Here’s a real mixed bag for you: a hiking trail that starts only three kilometers from the controversial Villa Panamericana (Pan Am Games Athletes Village) just outside Guadalajara and shows you both the best and the worst sides of the Primavera Forest.
I first visited this place with the rangers of the Comisión Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidos, the folks in charge of protecting this delicate forest. As we headed south from the Nogales Highway along Camino Arenero, we came upon more and more heaps of “escombro” (waste supposedly suitable for landfill), unceremoniously dumped on both sides of the dirt road we were following.
We soon arrived at the entrance to the Pahola Mine: 90 meters of subterranean tunnels burrowed into a thick layer of soft, fine kaolin, a white powder used in making ceramics and once employed (but apparently no more) in anti-diarrhea products such as Kaopectate.
The mine has six horizontal passages up to three meters high, all apparently quite stable and so white you could almost imagine you were surrounded by packed snow. Inside, about the only feature you’ll come across is a “Virgin” carved into the soft wall and perhaps you’ll see a bat if you’re lucky. It looks like tons of kaolin were extracted from here over the years.
If the miners had contented themselves with digging tunnels, the forest would not have suffered much, but they also started open-pit mining on the hillside, stripping away the extremely thin layer of topsoil which makes this area a forest rather than a wasteland. The result has been massive erosion and serious damage to one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems. The forest rangers were most unhappy about this. They had complained to the landowner, but he protested he had no control over trespassers wielding picks and shovels who might hang around for a few days filling gunny sacks with kaolin.
Curiously, just a short distance from the mines there’s a trail which leads to one of the most beautiful areas of the Primavera Forest, an idyllic meadow known as el Valle de Los Amantes, or the Valley of the Lovers.
This trail is picturesque along every step of its 2.3-kilometer length. It takes you past tall grass and wildflowers through narrow channels in the hillside into a thick grove of ferns and then past huge boulders until you reach the meadow, alongside which you can picnic under shady oak trees.
And how did it get the name “Los Amantes?” I thought there might be a romantic legend behind the name, but then I was led to two delicately intertwined trees: The Lovers, caught in a slow dance at the rhythm of an arboreal timescale. The sublime beauty here will make you forget the scarred hills just a short distance below, but will also convince you that such beauty is worth fighting for and that the Primavera rangers need all the help they can get to preserve this marvel of nature lying right beside such a big city.
A word of warning, however: hikers returning to their cars recently discovered a smashed window. You may have to leave a guard on duty while others trek up to Los Amantes.
How to get there
Take Avenida Vallarta west out of Guadalajara. Just 2.3 kilometers past the Periferico you’ll find Camino Arenero, a cobblestone road heading southwest. After 750 meters, bear left (if you don’t, you’ll end up at the Tec de Monterrey Campus). This quickly becomes a dirt road. Follow it southwest about two kilometers to N20 41.517 W103 29.109 Where you can park and start hiking up to Los Amantes (N20 40.455 W103 29.350) along a trail heading due south. If, instead, you’d like to see the kaolin mines, follow the dirt road southwest another 450 meters to N20 41.445 W103 29.234. Driving time either to the mines or the trailhead is only about 25 minutes from the Periferico.