Fifteen years ago I camped in the gorgeous Sierra de Tapalpa at a place overlooking the big salt flats of Sayula, located about 20 kilometers west of Lake Chapala. In those remote woods up above, we discovered Alfredo, a man of letters living alone in a cabin, who seemed to have taken seriously the ancient admonition, “Know thyself.” I wrote an article about this “sagacious hermit-philosopher of the tall pines” in the May 24, 1997 edition of this newspaper.
Unfortunately, in all those years I never got a chance to revisit Alfredo, so last Sunday some friends and I headed up the now beautifully paved highway towards Atemajac de Brisuelas, looking for the pueblito of San Cayetano, near which the philosopher used to live, according to my notes.
Alas, we found no trace of San Cayetano or Alfredo, but – as happens so often when you wander around in rural Mexico – we did discover unexpected, marvelous places (and people) we hadn’t known before.
First, we went hunting for a balanced rock once seen by mountain-biking friends accompanying me on this expedition, but we discovered, to my friends’ dismay, that the beautiful area surrounding the rock has been torn up by quarriers and that someone went so far as to push the famous balanced rock off its base and topple it on its side. This is just one more example of a natural site that should have been protected. Now it’s too late.
We continued south along that fine mountain highway and came to a place called Sierra del Tecuán. Here we found a beautiful little lake (where you can go canoeing and catch your own trout) next to an extraordinary restaurant called Amor Corazón, built and decorated by one Carlos Sánchez. I can’t begin to describe the wonderful artistic creations of this man, many of which incorporate bottles, sometimes lit up by sunlight from outside. Surely he must have been inspired by Antonio Gaudí of Barcelona. To really appreciate this place, stay overnight in one of their cabins (www.cabanastapalpasierradeltecuan.com).
Next we drove south past vast fields of wildflowers toward “the very best lookout point on the Sierra de Tapalpa,” a place called Zero Gravity (Gravedad Cero), owned by some of Jalisco’s paragliding and hang-gliding enthusiasts. Here we stood at the edge of a sheer drop over 900 meters deep, a beautiful grass-covered place where fliers take off in their deltas and paragliders by stepping off the edge of the smooth, grassy slope. There’s an open-sided building here with tables where you can have a picnic lunch while watching people leap into the air and float on the wind currents all around you.
Finally, we went to eat at La Ceja Adventure Park, located alongside the main highway leading up to Tapalpa. This is another impressive lookout and paraglider takeoff point, where you have a glorious view of the Sayula Lagoon from the Sierra del Tigre in the east to the famed Fire Volcano of Colima in the distance, with dozens of fliers gently floating in the air. By the way, this place is called La Ceja (the eyebrow) because that’s exactly what a paraglider looks like when seen from a distance. This most unusual park is owned by tall, slim Juan Carlos Madrigal, who has been paragliding for 17 years. Madrigal says he was bit by the flying bug in Oaxaca. Seeing a paraglider in the sky, he says he followed it in his car for kilometers to find out “how I could do the same thing.” He ended up taking a course in Utah and now offers the paragliding experience to “ordinary people” like his mother, who is 84 and looking forward to her next flight. If you would like to fly with the master, you can spend 20-40 minutes gliding through the air for a cost of 1,800 pesos. So good are the currents at La Ceja that you end up landing in a big, open space behind the restaurant, whose specialty, by the way, is pizza made before your eyes in a wood-burning brick oven. “Everyone loves our ham-and-mango pizza,” says Madrigal. Checking out their website will give you an idea how beautiful this place is and they actually have an English version (http://aventuraslaceja.com). If you want to rent an “ecological cabin” or book your first paraglider flight, call cell phone 341-108-9337. And, let me add, when you get there, the first thing you see is a big sign at the gate saying, Gringos are Welcome … and I suspect that includes Canadians too!
How to get there
Here are the directions to the easiest of these places to reach, La Ceja Lookout, with Restaurant, Camping and Cabins to boot: From Guadalajara take highway 54 south toward Colima. At Acatlán, follow the signs for the old “libre” highway to Colima and follow it for 50 kilometers until you see sign for Tapalpa. Turn northwest and drive about 18 kilometers uphill until you reach the top, where you’ll come to a big sign saying Bienvenidos a Tapalpa, right before some power lines and towers. Next to this big sign, turn left and drive a mere 150 meters to Parque Aventuras La Ceja and the takeoff point for paragliders. The GPS location is N19 56.144 W103 39.271.