Down the Rabbit Hole: Tapalpa

I spent this past Saturday and Sunday with two friends, Patty and Alex, in the town of Tapalpa located in the mountains outside of GDL. After a 3.5 hour bus ride, we arrived in the white washed and red tile roofed puebla with cobblestoned streets. Walking through the main plaza seemed almost too surreal. Not a single car allowed on the main street, vendors lined up and down selling the freshest fruits and meats, and almost complete silence. Coming from the crazy bustling city of GDL, I could already tell that Tapalpa was going to be a nice break from the big city.

Once we found a decently priced place to stay ($400 pesos among the three of us), we took a little rest and headed out on a little venture. First off… food. Patty and Alex ate at one of the local taco stands lined up on the side of the church. Once all of the tummies were full, we began our trek to Las Piedrotas (The Rocks) outside of Tapalpa. After about an hour walk uphill, we finally arrived at the plateau of the mountain to see… big rocks. Definitely anti-climatic, but we hung out on the rocks and took a few pics before our descent back into the city. After eating an early dinner, we sat in the main plaza and watched all of the families hang out, play with their kids, watch the fireworks above the church and listen to some music. This city is definitely a smaller town with zero to none nightlife. However, it was a great change of scene. Once we ate our churros in the plaza, we decided we should probably head back to our place to play cards and go to sleep early (around 10 p.m.).

After nine hours of sleep, we woke up to shower in our freezing cold water, check out of our hotel, and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant where we enjoyed hot cakes and chilaquiles. Next up on our itinerary was to get to the nearby waterfalls. We wandered around town trying to find Jesus Ruiz, a guy the locals told us to find by the church for a tour and ride to the falls. To no avail, we ended up back in the plaza asking for more exact directions on how to find him. Turns out he works in the funeral home across the church. But of course, how could we not know that! Welp, he was going to charge us $200 MXN each for a five hour tour. Although it sounded tempting, we definitely didn’t have five hours to spare nor the money to blow on the tour. So we ended up taking a taxi to the falls.

Originally we had asked for a one way fare, but after realizing how far away we would be and that it would be primarily uphill on the way back, the taxi driver agreed that he would come back to take us back into town. The drive there was absolutely beautiful. Green pastures, farm animals, small mountains and a little bit of an overcast. The trail down to the falls was almost completely downhill with muddy rocks. I knew this was going to be a problem for me going back to the top since I was already out of breath going down. When we finally arrived at the “falls” we were all a little stunned, yet not surprised. The falls were a merely 100 ft. Just like the rocks… anticlimactic. We all realized there HAD to be another waterfall nearby. Taking a small little trail, we then came across the actual waterfall. It wasn’t the biggest waterfall I had ever seen, but I guess it was worth the hike down to see muddy falls.

After about 30 minutes of hanging out on the rocks by the falls, we decided to make our way back up. I KNEW this was going to be an issue since I was already a little shaky and dehydrated. Sure enough, about 50 steps up I was already done. This ended up being an issue hiking all the way up and stopping about every 25 steps up since I was wheezing and out of breath. With a deadly combination of high altitude, being out of shape, and breathing issues, it probably wasn’t the best idea to do this hike or any hike for that matter. Patty and Alex were great friends who constantly waited for me, coached me through breathing issues and hiked with my backpack. I did make it to the top… eventually after about 45 minutes. And the rest of the day is just a sweaty blur. Just kidding.

Once we got back into town, we went to a restaurant to eat a little queso fundido, sopas and tacos. Patty and I also ordered their infamous “Ponche” which is an alcohol infused fruit drink made with guyaba or pomegranate. It ended up being absolutely delicious and we each ended up buying a bottle, a merely 60 pesos, to take home.