Around Oaxaca - photos 2

Around Oaxaca: Hierve El Agua

Following the recommendation of our friend Fernando, we went to visit this incredible site, Hierve El Agua. And it was amazing...

From Oaxaca, we took a bus to Mitla. Here, due to the lack of tourists {locals and foreigners}, we had difficulty to find a colectivo to bring us to Hierve. We managed to get a good price just for us and the driver waited for us for 1hr while we were visiting the site. It is nice to go to visit during the low season as there is less people around but things like transport can be a problem sometimes. When we arrived to the main site, we were surprised to see all these locals laughing and having good time around the swimming pools. The most surprising was to hear them talking the ''Zapotec'', a ancient language from the Mayan civilization. It was like being in a different country!!!

- From the car park, a little walk brought us to the main site with 2 artificial swimming pools. The water here is highly concentrated in salt making the colour turquoise green. The water is not hot but effervescence brings the water at the edge of boiling so the name of the site,
- Here is one the rock formations with the 2 swimming pools. View from the main 'waterfall',
- On our way to the main waterfall, we crossed this group of Zapotec women wearing the traditional costume. Lee was having attention from them as I am not too sure they are used to meet 'gringos' often!
- The top of the main 'waterfall'. The ambient temerature water slowly runs over the cliffs and evaporates leaving behind minerals and in particular calcium carbonate forming like a waterfall,
- The main 'waterfall' with a height of 30m. The picture was taking from the smaller waterfall,
- Side view of the waterfalls.