Hitchhiking to Hot Rivers
Trip Start
May 06, 2007
1
32
37
Trip End
Jun 11, 2007
Primavera, Mexico
Monday, June 4, 2007
Dan took me on the local bus, got off on the side of the highway on the way to Tequila and walked into a village to wait for a bus, they come along every 15 minutes (yeah what ever, this is Mexican time... maybe 30 mins but what do I care, where else am I going today?) to take us to Primavera and then to Rio Caliente or Boiling River (funny how when I asked the hotel staff, they had no idea where I was going?) Right on Mexican time, the bus arrived and we wove our way through cobbled streets, past local shops - mostly just a trestle table set up underneath a tarp, locals getting on and off, the bus scattering chickens and children as we passed. Arriving in Primavera, there is no more public transport so we walked and then thumbed a ride - the guys who picked us up worked at the nearby spa complex and could only take us a few k's up the road - the country here is really dry with pines and acacias growing from typically volcanic earth - pumice, scoria and lots of obsidian. Dan said he has found orchids here after the wet season. The river bubbled and gushed from the hills - in some areas, the water was really hot and steaming as it fell down little waterfalls - my analogy was ... 'too hot to do the dishes - watch tv for ½ hour and come back to them - hot'. Algae actually grows in the hot water and is a really intense shade of greeny/blue. In the cooler waters (maybe 45 to 60 C) there is an abundance of aquatic life - minnows, maybe mosquito larvae and lots of other little water creatures. We wallowed in a rock-pool for a while (Dan did mention that he'd forgotten his 'bathers' - was it my lucky day that he'd forgotten his 'budgie smuglers'?), I'm on holidays and don't give a damn what I wear, so take note! The water is viscous with a silky feel, it's really nice to be in a hot tub in the open, so we wallowed fo a while surrounded by bush. We wandered upstream for a while, there were a couple of other groups of people here, apparently it gets quite busy on the weekends or holiday times. There is a quite flash spa complex nearby, where the drivers go to Guadalajara airport to pick up guests. On the way home we walked and walked and walked .. Up hills and up hills and the only cars that passed us were ... full (where are those donkeys in the really bad Mexican movies when you need two?) We finally staggered into Primavera and collapsed under the shade of the only vegie stall and refreshed with mineral water and plums (better than our plums and nothing like them!) and found our way to a local bus back to Guadalajara. Did I mention that it was about at least 35c and scorching (any sunscreen I started out with was gone and Dan had left his hat on one of the buses). I fell into the hotel pool to refresh and then found Ben to go to La Chata for some Pollo Con Mole (Chicken with Chili and Chocolate) and then bed, exhausted, sunburnt and alive!
