Creating Adventures: Cuetzalan

Vacation!!!!! Finally!! Teaching English to crazy little kids can be extremely draining, so you have no idea how much I was looking forward to our first vacation.

We took a bus to Puebla, stayed the night in a cute little hostel, and went to Cuetzalan the next morning. That night in Puebla we walked around a bit and ate some amazing cemitas. They are so delicious. It's kind of like the Mexican version of a hamburger. But way better.

Puebla is one of Mexico's "Pueblos Magicos" (magic cities). I hope to go back because they have cool safaris, churches, and volcanoes! Everyone in Pachuca loves Puebla. They all keep telling us we need to go there.

The bus ride to Cuetzalan was fairly long, but super gorgeous. It was on extremely windy mountain roads. We saw a lot of jungle, small Mexican towns, and waterfalls. I honestly don't know how the bus stayed on some of those tiny roads up the mountain.

Gorgeous mountain jungle views from the bus

We walked around Cuetzalan for a while once we got there. It is a beautiful town with crazy steep, rocky roads. I don't know how cars and buses survive driving on those roads.

This church looks super creepy from the outside, but it is so gorgeous and colorful on the inside.

It was crazy trying to find our hostel. We were staying in Yohualichan, a tiny town outside of Cuetzalan. And the combi driver took us to some random hotel. So we were lost. Yay. It was one of those times I was really wishing I could speak Spanish. But the guys at the random hotel were super nice and took us to the correct combi station and made sure we got on the correct one. They even carried the other girls' luggage. Times like that give me faith in humanity. We have met so many nice Mexicans willing to help out strange white girls.

Well, by the time we finally got settled into our hostel it was pouring rain and late afternoon. So we decided to just chill and play games together. It was way fun to get to know the other girls better and just hang out without having to worry about lesson plans or anything.

Cuetzalan is a gorgeous small town in the mountains of Mexico about an hour from the Gulf Coast. It was super humid and rainy. It is another Pueblo Magico, and for good reason. They are known for their gorgeous waterfalls. It is not a tourist destination at all though. Some Mexicans go there, but definitely no Americans. I love towns like that.

Rico, our tour guide

The next day we went with Aventura Extrema Cuetzalan on an all-day high adventure tour of the jungle. Our tour guide was Rico. I'm sure he was super excited to get the white girls. I know he was smiling and laughing at all of our white girl ways throughout the day.

Pre-Adventure, AKA: still dry

We started off hiking through the jungle down the mountain. I was really regretting forgetting my bug spray... Yeah, I got eaten alive by the end of vacation. Anyway, it was so gorgeous!

Then we came to a cave. So we got our headlamps and jumped right into some freezing water! We walked/sloshed/swam/crawled through the cave for a few hours. It was pretty awesome. Rico had the camera, so I mostly just have pictures of us. I would have liked more pictures of the cave because it was awesome, but oh well. He was super nice. Every once in a while he would just stop and say "foto, foto!"

We got a little muddy...

It was pretty dang slippery, and we all definitely fell more than once.

We came to a spot where there were tons of names on the wall in mud and rocks. So of course we joined in and put our names up on the walls too! I look like a crazy raccoon in this picture, but gotta show evidence that my name is in a cave in Mexico.

Rico was very entertained by our poses for pictures.

We swam through cold, deep water in a lot of spots.

Coming out of the cave. We decided it looks like a giant's uvula

View from the inside

Next we hiked down some more of the mountain and came to the gorgeous waterfalls! We swam in what looked like Clifford's pawprint, and swam through tunnels. Then we walked and swam through some more of the river. It was so fun and refreshing. The views were gorgeous and it felt so relaxing!

So gorgeous! Photos can't even capture the true beauty!

I've never been more appreciative of walking sticks. Especially through the mud.

Who knew Clifford went to Mexico?

We swam through tunnels that were inbetween all of the little swimming holes. Some were really low, but it was super fun!

Gorgeous waterfalls, right? Well, then we got to slide down a waterfall! That was super awesome. We walked/swam through some more of the river, then we hiked through the mountain a bit more and we came to a little canyon thing to the side of the river and started swimming in it. At the end there was another waterfall! The camera died, and it was very wet, so we didn't get too many more good pictures. But it was super fun! We jumped off the rocks into the water and swam around for a while.

This was our epic fail attempt at a star.

All in all it was an extremely successful and amazing day. After this waterfall we hiked back up the mountain. A family in the village fed us a homecooked delicious dinner of mole, Spanish rice, corn tortillas, and bananas (the cute tiny ones). It was a classic Mexican meal, and so delicious! The people of Cuetzalan have very humble homes and surroundings, but they all seem so happy and have such cute little families! It was an amazing trip.

The next day we went to the Sunday market and mass at the Catholic church. It was in their native tongue of Nahua, a lot of people don't even speak Spanish in Cuetzalan and Yohualichan. It was very interesting and they had a lot of beautiful crafts!