A Hike Through The Canyon - El Charco

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Back home again in Monterrey.  My allergies were really affected during this trip to SMA.  The altitude, the lack of rain, pollen at its highest, and the added 30C degree temperatures.  A lot of locals are affected as well.  You see men walking to work in the morning with a Kleenex waded up in their noses.   One of our friends had a bloody nose a couple of times during our visit.

Our friends Gail and Bill are also staying in San Miguel for a while right down the street from us.  Gail's nephew Jared came to visit for a week.  We invited him to go on a hike with us.  A young EMT with lots of energy but we were able to keep up with him.  

I had planned to go down to Jalpa where Les took us on our last trip.  I got to thinking though, and with a group of gringos and a Mexican all packed into a car and crossing farm fences we might run into cartel guys out in the middle of nowhere.  (Here in Monterrey last week they cut off a guy's hands for stealing from them and with the increase in tourist kidnappings I didn't want to be responsible for a Canadian getting into a mess).

We chose to go to El Charco del Ingenio the botanical garden on the road to Queretaro.  Once you get inside you can venture down past the dam and hike into the canyon.  Not easy in some parts, big boulders and a lot of space in between them.

Juan takes a short walk through the duck blind located on the edge of the reservoir.  A short video.

This is a blooming huizache tree.  More pollen in the air but Mother Nature is hard at work!

Approaching the edge of the canyon you can see just how immense it is although it is quite walkable down to the bottom.

Down in the canyon looking up at the dam that holds the water back in the reservoir. 

On the other side of the dam, there are a few abandoned structures.  I couldn't get this picture without the sun glaring on the camera.

Prince's plume is in bloom!  It's poisonous to cattle but local indigenous people use it for rheumatoid arthritis.  Not sure how they prepare the seeds but I assume it is a topical pomade.

Everyone likes to leave their mark.  Some of these are so old they can lo longer be read.

Lichens are a fungus but have a mutual relationship.  One is a fungus and the other an alga that by chance meet up and for this beautiful fungus-like spore.  So you probably see them everywhere on rocks and sometimes on trees telling us that the air is full of microscopic objects constantly floating around us.  It makes you think about viruses and the possibility that my allergy symptoms could actually be a variant of COVID-19. 

 

I spotted this golden-yellow lichen across the canyon and zoomed in on it.  It is so bright.

You can tell it hasn't rained for a very long time and when it has it didn't do much.  The water in the pools (charcos) is green and full of algae.

I wish I could figure this out.  I'm sure that there are some interesting things scrawled on here.

I mentioned before that we may move the rv to a Texas storage place temporarily.  I'm just not comfortable anymore driving it around rural areas and we're not that much into rv parks or staying at buggy beaches.  It will be cheaper to drive to the border not paying tolls for the rv, the long inspection times, extra fuel, and the storage is relatively cheap.  Time to enjoy other things besides just Mexico.