On our last hike with Chilly Willy, a few weeks back, we visited The Oldest Tree In the Forest. This time around, Chilly–aka Felipe Hernandez–environmentalist, restaurateur, surfer, and guerrilla eco-guide, took us on an inspiring country hike in the Rio Patzcuaro valley. This time, we visited with the ancients.
From a dirt road parking spot near a couple of ranchos and houses perhaps half a kilometer west of the Punta Mita Highway, Chilly guided us deep into the valley and then over a mountain and down to Patzcuaro Beach. We didn’t climb to the top of Monkey Mountain and we didn’t get all the way to Patzcuaro Beach, because the trails are currently overgrown and muddy, but we did see some amazing stuff. This is another hike visitors to the area should not miss, for it reveals more layers of what Nayarit is all about, historically, environmentally, and biologically.
After working our way past the ranchos and a resident pack of loud and rowdy but friendly dogs, we crossed the seasonal, currently racing Rio Patzcuaro, and wound our way up the path along a small tributary stream. The rushing waters from the last few storms had opened this creek bed up, so we were able to get some great views. This is the path Chilly usually takes when he’s guiding people up to Monkey Mountain, but this time around, we only went about halfway, to where, a couple of years ago, he discovered the rock shown here, with the petroglyphs carved into its surface. Though it is hard to make out, on the wide side of the rock there is a carving of a large fish, with an eye and an open mouth on the left. On the smaller side, the carving shows a square with seven vertical lines below and an X inside. When it is cleaner, Chilly says the four marks inside the four triangles formed by the X appear to be peyote buttons—peyote being a central element in Huichol mysticism.
This rock was buried under the bottom of the creek for no one knows how long, until Chilly discovered it. He has informed the appropriate government agency, and a sign explaining the petroglyphs is supposed to be put up nearby. Chilly believes that this creekbed was a kind of roadway for the ancient residents of the region, for there are other petroglyphs near Higuera Blanca, over towards Punta Mita, and of course there are many up at Alta Vista, in the mountains east of La Penita. These petroglyphs are evidence of a civilization that lived in Nayarit centuries, if not millennia, before the Europeans showed up. Pretty amazing stuff. The Huichol still gather to make offerings at stones like this.
We doubled back and soon turned left towards the ocean, and began climbing a rough road/trail that led up, and up, and over the top of a hill, to where we enjoyed amazing views of the Pacific below. Along the way, we saw armadillo tracks, various colorful spiders, nesting wasps, some beautiful and mysterious fungi and mushrooms, bromeliads high in the trees, and other interesting plants, some of them hallucinogenic, others merely poisonous or painful to the touch. Chilly really knows his way through these hills and jungles, so hiking in his company is far more revealing that simply taking a random walk—although in this case, the spectacular views from high up on the mountain would more than justify taking this particular random walk.
The area that includes the mountain we walked over is called La Loca, and there’s a story behind the name. There was a woman in Sayulita that some said was a bruja, or witch. Anyway, she was an odd one; and the story has it that she went crazy and ran down the beach from Sayulita, which was a town of maybe 20 palapa houses at the time—60 or 70 years ago—and disappeared up into the hills. No trace of her body or clothing was ever found. We walked those same hills, now known, after her, as La Loca.
As you can see from the photos, these walks are wonderful for the mix of up- closeness with the petroglyphs, plants, tracks, spiders, wasps, and unusual flora and fauna, and the big views of valleys and ocean beyond the jungle and beach. Walking trails like these with a knowledgeable local like Chilly Willy makes it far more interesting; once again, we can only say, if you want to get off the beach and get to know a different side of Nayarit, give him a call, and he will guide you deep into the jungle. If you go late in the day, as darkness falls, you might see the black jaguar that roams the area; or a group of javelinas (wild pigs), or a herd of deer. Perhaps you’ll spot a boa constrictor slithering through the undergrowth. All these creatures and others live out there, just a few miles from downtown Sayulita. You’ll find Chilly Willy at his namesake restaurant on the corner of Pelicanos and Palmar, or by cell phone at 322-127-2438.
