Day 25: Puente de Dios, the swimming hole of the gods. It is the best place I've ever swum. I highly recommend it!

After spending the night in the town of Tamasopo, and having a lazy morning with a breakfast of fresh mango, yogurt, honey, & granola, I headed just out of town to cool off in the beautiful waters.

The hole has a healthy waterfall flushing into it, water running down all over the walls from above, and several spots where water flows straight out of the holes in the rock that you can sit under like showers. Plus a gorgeous cave tunnel about 20 meters long with a high ceiling that you can swim through (while in the cave the light from outside makes the water glow bright blue from below). It's over 20 feet deep everywhere, and there are jumps from whatever height you want! Click here for a short video of this fantastic place.

I spent around 2 hours swimming and playing here, before deciding it was time to hit the road again. I met a Canadian guy who is studying in Guadalajara (and impressing everyone at Puente de Dios with his backflips off the wall from 25' up). He whet my appetite for Chiapas coming up next week -- he said it's just like this area but even more rustic and beautiful.

I headed south on the bike, back through Aquismon, to the town of Tamazunchale. The hotel owner in El Naranjo had kept expounding that I must go there. I rode into town through reasonably beautiful countryside, more or less the same as I'd seen everywhere else. I wasn't sure what he had been talking about -- that is, until I headed out of Tamazunchale on Rte 85 to Jacala, high in the moutains.

I went through the most fantastically beautiful riding I have ever done! It was late afternoon with the dramatic colors that brings, and I climbed higher and higher on winding mountain roads next to sheer dropoffs, a broad river flowing thousands of feet below me, speckled with whitewater rapids. The air had cooled off, the road was in great condition (except the one spot where it had completely fallen away -- there was still SOME adventure left), and I went in and out of tiny hamlets every few miles. Off in the distance peaks were hazy and gorgeous with the setting sun, and the sense of expanse was incredible. Tamazunchale is barely above sea level, and the road to Jacala crested over 8000', sometimes on a ridge with vast dropoffs on either side.

I wished for a helmet cam to share this -- I'd considered handholding my camera to take some video, but without a wriststrap it would be too distracting, and I didn't want to be distracted, not with no guardrails :)