After Teotihuacan, we continued our road trip, departing from the state of Mexico, we headed north into the state of Hidalgo. The road offered beautiful sights of mountains and canyons basking in sun rays.
The highlight of this stop was a hike throughout the Xajha canyon. Our guide usually starts the tour before the crack of dawn at 4-5am but we managed to negotiate meeting at our hotel at 6, after which we followed his pickup for around 30 minutes. At the stop point, we parked our car and got into his pickup as the road would be too mountainous and dangerous for drivers unfamiliar with the terrain.
Three of us hopped in the back and got great views of the scenery as we drove over the mountain and into the valley we would be hiking in.
Despite the beautiful views, the ride was quite bumpy and by the time we arrived at camp, my stomach was unfortunately in no state to have breakfast – a great shame as I watched Mathieu fall in love with the classic Mexican breakfast, chilaquiles con huevos.
Soon after, we learned that the hike would involve wading through water to reach our destination, a cave and natural hot springs! Since we were obviously close to thermal sources, all the rivers we had to wade through were nice and warm. We had all our electronics (camera, cell phones, batteries) on our person so I was a bit worried about getting them wet but the water never even reached hip-level and there was very little current so everything was fine.
The scenery itself was amazing. We were particularly impressed by the huge blocks of white stone rising out of the water, as well as the sight of the surrounding mountains, reminding us that we were walking through a canyon.
When we arrived at the cave, I for one was struck by how hot and humid it was as soon as we got inside. I suppose this was to be expected but the temperature difference was still surprising! We had to climb up a small ladder at one point to reach the exit and Mathieu had to literally shimmy to get out!
We then arrived at the thermal springs, a natural spa we got to take full advantage of during a short break! The area smelled really strongly of sulfur so we knew the water would be full of rejuvenative minerals. After changing into our bathing suits and swimming around for a bit, our guide showed us some pure mineral-rich clay in the corner of an alcove which we used as face masks.
Unfortunately, since we didn’t know we would wade through water, I wore my long pants which obviously got wet and I hadn’t thought to pack an extra change of clothes. Once the sun started to go down, it got chilly very fast and it took us a while to get back to our hotel. My advice to anyone planning a similar expedition is to bring an extra pair of pants and an extra pair of socks – always feels nice to change into some comfy dry clothes after a similar adventure anyway!