New book tells you where to find 25 unforgettable hikes in western mexico

Our upcoming book, _Outdoors in Western Mexico 3,_ is a collection of writing about 25 sites where you can escape the hustle and bustle of the big city and enjoy the rich biodiversity and

geodiversity of western Mexico. This 207-page tome was published this year by Tente Editorial of Monterrey, Nuevo León, the third in a series. It will be presented to the public in Ajijic,

Jalisco, in September and in Guadalajara in October. The series’ origins go back to 1985, when my wife Susana and I decided to settle in Pinar de la Venta, Jalisco, a woodsy community

perched atop hills a mile high on the edge of the sprawling Primavera Forest, just west of Guadalajara. We had arrived after having lived in Saudi Arabia for four years, where we’d often

spent the weekend underground, exploring “caves beneath the dunes.” Naturally, we were anxious to see what kind of caves we might find in Jalisco and neighboring states, so one of the first

things we did was to write a letter to the editor of _Mexico Desconocido_ magazine, asking for information on the caving club nearest Guadalajara. Sad to say, our inquiry revealed that there

was no caving organization anywhere in western Mexico — so we decided to start our own. We offered courses in _espeleologia_, discovered plenty of interested people and started combing the

hills for caves. Those caves, however, sometimes turned out to be located in the most godforsaken places you could imagine, perhaps at the end of one of those classic hair-raising mountain

roads with a sheer wall on one side and a thousand-foot drop on the other. Very often the huge, gorgeous cavern we had been told about (“Sí, _señor_, that _cueva_ goes all the way through

_la montaña_ and comes out the other side!”) would turn out to be a miserable little hole penetrating the mountain a grand distance of two meters. But on the way to or from that

hole-in-the-wall, we would frequently stumble upon spectacular waterfalls, delightful hot springs, pristine beaches, mysterious ruins, tangled jungles, gorgeous canyons and stately forests,

places well known to the local people but to no one else. We began to write these places up and publish our stories in the pages of what was then called _The Guadalajara Colony Reporter_.

Eventually, these writings ended up in the first _Outdoors_ book, published by Editorial Ágata in 1998. Of course, we kept on hunting for caves, which continued to lead us to the discovery

of more and more natural sites as fascinating as those we already knew. We kept finding more and more botanical, biological and geological diversity in the places we were visiting, and we

were intrigued. “How could there be so many extraordinary places exhibiting so much variety?” we wondered. Most of what I have been calling western Mexico fits inside a circle 500 kilometers

wide with Guadalajara in the middle, so my big question was: what makes this area so special? In time, I learned that within this circle, all five of Mexico’s ecosystems converge. A

_tapatío_ (someone from Guadalajara) can head north on Monday and find one ecosystem, go south on Tuesday and end up in another and so on. I decided to call this confluence of multiple

ecosystems a Magic Circle. How many cities in the world lie at the center of a Magic Circle? Not many! So it was easy to find enough extraordinary sites to fill volumes 1 and 2 of _Outdoors

in Western Mexico_, and now here comes a third collection. Like the previous volumes, this one presents a microcosm of the rich variety of outdoor sites inside the Magic Circle. Here’s a

preview of just a few: THE GEYSERS OF LOS PATITOS RIVER: In the very first chapter, you’ll find a park full of geysers and hot springs. While the local people always knew there was something

special bubbling up in and around Río de Los Patitos (Little Ducks River), few people in Guadalajara — except for an occasional intrepid botanist — suspected that there was a

“mini-Yellowstone” just over an hour’s drive from the big city. At PARQUE ECOLOGICO LOS HERVORES you can run out of your tent on a cold winter’s night, jump into a hot pool that’s at just

the temperature you fancy and gaze up through billows of steam at the deepest, most star-studded sky you could ever hope to see. PARANGUEO CRATER, GUANAJUATO: Contrast this with what awaits

you in Chapter 13. You walk through a 400-meter-long, pitch-black tunnel and emerge at what first seems to be the North Pole: your eyes see ice and snow — but you don’t feel cold! Welcome to

Parangueo Crater. Once upon a time, there was an alkaline lake here, but today it’s an otherworldly, shimmering white desert, like hiking across a giant bowl filled with crusty baking soda.

PETROGLYPHS OF ALTAVISTA, NAYARIT: If all this seems too exotic, turn to Chapter 23 and take a walk at Altavista, near the Pacific coast. The trail leads you through great boulders covered

with petroglyphs engraved there over 2,000 years ago by the Tecoxquines (Throat-cutters), whose favorite sport was decapitating prisoners captured during tribal skirmishes. Your reward at

the end of your walk? A dip in La Pila del Rey, the King’s Bathtub, a pool of crystal-clear water surrounded by picturesque natural columns of basalt rock. With this third volume, the grand

total of destinations we have described comes to 90. Add to these the 10 sites in my book _A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area_ and you now have a total of 100 great

places to visit in western Mexico — enough to keep you busy on weekends for the next two years. Enjoy! • THE BOOK _OUTDOORS IN WESTERN MEXICO 3/AL AIRE LIBRE EN LAS CERCANÍAS DE GUADALAJARA

3_ BY JOHN AND SUSY PINT IS WRITTEN BOTH IN ENGLISH AND IN SPANISH AND WILL BE AVAILABLE IN SOFTCOVER (250 PESOS) OR AS A HARDBACK (350 PESOS) BY TENTE EDITORIAL. THE BOOK WILL BE PRESENTED

IN AJIJIC, JALISCO, ON SEPTEMBER 23 AT 2 P.M. IN THE GARDEN OF THE LAKE CHAPALA SOCIETY. THERE WILL ALSO BE A GUADALAJARA BOOK LAUNCH ON OCTOBER 16 AT THE FORO INFANTIL OF PARQUE AGUA AZUL

AT 1 P.M. CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS AND UPDATES. _The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of _A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding

Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. _More of his writing can be found __on his_ _website_.