Package tour of a few cities

So we took a package tour to a few different places. I usually steer away from these things, but transportation to all these places would have been difficult and this would be an easy way to see everything.
We first went to Tule a 2000 year old tree.

Very cool and we didn't mind seeing it again.

Next we went to Teotillan del Valle. A little town famous for it's rug weaving. We got a demonstration and an explanation of the weaving process. Everything is done by hand, from spooling the wool to creating the dyes. It is a very labor-intensive process and and takes about 16 days to make 1 average sized rug.

The most interesting part to me was the dye process and all the natural substances where the dyes are derived. Red was particularly interesting, it comes from a fungus that grows on a cactus. The fungus looks white, but inside is a red coloring that is non-toxic and is a beautiful deep red. Greens come from plants, blues come from some type of chalk-like mineral that they cook down. Really cool stuff. But at $150 for a rug and no job they were a little beyond our reach.

Onward. Next stop is Mitla. Some Zapotec ruins that have been continuously inhabited. Nobody really discovered this like Macchu Picchu, people have been living continually around here for hundreds of years.


Next was the highlight, Hierve el Agua. It means boiling water, but the water isn't hot. It was named that because the natural mineral water looks like it is boiling.

From the 'main' road it took about 30 minutes to get up a rutted dirt road to the parking lot, then a 10 minute hike down to the springs.
The setting is dramatic. Perched right on the edge of a 500 foot cliff. You can't really tell but behind me in this picture is a little ledge then a sheer drop. Pretty stunning place to swim.

The water is so full of minerals when it spills over the edge it forms calcium deposits that look pretty remarkable.


So now to the Mezcal factory. You would think this would be the highlight, but it was pretty dirty and smelled like hell. I mean, if this is a distillery that is tour-worthy, then where is the rot gut stuff I have been drinking made? I'd rather not know. They take the hearts of the Agave and then roast them in a big mound for 5 days or so. It is a slow roast and gives Mezcal it's smoky flavor. This is a point of pride since most Tequilla is roasted by gas.

Once the agave is smoked, it is ground by a big stone wheel pulled by a donkey to extract the juice. Everything is still done real traditionally like in the old days.

Brooke's description of this is apt so I will not try to improve upon it.
'the apparatus. This is a fully functioning distillery that produces thousands of bottles, but inside it looks little better than a crack manufacturing house'

This tour almost made me stop drinking Mezcal. Almost.

So we end the day with a few shots and head back to our place. All this guided tour stuff leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth so I aim to get a real adventure in the next day, and we got one.