In a trip through Oaxaca, Mexico, we found a touristic advertisement about a placed called Hierve el agua (that means, "water boils"). A fantastic landscape invited us to go, so we went to a travel agency and asked how to get there. They told us it was dangerous and because of it, there was no tour to that place. We asked some questions that gave us tools to organise our trip.
We searched in our map and identified the closest point: Mitla. We took then a bus from Oaxaca to Mitla. Once there, we asked how to get to Hierve el agua. They told us that a small transport could get us there. Where do we take it? -We asked. Right there -they told us, pointing to a small store.
We had there breakfast. A good and cheap sandwich, less than $10 pesos (less than a dollar or an euro). Finally our little transport came: a small pick-up like car, like made to carry pigs, adapted to transport people. We found another problem: we had to wait until there were enough people to take the trip. That looked a little bit difficult... in Mitla, where there were almost no people because it wasn't high season and much less backpackers thinking about joining to the trip.
After a while, finally another truck came, with more backpackers and a place for us. The trip began. Our small vehicle started its way through a dirt road, climbing hills and showing us spectacular landscapes, while we were being covered of dust. Interesting was the mixture of nationalities that traveled in that truck: the driver, we guess coming from Oaxaca, a couple of German guys, a guy from Mexico City, a Polish girl, a Japanese man and us, a tapatío (born in Guadalajara, Mexico) and a guanajuatense salmantino (that is, born in Salamanca, Guanajuato, Mexico).
We were in the back part of the vehicle, with the Japanese. We tried to talk to him, in English, thing that became a bit tough because the Japanese didn't speak much English, but it was in fact funny.
After an hour or an hour and a half, maybe, we got to Hierve el agua. The first impression was that it costed a lot of pain to get there to see that thing. Yes, a beautiful landscape from above, magnific, some of thermal springs, but it seemed not enough.
It was when we started to explore the zone that the great thing came out. Going up and down, round the apparent waterfall was a fantastic experience. And I say apparent waterfall because the thing that looks like falling water is in fact a mineral formation made of water that for a long time has drained slowly from above. It even looks like the waterfall were freezed, making it very peculiar.
We were exploring the area for about an hour. Plants, kind of stairs, very smooth rocks (because of the erosion), not constant water drops that kept drawing the great freezed waterfall, maybe for a postcard, maybe to never ever being seen. As always, the funny thing was to go down, but to return to the higher part of the place turned to be a bit tiring.
After the delay of a lot of people, the group gathered again and we took our small transport one more time. This time we took advantage and traveled in the human section instead of the pork section. We went to Mitla and from there we continued our adventure to other places, that I'll be talking about later.
Where is it?
Bigger map
How to get there?
From Oaxaca City, take any bus going to Mitla. It must take the 190 highway to Santa María del Tule, Tlacolula, etc. and then it must take part of the 179 road. Get off the bus in Mitla. Ask where can you take the transportation to Hierve el agua (it'll be possibly in a small store). Wait until there are people enough to take the trip (about 6 to 8 people). The vehicle goes through a dirt road, climbing hills and it takes about 1 hour to arrive. The driver waits there for about an hour and drives back to Mitla. To go back to Oaxaca you can take a bus from Mitla, but it's recommended to stop in a small town or archaeological site, like Yagul or Santa María del Tule.
How much does it cost?
It's really cheap. The roundtrip from Oaxaca to Hierve el agua shouldn't reach $200 pesos (about 10 or 15€). The bus from Oaxaca to Mitla should cost less than $50 pesos (don't expect for a luxurious bus). The transportation from Mitla to Hierve el agua costed us $25 pesos per capita.
