Matteo Volpi is a project leader for Senderos y Caminos de México A.C., which was founded in Ajijic in 2014 to help people find their way along Mexico’s vast network of rural trails, and also to rescue, rehabilitate and preserve these ancient footpaths, some of which were in use long before the arrival of the Conquistadores.
In 2021, Senderos published a 144-page Trail Guide for Chapala, Ajijic, Jocotepec, and Ixlahuácan de los Membrillos. It comes in both a Spanish and an English version and contains 100 color photos as well as 26 maps featuring contour lines, estimates of hiking time and levels of difficulty.
One of the organization’s newest projects, Matteo Volpi told me, is what Senderos will call the Chapala Trail Network.
“It’s a project we’ve been working on for ten years. There are, of course, a great many trails above the lake shore, but what we want to do is to create a mini network inside the bigger network.
“We want to get at least six trails into really good shape and then have five different axes, heading to Chupinaya, El Caracol, Ixtlalhuacan, La Cañada and to Las Trojes. So it will look like a spider, and people can say, ‘I’ll start in El Caracol and finish in Ajijic’ or ‘I can start in Ajijic and finish up in La Cañada,’ or you can create your own trail.
“To renovate and signpost each leg of the spider, we’ll be working very closely with the local community.”
Perhaps Senderos de Mexico’s most ambitious project is a 70-kilometer-long trail that starts in Mascota at an altitude of 1,300 meters and takes trekkers down to Playa Grande Ecopark on the Pacific Coast, near Puerto Vallarta.
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