight so we moved Gannet2 down the field away from the waterfall, the day use parking area and the toilets and had us a field to ourselves. It was quite astonishing. The views were spectacular even under heavy clouds.
Rusty had no desire to approach the cattle or the horses as they grazed.
I was fascinated by the stands of bamboo all round the perimeter of our field.
There were four local dogs and three of them made friends with Rusty, the fourth kept to himself. Two of them came by the van and I gave them our street dog food in plastic bags until nether could eat anymore. I scooped up the leftovers for the next dogs we would meet along the way. Even though most dogs that you meet on the street belong to families they don't always get fed terribly well. They aren't strays but they aren't treasured family members either and they will grab what they can to eat. I like to fill them up when I visit because I don’t like eating well when I’m around hungry animals.
Rural life:
The weather stayed gray for the twenty four hours we parked at Las Gemelas and the second morning we had bene thinking about staying another day for another swim but it was drizzly and not very appealing so on a whim we packed up and drove out.
And that's what I like about living in a van. Choices.
Leaf cutter ant freeways around the field. Ants use these paths they make to transport pieces of leaf:
Gumbo limbo trees pruned to shapes:
Plastic water tanks and laundry: ubiquitous signs of life in rural Mexico:
Food vendor at work. Som people in North America recoil at the idea of street food muttering about sanitation and department of health rules and other such nonsense. The street is where you find delicious local food and I've never had any trouble digesting it. Or paying for it either.
