Camping fun in a Desert's Oasis

(To view our trip's album click on either of the pictures above.)

Last week-end we had our first Mexican camping trip. We left Friday afternoon with our friends Moy and Karen and their two daughters Liat and Ariela, who were camping for the first time. For this first outdoor outing I suggested going to Tolantongo, a real paradise in the middle of the Mezquital Desert in Hidalgo, where I had been as a child and teenager.

Tolantongo is located in a semi-desert zone at the bottom of a steep box canyon that has walls as many as 500 meters high. Its main attraction is two grottos at the canyon’s closed end, out of which flows a small volcanically-heated river which follows the canyon floor. The large grotto chamber is about half the size of a tennis court with a ceiling of up to ten meters. Above the grotto is a “tunnel”, a small cavern 15 meters deep in which warm water showers those who venture inside. Around these two openings, warm waterfalls flow down the steep canyon walls.

To arrive at the resort, one must leave the highway and travel down an unpaved road that winds its way down the side of one of the canyon walls. At the bottom of the canyon, the vegetation changes from semi-desert to semi-tropical due to the abundance of water and the humid warmth the river and falls give to the place.

We spent the week-end dipping in hot water springs and having a total blast! It was great to come back to this place I had such great memories from. The place has changed a lot though: back in the day when my parents first went there there was no infrastructure at all, not even a road to get to the bottom of the canyon, you had to hike down or borrow a donkey from the locals. Here's a picture I just got from my mom from when she went there for the first time:



When I went there as a child you could make it all the way down with the car, but the place was totally "wild". Nowadays there's a hotel and cabins to rent, bath and shower facilities, places to eat at (we had amazing food for SO cheap!) and a whole new area midway down the canyon where they've built over 40 little pools on the side of the cliff, surrounded by waterfalls, feeding from five different hot water springs... I have to say, that's not bad at all! It's definitely more crowded than it used to be (my mom told me today the first time they went there they were ALONE!) but we still had an amazing relaxing time and I think the girls had a perfect first camping experience!