How to make life difficult for yourself in central Mexico

Most people driving north on the 120 from San Juan del Rio are heading for Tequisquiapan, a colonial town built on the site of a thermal spring. It is known as a popular getaway destination for people from Mexico City, and is supposed to be worth a visit for its pretty streets, good markets, and excellent spas; we drove straight through. Having just come from Zacatecas and Guanajuato we felt we’d spent enough time in bustling colonial centres, and were headed for something completely different.

For about 50 miles, the scenery from Mex 120 was pretty much the same as what we had seen since leaving Real de Catorce, 500 miles or so further north; rolling semi-desert, filled with cactuses and scrub, and with mountains in the distance. Slowly the mountains in the distance became the mountains in-front of us, and before long we were climbing again, up into the Sierra Gorda. Whereas previous ascents in Mexico had been long curving uphill drags, the climb we were now making was different. Mex 120 is a small, narrow road, not leading to any large population centres or cultural attractions, and so instead of forging a straight corridor up into the peaks, the road snakes its way up, following the contours of an increasingly steep and dramatic area. As we continued into the mountain range, the road gradually became steeper and more convoluted, and the arid scrub made way at first to larger deciduous trees, and increasingly to dense tropical forest. At the beginning of our days drive we were pegged at 55mph on a straight and flat highway; by the afternoon we were crawling upwards at 25mph, winding our way through the northernmost rainforest in the Americas.

Our planned destination had been Jalpan, but by 5.30pm we were only just reaching Pinal de Amoles, the steep climb had finished off one car and we had been delayed for about an hour as the burning vehicle blocked traffic in both directions. The most winding section of the road is no place to be driving at night, and the final 25 miles could easily have taken us two hours. We stopped for the night at a Pemex station a hundred meter or so above Pinal de Amoles, having climbed almost a kilometre from our departure point, to an altitude of 2,600 meters. A walk into town quickly showed us that we’d landed on our feet, a huge sound system had been set up in the central plaza and the town was beginning to fill up as people from miles in all directions gathered for the annual Huapango (folk dancing) festival. The streets were filled with food, drink and craft stalls, and there were men and women dressed in an array of traditional costumes. We watched an array of dancing from contemporary to traditional and saw a local band playing folk music; I regret that I was so tired after a long and sometimes difficult drive, and wish we’d had the energy to stay all night.

The next day started with a plan to head to Jalpan and find someone who knew some interesting places to visit in the biosphere. Not more than half way to Jalpan we saw a sign to the Cascada el Chuveje waterfall and thought we’d take our chances

The waterfall was signed as 5km from the main road, and not knowing the state of the track, or the clearance with the trees we decided to park at a nearby layby and walk to the falls. The walk was through some beautiful forested mountains, and if it wasn’t for the dusty road and unrelenting heat it would have been a worthwhile hike in itself. The road is extremely steep and winding in places and in hindsight I’m glad we didn’t drive, it may have been possible but I would feel nervous about trying it in anything bigger than a van or pickup based camper. As with many attractions in Mexico’s protected biospheres, the Cascada el Chuveje has a small entrance fee to help pay for the upkeep of the paths and inject a little money into this poor part of Mexico; the nominal cost is certainly worth it. The falls themselves are beautiful and if it wasn’t for the 30 or so Mexican’s who were also enjoying this cool corner of the hot and humid forest, it would have seemed like paradise. The pool at the base of the falls is a great place to cool down and I suspect had we not been in the area on the weekend of the annual festival, the site would have been practically deserted.

I suspect that there are many places like this in the Sierra Gorda biosphere, and those who don’t feel the burning desire to keep moving could undoubtedly spend several days in the area exploring the sites. After a half day spent at the falls, we got back on the 120 and continued onwards, driving the 65 miles to Xilitla, the last sizable town on the road. The town itself seemed unremarkable on our drive through it, given its remoteness it is hardly surprising the centre is dominated by functional industries that support the surrounding remote villages. At the eastern edge of the town was the signed turnoff for Las Pozas, an attraction which had been recommended to us by Dee in San Antonio, nearly 1,500 miles previously. It was getting late when we arrived, having averaged barely 20 mph since leaving the waterfalls earlier in the day, and so we drove up the narrow road past the site entrance, and found a place to park on the mountainside overlooking Xilitla. Anyone else in a motorhome looking for somewhere to park overnight near Las Pozas should take the hairpin bend up the hill past the entrance, and continue past the houses and the hotel. There is a an area of flat dirt on the roadside not 500m from the site, which will no doubt become another house when they have dumped enough earth to level off a big enough area of the steep slope. The Church & Church book lists no RV parks even remotely near Xilitla, and it would be a shame for other travellers to miss the attraction based on concerns of having somewhere to park.

Las Pozas are certainly a unique attraction, it is difficult to imagine that there can have ever been another person mad enough and as rich enough as Edward James to create something similar. Las Pozas are a giant sculpture garden, built into an area of steep rainforest, with a huge aray of bizarre surrealist creations made entirely from concrete. The site was created by an eccentric English aristocrat who spent millions on a whimsical fancy, which he must have known would never bring him any critical acclaim or wealth. I find it impossible to believe that there were not large quantities of hallucinogens involved in the inception of the idea, but having started the project in 1945, Edward would have been ahead of the trend set by the hippies a couple of decades later. The creations include Escheresque staircases leading only into the sky and paths leading to nothingness. The combination of the astounding beauty of the waterfalls, mountains and rainforest on the site, and the natural way in which the concrete has bedded into its surroundings, make Las Pozas feel like the ruins of a civilisation from a fantasy story. I’m massively grateful to Dee for suggesting the place to us, and would recommend it to anyone else passing within a few hundred miles of it. I would suggest that anyone visiting gets there early, at 9am there was nobody around, but by 10am a few coaches had turned up, there were queues at the entrance, and there we a few annoying tour groups blocking up some areas of the gardens. When we left a few hours later the site was heaving, and what looked like a romantic, jungle fairy-tale when we arrived, felt more like an area of Disneyland when we left.

We spent several hours at Las Pozas, and it was the early afternoon when we came to leave, the narrow access road that were deserted when we arrived were now filled with waiting coaches, and we had a challenging time turning Jim around, and getting back down to the 120 without mangling some expensive fibreglass bodywork. There were many nervous coach drivers looking on as I manoeuvred 14 tonnes of heavy steel, inches away from their vehicles. Back on the road we began the journey back to civilisation; our goal was to make it the 230 miles to the ruins at Teotihuacan, east of Mexico City, but knowing how fast we had travelled on the previous two days, we knew that there was no possibility of doing it in one day. Not far out of Xilitla, we reached the end of the 120, and started to head south on Mex 85. The section through the state of San Louis Potosi was in good condition, but almost as soon as we entered Hidalgo state the road changed; what had been smooth tarmac and infrequent speed restrictions, became rough and badly maintained and the frequency and severity of the topes (Mexican speed bumps) increased. Thankfully we were not on the 85 for long, and near Huejutla we got onto Mex 105 headed for Pachuca. I had assumed, that because the 105 heads towards Hidalgo’s capital, and ultimately to Mexico City, that the road would be a good one, sadly this was not at all the case.

The mountains through which the 105 passes were some of the most beautiful that we had seen so far, but enjoying the drive was completely impossible. The road itself is badly maintained and there are sections where the tarmac has disappeared and the edge of the roadway has crumbled and fallen away into the abyss below, but what made this road so dismal to drive on were the topes. Readers in Europe and America will undoubtedly have a good idea about what a speed bump is, from the multitude that plague almost every large city, but the topes in Mexico are completely different. A speed bump in Europe is something designed by transport planners and highway engineers to restrict the speed of traffic to at or below the designated limit. Whilst some topes in Mexico could be described in the same way, some are nothing of the sort.

The topes on the 105 in Hidalgo, were often more like small concrete walls, than normal speed bumps, and while the speed limit may have been 60 or even 80 km/h, it would certainly be possible to fatally ruin your vehicle hitting it at half this speed. The ambition of the topes is an honourable one, and if the local villagers want to restrict the speed of traffic to a crawl passed their houses, I certainly have no right to complain. What made the 105’s topes so infuriating was not their severity, or even their frequency, but the fact that much of the time they are in absurd locations, and completely unmarked. I could be happily driving along at 40 km/h, 20 km/h under the speed limit, when suddenly Naomi, me, Boris and Jim are all airborne, having hit a tope located nowhere near any houses, with no signs and no paint markings. It may have been that a long since abandoned taco stand wanted passing traffic to slow down and admire their wares, and so they piled a mound of concrete adjacent to their stand to increase business. The fact that they are often so hard to spot, makes the driving extremely stressful, and whilst a car may have enough time to slam on the brakes, in a heavy truck it is much harder to slow down in time. Trying to spot the tell-tale signs such as a brake in the painted lines on the road, or a pile of rocks in the gutter, means that it is hard to pay attention to the road ahead and the scenery around, ruining any chance of enjoying the drive.

As a result, driving through Hidalgo was even slower than the road previously, and through the multitude of small towns our average speed decreased below 10 km/h. By 5.30pm my spine had had enough of Hidalgos brutal topes, and so we stopped for the night in the remote mountain town of Tlanchinol. There is nothing in Tlanchinol to make it worth visiting, but soon after we arrived I was thanking my luck that we had stopped there. The clear skies had begun to cloud over, and ten minutes after we had stopped, the whole area was enveloped in fog. Visibility was less than 10 meters, and the combination of precipitous drops, terrible roads, and countless unmarked topes, made this area one of the worst in the world to be driving at dusk in low visibility. By 6.30pm the quiet Pemex that we had parked in was filled with trucks looking for somewhere to wait out the weather.

The next day, the weather had cleared and we made the last uneventful leg of the journey into the trailer park in the town of San Juan de Teotihuacan, adjacent to the ruins. The diversion to our original route which took us through the Pinal de Amoles Hualpanago festival, the Sierra Gorda Biosphere, and Las Pozas, added 300 miles onto our journey of the most demanding driving I’ve ever done. I’m glad we took the route we did, we got to see some of the most beautiful parts of the Mexican countryside, in areas which would be almost impossible to visit in any other way, but anyone thinking of following in our footsteps should not underestimate the drive as I did. When we decided to head north instead of south at San Juan del Rio, we looked at the revised route on MS Streets and Trips and saw that the increased distance was 300 miles. On an average day on our trip so far, this distance would take us about 7 hours, and so it was on this basis that we changed our plan. Had I known that our average speed would drop to 20 mph for several days, and that we would climb and descend several kilometres in altitude each day, I may have changed my mind. In hindsight I’m glad we planned this section of the journey badly and that we took the route we did, if I’d meticulously planned each day in advance we would undoubtedly have carried onwards on the toll road from Guanajuato and would have missed the best part of our journey into Mexico so far.