Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Hiking Tepalo Cañon in Ajijic

We hiked up Tepala Canyon in Ajijic within our first few weeks of being in the Chapala area. However, it was such a painful experience, that is has taken a long time to blog about it!!

The short hike to the "waterfall" is pretty nice, and the trail is well-traveled. Unfortunately, the waterfall was completely dry while we were there (the dry season).


Since the trail continued up the mountain side, we decided to keep going ...not really knowing how long the trail would go.. After hiking for several hours, we realized that we weren't far from the top.

The views of Lake Chapala were amazing!!
Maiya fell asleep on the hike until the last hour (of the 4 total), when she started to cry. It was during this last period of time that we thought we were so close to the top, so we didn't want to turn around. But her crying made it unbearable, not to mention the HEAT (heck...it was probably 80 degrees...WHOA!!! Talk about temperature shock!). The hike became much harder near the top as it steepened, and the trail became more and more narrow (making it harder with a baby on a backpack who was getting whipped in the face by branches, etc).
We guess that we were probably 15 minutes from the top when we realized we HAD to turn around. We had to go get Ella from school.

Jared had Maiya on her back on the way up, and I carried her on the way back. After the trip up, Jared was nearly dead. Seriously, he says he had heat exhaustion (we weren't well-prepared for a long hike like this), and my legs were KILLING me on the way down. I couldn't walk normally for about 7 days. Ouch. But I managed a smile for the photo...
We ran into some frightening wildlife on the trail as we were heading down. Wild horses!!!
What do you do when wild horses are on your path? We had NO idea!! Bears--YES. Moose-YES. HORSES--NO!!

So, with 2 of them standing in our way, we simply stood there, waiting...not sure if we should risk passing, or not. Eventually they moved out of our way...and we moved on. Weird. :-)

Our simple hike (haha) ended four hours later when we rushed out of the woods to pick Ella up from school. We were JUST in time!!

Needless to say, the hike pushed us too far for our first trip out, and we didn't hike the rest of our stay in Chapala (unless you count shopping at the markets as hiking)!! Maybe next year?
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5 comments:

Stacey said...

this is so something we would do- its SO hard not to go to the top!!! The scenery is gorgeous!

Stina said...

What adventurers you are! To hike a mountain with a baby in the backpack! You rock! Sounds like fun!

Lisa Christine said...

Wild horses! Wow! Now that's something you don't see everyday!

Krista said...

I feel your pain--only because I ran a marathon once and couldn't walk normally for a week either. I am sure what you did was equivalent!

Greg and Lara said...

Dude, you are tough Alisa. I am impressed. I also find it very funny it was too traumatic to blog about until months later. Love all the late Mexico posts! Can't wait for Alaska ones!