November 8, 2005
Hi all:
Here's another update written by Dan Cooley '06. This may be the last for a few days. Tomorrow morning we are going on a 3 day road trip to paddle two rivers and see some ruins. We will be back Friday night. Then first thing Saturday morning we have final overnight on the uppermost section of the Antigua which will challenge all.
Cheers,
Sam
"Today we drove an hour and a half to our put-in on the Actopan river. On
the way we had been told that the put-in to the river was absolutely breath
taking. It had been raining on the drive to the river but as soon as we got
there the clouds lifted and the sun shined in the tropical paradise. From
the waterfall to the tropical pool at the bottom we could not have imagined
a more beautiful place except for the man made dam at the top but we won’t
talk about that. We walk down the path to the river and see that the water
is amazing. We carry our boats over the green pipeline and down to the top
of the waterfall. We stand on the ledge and gaze over the edge of the
falls. Fifteen feet down is the tropical pool below with water pouring in
from all sides. Except from the other side there is no river flowing over
the cliff. The water that is flowing down the cliff and into the pool below
is coming from inside the cliff. It seams weird to think that there are
underground rivers until you actually see the water coming out from the
ground and flowing into such an awesome place and then the rivers just seem
so majestic. After seeing a few people go over the edge of the waterfall
and land in the clear blue water below we are briefed by Slater, who is one
of the W.I.L.D. instructors, about waterfall dropping techniques and we all got
in line for the plunge. I am the first in line for the A.L.P.S group. I
get into my kayak and push off into the small pool above the falls. I
paddle up the pool a little bit and wait for Slater to give me the okay to
go. He gives me a thumb up and I charge the falls. Taking a few hard
strokes I get to the edge of the falls and drop over the edge. My heart is
pounding as I fall and I hit the whitewater at the bottom. I resurface and
paddle away from the falls not really knowing what I had just done. I
paddle across the eddy, my still heart pounding and adrenaline pumping. After
doing it once I realized how much it fun it is and I return to the top of
the falls to do it another two times. For the non-kayakers in the group and
everyone else who is not in the “fantastic four” what Sam likes to call
myself, Collin, Brian, and Chris, they got to go over the falls in a raft
which was quite an experience to watch. It was rather amusing to see Jon
holding on for dear life in the back of the raft as his raft goes over.
After everyone got to have their fun using the waterfall and the pool below
as a whitewater playground. We ventured down the river. For the first
kilometer it was pretty intense. The river snaked around corners and was
not very wide. It was probably no more then fifty feet at its widest
point and had whole bunch of water pumping down it. We get through the hard
section on the river and get to the point were the rest of the kayakers on
the team got into their boats and we ventured the many miles down the rest of the river.
On our way down the river I could tell that even the beginner kayakers
were getting better and better. Cameron got two combat rolls on the way
down which was quite an improvement for him. We got to the end and ate
lunch at a restaurant next to the river and the drove back to Jacomulco.
After being at a place like the one we were at today I think everyone has a
little more realization of the beauties that nature has to offer."
Dan
November 6, 2005
Over the past few days we have been doing some exciting stuff. First off, we kayaked the Pescados section of the Antigua. Most of the kids who constitute the more advanced crew of paddlers decided to try their hand. This is a true class 3-3+ section of river. For most of them it would be more difficult than anything they have ever run. All in all it went as planned. Rapid by rapid we advanced down the section, scouting the more difficult drops and those of who that considered it wise to walk certain places did so. Everyone did an amazing job, and prepared themselves well for the upcoming week of kayaking.
This weekend was consumed by a two day hike up the “Coffee” canyon, over a mesa through the town of Buena Vista (so named for it’s views of Pico Orizaba) and down to the town of Xopilapa (Chopilaapaa). The first 3 hours of this hike yesterday morning was consumed by a scramble up a heavily brushed canyon. Hand over hand we went, ascending more than 350 meters in only 3 km. In this canyon coffee is grown, and the extent to which these farmers must go to harvest their crops is quite amazing. The final ascent to the canyon rim is via some very rickety ladders that were fabricated on the spot from local vegetation. It’s quite something to spend hours beating your way through the deep brush, then pop out on to the mesa where it’s wide open with very little cover. This country (as hopefully you can see by the pics) is a carbon copy of the southwestern U.S. canyon country, but it’s covered with green). Once out on the mesa we could see Orizaba (the highest peak in Mexico at 19,000) and the heat was stifling. My watch told me it was more than 90 degrees out! We met the burros in Buena Vista and had a quick lunch, then it was on to the Xopilapa valley. We walked about another 45 minutes on top of the mesa then came over rim to see a valley that I have named the Xopilapa valley in the pictures. It was beautiful! A well worn trail switchbacked down to the valley floor and two and half hours after lunch we were bathing in the local river. We were greeted in town by a local friend of Jim’s (Jim Coffey of Esprit Rafting), Dona Lupe. She is about 70 years old and has a humble house, with a broad front yard for tents. Xopilapa is a town of about 300, with no roads (the closest road is 7 km away) and it only received electricity 5 years ago. This is a primitive Mexican mountain town! We relaxed for a while then took a quick tour of the local “museum”. The museum is the back room of a mud hut where a local family keeps artifacts they find at the burial ground on the island mesa just above town. Jim assisted in the creation of this museum to see if he could stem the tide of locals trying to exhume and sell the pots. The burial ground I speak of is a 1500 year old plot. As in many indigenous burial ceremonies, the locals believed it wise to send their dead along with belongings that they may need in the afterlife. So, on top of this mesa there are pot shards and bones scattered about. Our morning hike would give us a better glimpse of this.
At 6:00 am we rolled out of our tents and ascended a steep trial up onto the top of this island mesa. I call it an “island” mesa because it sits at the confluence of about 7 canyons that originate on the shoulders of Pico Orizaba. As the rivers that formed these canyons they cut down through the mesa’s crust and eventually left this one lone island mesa at the mouth of the larger river valley. It’s geographically unique, which is the likely reason that it was chosen to be a sacred burial ground. Our morning hike was only about an hour up and once on top we were treated to a beautiful sunrise with Orizaba lit up in the background. Our side treat was that the wind was blowing hard up top and it felt so good to be chilled after days of sweltering heat. Another 40 minutes down and we arrived just in time for breakfast. A quick round of packing and we were off and hiking. We took an alternative route out of the Xopilapa valley which was much more direct (steep) including more ladders, a short break in Buena Vista and back in Jalco by 1:00 for an American lunch of burgers and dogs!
November 4, 2005
Here are a couple of thoughts from Colin Avery and Dan Cooley repectively. "In their own words".
"We have been walking around the town of Jalcomulco and have seen a bunch of weird and interesting things because this is pretty much a third world country and there are mule parking lots and dogs that just sleep in the middle of the streets. Every morning we are awakened by dogs barking and roosters crowing, and for the past 2 days straight there has been some Mexican party playing this very repetitive “Mexican polka,” if you don’t sleep as hard as me then I guess you could be pretty sleep deprived. Boyle and Kilch have been throwing up a bunch since they might have swallowed a bit too much river water. They seem to be getting better though. The people in the town for the most part are very cool. We were walking through the town square one night and saw a Mexican guy just passed out in the middle of the street with his head down. We were all shocked and didn’t know what to do. Then the police came and picked him up and brought him back to the stoop where he had been sitting. I’m guessing he was drunk. Soon after he passed out again, seconds after the police left him.
Two nights ago we were standing by the corner of a miscellaneous store and some random guy came up to us and held out his hand while mumbling some Spanish and barely standing upright. Mike came up with the rough translation since he is in Spanish 4, he said the guy was saying something like, “I’m drunk, I’m calm, its okay.” We still don’t know what he was gesturing with his hand for but it was pretty amusing to say the least.
We are on our fifth day in Jacomulco, Mexico now and everything is great. We have paddled half days every day except today. We are taking today off because everybody is tired and needed some rest. The first day we went down to the Esprit main building and picked out and fitted the kayaks that we wanted to use. The next day we went down to the next town on the river and put in for our first day kayaking. We showed our guides our rolls and paddled upstream a little to surf one of the only play features on the river. After surfing for a while we ventured down stream to the easiest section on the river that we’ll do on the trip. The rapids on this river are mostly drop pool, which means that there’s a section of rapids and then there is flat water so if you swim you don’t have to swim for a long period of time. The next day we went up river a ways to raft a pretty hard section of river called the Pescados or “fish” in Spanish. During that day of rafting we were the “guinea pigs” for the W.I.L.D. program. The WILD program is a 3 month training class that Esprit runs that starts in Canada and does a long road trip down through the United States and Mexico. At the end of the program the participants are fully trained guides. On Wednesday we did a run in the morning and in the afternoon kayaked a bigger and harder section of rapids. It was many miles long with big waves, holes, and rocks. Everyone did awesome and not a single person swam, not even Cameron who can count the times he’s been in a whitewater kayak on his fingers. Everyone did a great and tomorrow we will be paddling the Pescados in kayaks."
November 3, 2005
The town of Jalcomulco (Halkomoolko) is about 120 km and two plus hours of drive time upriver from the city of Veracruz, which is located on the Gulf coast. Simply follow the Antigua river upstream and you will find yourself in the tiny berg of “Jalco” as the locals call it. It’s a town of about 3,000 people, it’s economy is based primarily on agriculture and now tourism. It’s a classic little third world agrarian town with a cute little square that forms the nucleus, and cobbled streets which eventually lead out into the surrounding countryside. The people are amazingly friendly and welcoming, and try their hardest to communicate with our non-Spanish speaking folks in the group (the Spanish speakers in our crew are faring quite well). Our hosts down here are the owners and guides of Esprit raft company that is based in Ontario, Canada on the Ottawa river. Jim and Erin Coffey are the owners and two guides by the names of Isabelle and Brock are our immediate handlers. They are all wonderful folks who are extremely familiar with Jalco and the surrounding area as this has been their winter base for 12 seasons now. They know all there is to know around here, including all that is Jalco proper as well as all the river knowledge. Jim is considered the defacto gringo mayor of town. It’s very entertaining to walk the streets with him and see him shaking hands with all who he meets.
La Dia de los Muertos is still going strong. Some of the pics you will see are taken at the local cemetery that has been decorated in preparation of this (what I am now finding to be) weeklong celebration.
One of the other local highlights are the Mango trees. These apparently are not indigenous to this country. However they are ubiquitous, covering all the surrounding hillsides that are not used for growing maize (corn) or sugarcane. Esthetically they are the most incredible trees. Picture the trees that you would draw as a child, round in shape with billowing foliage, and a perfect hue of green. This is the Mango. It would make the most perfect backyard tree, as they are completely hollow in the center, the only foliage that grows on them is on the outermost branches.
Yesterday we paddled the lowest stretch on the Antigua that we will navigate. It’s peppered with nice mellow rapids and beautiful stretches of flat water. This allows you to get the thrills of the good stuff, mixed with the opportunity to look around at the verdant countryside as you float the eddies. Thus far the kids are doing amazingly well in their respective crafts. We will have river photos within the next few days, thus far we have focused on getting video.
November 2, 2005
First off, I apologize in advance for the lack of contact. This is the first town that I have been to in the last five years where the internet connection is almost non-existent. To give you an idea, it took me 9 minutes last night to get from the Hotmail sign in page, to having my first message appear for me to read. So, we are going to try pictures today, but don’t hold your breath.
As I said before, we got here with no real issues. Our baggage arrived about 24 hours after we did, so we have all the gear we need. Our arrival coincided with the weekend of celebrations surrounding la Dia de los Muertos (the day of the dead). This is much like our Halloween, but is celebrated with much more gusto. There is basically about 48 hours of revelry and ceremony. In Jalcomulco there was a rodeo, a night time game of Rapido (essentially short field soccer played on a concrete court in the middle of town), a dance in the town square, and music everywhere. It was terrific to see the kids walking around taking this all in and getting an instantaneous injection of Mexican culture. One of the most intruiging aspects of this celebration is the shrines that are built in each home, to celebrate the families dead ancestors. They are decorated with various flowers and are then layered with offerings of the deceased favorite foods. It’s now Wednesday and the festivities are just finally coming to an end.
Each day starts with the roosters crowing at around 5:00 am, followed by the huge variety of tropical songbirds, and eventually this cacophony awakens the donkeys and the dogs who bray and bark until the entire town is sufficiently stirred. Of course, if you inquire at breakfast if the kids have heard all this and they’ll tell you they slept right through it. Meals thus far have been delicious. Lots of beans at each repast, but then the options are many. We have had eggs with salsa, pancakes, French toast, and fruit galore at every breakfast. Lunches are usually huge, with every Mexican delicacy that you can imagine as are dinners. We will not starve.
The river that runs through town is the Antigua. There are many combinations of day trips as well as overnights that can be pieced together over the various sections of this waterway. The source of the Antigua is located on Pico Orizaba, which is a 19,000 foot dormant volcano that resides just about 100 km away as the crow flies. Orizaba is the 3rd highest peak in North America after Denali in Alaska, and Mount Logan in Canada. The higher you go into the Antigua watershed, the more difficult the river (in terms of navigability). The stretches that start in town are just at the level of most of the paddlers in the ALPS crew, so we have been exploring these initially. The kids are divided amongst kayakers and rafters. The kayakers will be focusing on elevating their skill level while they are here, and the rafters will be getting formal training on how to guide whitewater, so there is something for everyone. So far, everybody is having a terrific time with it. The kayakers who I have been working with over the past spring and summer are taking huge leaps in terms of confidence now that they are paddling in bath temperature water in the tropical heat. I will write with more specifics starting tomorrow.
