(Post 32 of 193. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

And now, for the day’s pièce de résistance, what everyone was on board for and apparently annoyed came last instead of first, but which made the most sense to go last: Hierve el agua (the water boils). This is a popular recreation site where you can swim in shallow pools, observed calcified formations that look like waterfalls, and hike.

Contrary to west of Oaxaca, the highways on the east side are beautiful. So after a day of easy driving, it was a bit of a shock to learn that most of the way into Hierve el agua is very sandy and twisty.

The guide told me to go “a la derechita” from the parking lot, so I headed to the right and the rest of the group followed me like the Pied Piper. But she meant derecha as straight ahead and not derecha as turn right. “You’re trying to confuse the ones with little Spanish!” I exclaimed indignantly. To which, in a wonderful show of solidarity, most of the rest of the group piped up, “We would have gone right too!” Heh! It was a very good group on Monday! Oh, and I forgot to mention that my seatmate and I had been stumbling along in broken Spanish until something happened that made us realise we’re both from the Montreal area and French-Canadian! LOL!

There is a very long and very steep path down to the pools. I was very cognisant that I had to leave enough energy to get back up it!

Everything at Hierve el agua was breathtaking. I won’t bore you with any more bla bla bla than these pictures absolutely need. I am so glad I made it to this place — I haven’t gone on a proper mountain hike like this since Bulgaria.

After what would be a relatively short hike following these signs left me very breathless, which was surprising because I’ve been working out daily for almost a year now, I realised that it must be the altitude. Turns out Hierve el agua is at 5,666ft while Mérida is 33ft. So I am giving myself a HUGE pass on how hard it was to do all that climbing yesterday!

I made it all the way back up to the top of the path with about 15 minutes to spare. All the food vendors were packing up, but an agua lady was happy to take two minutes to sell me a watermelon water.

Three members of our group were late and the guide was not having it. She told us to vote on how long we would wait. Her vote was not at all! Thankfully for the stragglers, we gave them the 10 minutes they needed!

We left Hierve el agua just past 6:00. I had been told we’d be coming back in around 7:00, but the guide said it would be an hour and 40 mins back into town. Google Maps concurs! And, sure enough, it was coming up to 8:00 by the time we got into the city proper.

It was quite a long drive back in since it got dark fast. Once that happened, I could not relax as the driver seemed to be driving dangerously, although I’m sure he wasn’t! As we got closer to the city, I started to track our route and figured out that we would be going about three blocks from my flat. I asked if I could be let out at the corner of my street, and that was not a problem. So instead of a 1KM walk home, it was just three blocks, plus a detour for tacos. 🙂

What an incredible day Monday was! I can’t believe how much we packed in. Again, this was just $200, plus lunch and entrance fees. I’d say such a tour is the best way to see the best of what the region has to offer.