epicwaves

Today we were invited by Brother Filemon and his family to go on a congregation day out to some water falls past a town called San Pedro (Saint Peter) The water falls are called “Chorro” meaning in spanish “to gush out”. We left at 8am because it is quite a long drive to the falls. The road was cemento all the way to San Pedro but from Pedro to Toro Falls was some of the roughest dustiest roads that I’ve yet travelled in Mexico. It took about and hour and a half to get there.

… Que? Usted es Loco! …

I gathered it had been a long time since Brother Filemon had been to the falls because the road we had taken seemed to be getting worse and worse, it got to a point when the car would go no further due to the steep hills and half a foot of bull dust on the road. So we got out the truck and abandoned vechicle to walk the rest of the distance. “It’s just only a few more kilometres” was the word that was being spoken. So with blind faith we headed off into the Mexican Dessert in search of water… roughly after walking three hundred metres or more up a hill we chanced upon a farmer (farming what? - Dust Cookies?) who looked us up and down as if to say “Que? Usted es Loco!” translated is “What? You is Crazy!” and you can guess the rest of the story. The farmer pointed us back down the road we had just come and said it was a few kilometres back in the opposite direction… we couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Have you ever seen the Chevy Chase movies where he stars as the father of a family called “the Griswalds“? Well I’ve decided that this family is the Mexican equivalent because we are having some great “Gonzales Family” adventures with them.

We made it to the falls, admittedly it wasn’t easy to find, no signage of any sort as I’ve come to expect. It was about a 1.5Km walk into the base of the falls. By which time I was ready to walk in to the water fully clothed. The falls are magnificent, the water is cold and revitalizing. At a guess the falls were about 25-30 metres high and the waters cascaded from from the main pool (a massive area at about 100Mtrs across and 30Mtrs from the shore to the base of the falls) into several smaller pools further down stream. Funny enough the surrounding land is devoid of much vegetation despite the fact that there is a water fall right near by. The ground though is not conducive to retaining much moisture.

… i lost count of of many swims i had …

The Gonzales family cooked up some fish and tomatoes with onions over a wood fire beside the stream. Hmmm it was so good, fish and mole with chilli sauce on tortillas is not a taste I’ll forget any time soon. The whole of the San Pedro congregation were there at the falls. So it was a great atmosphere of fun and relaxation. I lost count of of many swims I had, the best bit was you could swim right up to the base of the water falls and under it to the other side of the falling curtain of water. The el nino’s were good fun too, they had a ball that we tossed and played chassies with for abit. I snapped some great photo’s of the falls using my camera on manual mode to get a time exposure… it took me a few shots to get the effect just right.

I had my quota of sun for the day and was feeling the burn on my back (interestingly the sun is definitely better here because you don’t burn as near as quick). So I retired to a shady over hang of rocks to escape the heat and to think about nada (no that is not a girls name, it means nothing in Spanish). On the drive back we stopped in San Pedro at a brother and sisters place for a chat, They own a road side stall and were super nice, sharing with us some cranberry flavored ice blocks. They must have been in the truth for a number of years because the brother showed us a pile of Atalaya’s dating back to 1985.

I was glad of a shower that night, I was sat up against the rear tailgate for the ride home and consequently was covered in dust. I looked like I had a great tan going but felt crustier than a bread roll. Another memorable day in Mexico, the people and place is like no where I’ve been to before… not to mention the surf. It’s a must see country that is suited to anyone’s budget.

Update: I’ve made a correction to the name of the falls, it is not “Toro” (Spanish for Bull) as I had thought but rather it’s “Chorro” meaning “to gush out” in Spanish. This of course makes more sense… but the pronunciation is very very similar.