Every year Bosque la Primavera organizes at least one long trek across the forest. This year it was a sixteen-kilometer hike on March 24, starting at the western edge of the Protected Area, crossing the famed Río Caliente and ending at the little town of La Primavera, which lies 15 kilometers due west of Guadalajara, alongside the highway to Tepic and Nogales.
Although it sounded like a long haul, I signed up for the experience, suspecting that the highly knowledgeable Rangers leading the trek would show me things I had never seen before. I was not at all disappointed.
The least used of the three “official” entrances to the forest is at a pueblito called Ejido Emiliano Zapata, located 2.8 kilometers along the highway to Ameca. Here the eighteen would-be trekkers were gathered together by Ranger Ezequiel Garcia, who explained the rules in vigor inside the Protected Area. We could have guessed that campfires were not allowed, but I’m sure some visitors to this woods don’t realize that dogs, ATVs and alcoholic drinks are also forbidden and that no one is allowed to leave the Bosque with plants, rocks or anything else but the dust on the soles of their shoes.
Next, the hikers introduced themselves. It turned out to be quite an international gathering: a German, a Frenchman, six Americans (all either active or former Peace Corps Volunteers) and ten Mexicans of various ages and walks of life.
We started out by walking three kilometers to a newly opened Ecotourism Camp called Agua Dulce. This is a delightful, woodsy place with wide, flat areas for camping. It gets its name (meaning Sweet Water) from a spring of delicious, cool water which gushes out of the ground here, forming a pond and a river you can swim in. The owners have taken advantage of this and created a fish farm. Visitors can catch their own fish and a cook will prepare them for eating, right on the spot. They also have pony rides and a zipline and, best of all, the manager, named Tonatiu, says they normally have no clients at all on weekdays (yes, they are open) and only about thirty on weekends. “And we don’t allow loud music here,” he added. Overnight camping at Agua Dulce costs 150 pesos per person and their Tel is 331-341-5347. I’m looking forward to checking this place out more thoroughly in the near future.
Next we followed a well-marked bicycle trail for another three kilometers. This took us past “The Shaman’s House” where we could see, on the hillside, a man-made cave which houses a rather unusual “indoor” temazcal (sweat lodge). In this area we passed good examples of Tala Tuff, weirdly shaped rhyolite rocks which were apparently formed by gases bubbling upward through great layers of volcanic ash. Some of these rocks are in the form of long, vertical cylinders known as fossil fumaroles.
Now our guide Ezequiel plunged us into the bush, where, for a while, no trail could be seen. Heading southeast, we crossed picturesque little meadows nestled between small hills. This might have been the perfect place for a few of us to get lost, but these Rangers knew their business. One acted as leader and the other as rear guard, who, every time a few of us lagged behind, would blow his whistle, causing the man in front to halt. I must confess that for me a “typical Mexican hike” has always been one in which several people immediately race ahead while others inevitably straggle behind and no one ever heeds my petition to “stay together.” These Primavera Rangers, however, proved that you can maintain order, even in Mexico.
We arrived at a beautiful grove of guava trees on the banks of Río Caliente and stopped for a swim. This place is called Guava Beach in my book Outdoors in Western Mexico and features a cold spring of potable water right next to the hot river, a perfect spot for camping with “hot and cold running water” and, of course, with all the guavas you can eat if you come during the right season. In the branches of the stately guayabos colorados (red guava trees) we could see lots of small, beautiful yellow orchids blooming, nestled among numerous bromeliads, a family which, I learned, includes pineapples.
This is also the very spot where Río Caliente changes its name to Río Salado (Salty River) because, relatively speaking, it is “cooler” downstream. That day, however, I swear the highly mineralized water was a good 40 degrees (about 105 F), but marvelously relaxing once you get used to it.
After half an hour of soaking in the river at a spot where we saw not a single other human being, we headed north along a trail I had never seen before, which took us through one of the biggest deposits of obsidian in the forest—again, a place I had never heard of or seen previously. For about 700 meters, the trail was dotted with chunks of this black volcanic glass, some of which surely weighed several kilos. Many small flakes displayed chipped edges, suggesting that somewhere in this area there is at least one ancient taller or workshop where pre-Columbian natives spent long hours shaping knives, arrow heads and jewelry.
As we walked along the narrow trail, perfumed by the aroma of blooming sage, one of the Peace Corps Volunteers got our rapt attention as he recounted one of those nightmarish travel tales in which passports are lost and everyone is robbed at least twice. This of course, all happened in Africa—definitely not Mexico! With such riveting entertainment, the minutes flew by and suddenly we were standing at a lookout point offering a panoramic view of Río Caliente and numerous feeder springs where hot water literally boils up out of the ground.
From there it was a few steps to the Primavera Ranger Station where the GPS informed us we had covered 14 kilometers in six hours, three of which had been spent “resting.” To complete the 16 kilometers we had only to walk up the road to the town of La Primavera, but I’m afraid all of us succumbed to the temptation of rides, offered by friends and Bosque staff who had come to “rescue” us—not that we needed it: the trek proved anything but excruciating and I look forward to the next.
As for information on how to get to some of the places described here, have patience as I hope to revisit several of these sites so I can write about them in more detail.