This attractive area for hiking, bathing and gawking is located just above and east of Los Chorros de Tala, about 23 kilometers west of Guadalajara.
The gawking refers to appreciating the extraordinary rock formations around here, as well as the spectacular Chorros de Tala waterfalls as seen from the top.
I learned about this particular route to the area above the Chorros from Jim Boles and a dozen other Chapala-area hikers who in March trekked along the Río Salado from the waterfall to Río Caliente only to run into a ferocious storm that left them all soaked to the bone and nearly frozen.
As long as you don’t pick a day like that, you can easily drive to the Tempisque trail head from the Tala road in a mere 15 minutes, but you’ll need a vehicle with high clearance. After driving 1.3 kilometers from the highway, you come to a gate in a barbed-wire fence. If the gate is open, you may meet friendly land-owner Armando Rodríguez who will collect 50 pesos per car from you. Most of the time, however, there’s no one around and you can just open the gate, drive through and follow the dirt road 150 meters to where it ends. Park here and hike a mere 166 meters along the river to the falls. In the rainy season, the trail is wild and overgrown and appears to fork several times, but as far as I can see, “all roads lead to Rome,” which, in this case, means the dramatic head of the roaring twin cascades of Los Chorros.
If you want help to unerringly find your way from your car to the falls, go to Wikiloc.com and search for the route called “Los Chorros Top,” which will guide you every step of the way. This you can download to your smartphone if you have the Wikiloc App, which I recommend.
Since the walk to the waterfalls takes only a few minutes, you’ll have plenty of time for a hike among the weird rocks of El Tempisque. Just drive 270 meters further up the road (east) to another barbed-wire gate which presents you with a convenient spot for fording the river. If you have a truck with high clearance, you can drive right across the little stream. If not, put on your watershoes and off you go. The brecha on the other side of the river runs uphill through a forest of bizarrely shaped rocks, all of which were formed long ago by gas bubbles percolating through a pyroclastic flow.
If you still have energy, you might want to visit the weirdest rock formation of all, in this area, 1.5 kilometers further east from where you forded the river. Here you’ll find the Great Wall of Fossil Fumaroles, more than 1,000 natural cylinders all turned on their sides. I wonder if there is anything else quite like it in the whole world.
If you have finally had enough of walking and gawking, you can head back to Cañada el Carpintero, located about halfway between the Great Wall and the Chorros waterfall. Here Jesús and Santos Rodriguez have cleared a charming site along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Salty River. “Come here for a swim and a picnic,” they told me, and once again the cost for a carload of people is very little.
All the sites mentioned above are known to very few people, so here’s a place you could visit on a Sunday with little chance of being smothered by “domingueros” (Sunday picnickers).
How to get there
Head west out of Guadalajara toward Tequila and Nogales. Stay off the toll road and drive through the tunnel onto Highway 70 toward Tala and Ameca. At 7.9 kilometers from the tunnel, you’ll see a gap (N20.70647 W103.67948) in the median. Make a u-turn here and get onto a dirt road heading southeast. After 360 meters, the road forks. Bear right. After driving 1.3 kilometers from the highway, you’ll come to the Los Chorros Waterfall gate (N20.69765 W103.67567). The waterfall itself is at N20.69621 W103.67760. The gate for the Tempisque rocks is at N20.69739 W103.67311 and the Great Wall is located at N20.69437 W103.65986. You’ll find Cañada el Carpintero picnic area at N20.69601 W103.66928. Driving time from Guadalajara to El Tempisque is less than one hour.