On the other side of the lake is a mountain range with a few scattered villages, about an hours drive from my house. One is quite large and famous for its 'Alpine' influence. A couple of friends and I decided to drive up and spend the afternoon.
The village, Mazamitla (which means "place to shoot deer with arrows") is absolutely beautiful. If you ever come to Central Mexico during the rainy season, add it to your itinerary. It is about 7,000 feet above sea level, in a beautiful green valley surrounded by towering mountains. It looks like they could have filmed The Sound of Music there.
We arrived around noon and spent the first hour shopping and wandering around the Plaza. The buildings are all made of wood - which is very unusual in Mexico, since they rely almost solely on stone for their construction, and the houses had bow windows - remarkable. The residents were very tall and very fair skinned; this place was not settled by Indians, it was most definitely European.
We decided to try and find the most famous attraction - a spectacular waterfall on the outskirts of the village. We drove around for about an hour until we finally found the the road. We kept noticing strings of horses going up and down the road - we figured they were for the tourists to rent. We came to a stop at the bottom of a ravine with a gate that said 'No Moto' - horses only. We decided we would try and walk down to the falls which we figured was at the bottom of the hill. A Mexican guide stopped us and said it was a '2 hour walk' - holy crap - I'm not that interested in seeing a waterfall. And no one was prepared to ride a horse down a steep ravine.
Since it was late in the afternoon and we definitely needed to get down the mountain before nightfall, we decided to find a place to eat lunch and head back down. There is a very popular restaurant a few miles outside the village. We sat down to order and suddenly these men came flying down on zip lines right next to our table. Scared the crap out of me. Looked like a lot of fun. I took a few pictures - but the day was overcast so they didn't turn out that good.
https://picasaweb.google.com/113488190525490792576/Mexico
