El Cielo

The jungle is the loudest place I have ever been.



Other surprises: It turns out that Carlos intends for this to be a pretty hardcore camping/hiking/outdoor kind of trip. Also he eats very little for the amount of climbing, swimming, and sweating we do. It's amazing how much your body can, in fact, do without collapsing. In fact, there have been some times recently in which I actually wished that it would just collapse, that I would pass out, hit my head on a rock, and have to be helicoptered out to a hospital somewhere far away. Just sayin. But it's been a pretty decent trade off between things that make me wish I could be hospitalized and things that make me happy. I think.

Early this week Carlos and I headed south from Monterrey towards El Cielo, a bioreserve where three ecologies meet (desert, forest, jungle) high in the mountains. Of course we left the city five hours late and ended up arriving in the dark, opting to crash with some family friends, who were, of course, not at home, and so we camped in their front yard. It was humid, over 90 degrees, and the birds around their house sound like they are in space. Or under water. Screaming under water.

In the morning Carlos told me the hike would be "un poco pesado", so we left some of our heavier things in the courtyard so as to lighten our backpacks. Honestly I had no intention of ever using the backpack I brought to hike and camp at all. It was just to take things on buses and planes. So hiking up the side of a mountain, straight up, for six hours in the midday heat carrying 30 pounds or so on my back was not in my plans either. There were spiny plants and spiders and mosquitoes. Actually, we got lost (of course) and ended up hiking even further than necessary. At one point my ankles and legs simply could not do it any longer. They only shook and bent to the sudes. But there was nothing to be done. Finally a campesino out cutting and collecting leaves found us and took us to the nearest town with him, and we ended up camping in his backyard, as we literally couldn't take one more step.

It turned out for the best though. El Cielo is a strange place to visit, mainly because it is a tourist location but so isolated and old that nothing really caters to tourists. There is nowhere to go, per say, except to the only three towns in the mountainous jungle, and then off hiking to various viewpoints (which we often couldn't find, despite scaling, on various days, sheer cliffs covered in rocks that appeared to be good homes for large spiders which I fortunately did not encounter, in our attempts) and various rivers (which were brilliantly cold and made for swimming and getting blood, mosquitoes, and bugs off of you). You can't get around except by taking the insane kind of walks that Carlos and I did our first day, paying a ton of money to a guide if one can be found, or hitching rides. As we do everything for free, you can imagine our attempts to movew around. On the plus side, the campesino who we stayed with was lovely, and his whole family hung out with us every night, made us coffee and tortillas, played ball with us. It was super charming.

Sometimes I feel like I must just be totally crazy to do this. People always tell you that you can do things you never imagined you could, and I always thought, well, I like to nap and chain smoke when left to my own devices, that will never happen to me. But here goes. I think though, that some craziness is in fact present. But then everywhere I look it's beautiful. Stunningly so. In El Cielo there are jaguars. There are also herds of butterflies that scatter like flocks of pigeons when you walk into them. There are tiny houses and children and donkeys in the sunset. I have seen every sunset that has passed our earth since I have been here. On the way down from El Cielo, which was an extreme trip even in a car, we stopped at a huge river and swam in the currents. You know, I haven't met a single Mexican who doesn't want to live here. Why would you ever leave, except for the obvious economics? I could spend a year here and not find everything. In fact I may have to come back if I want to see even a single city.


This week we explore the Sierra Potosi, lots of waterfalls and caves and jungle, and end up in Xilita eventually, which was in National Geographic's "Hidden Mexico" edition, if you're curious. Hopefully we will be in D.F. by the first week of August, where I will surely be able to download photos. With love


m

ps- I finally got a job confirmation! I begin interning for the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in the end of September. Come visit next March-August, please