Trekking is popular in many countries. In the U.S., the Pacific Crest Trail alone draws nearly a million visitors per year. While Mexico has countless long-distance trails, very few have been developed for sports tourism.
Hikers in Aguascalientes are working to set up a properly signposted and maintained 100-kilometer trail in their state, which they call El Camino de la Asunción. A few days ago, trekkers from Jalisco gave the trail a trial run. Below is a trip report by Matteo Volpi, founder of Volpi Outdoor Gear in Guadalajara.
Flowers, turtles and St. Peter’s palm
Eleven members of the Guadalajara hiking group, Secta Volcánica, arrived at San José de Gracia the evening of September 12. We camped in Parque Alameda and started hiking the next morning at 6 a.m., joined by seven hikers from Aguascalientes.
Immediately, we entered a green desert with prickly-pear cacti and St. Peter’s palm, a yucca as lovely as a Joshua tree. Everything was blooming, with lots of flowers. For me, it was like a throwback to the Pacific Crest Trail. It was beautiful.
The first thing we came to was La Santa Cruz, a hill with a huge cross on top. You have to climb some stairs to get to the cross. From there, you can see a picturesque canyon in the distance. Here, I was truly impressed by the beauty of Aguascalientes.
In the other direction, you could see a small town where Mexican independence hero Miguel Hidalgo went after he lost the battle of Puente de Calderón … and where they took his army away from him. We saw this on the Independence holiday, very Mexican.
It was just at the right moment. Everything was wonderfully green. We were told it had been years since it rained so much, so it was the very best time to walk this trail.
Then we hiked to the rim of the canyon we had seen and down to the bottom. Well, there were St. Peter’s palms again, with streams flowing everywhere … and there were turtles too. I was impressed.
Yoga, birria and banda
We crossed the canyon and hiked back up to the rim on the opposite side. After trekking 23 kilometers, we arrived at the town of Rincón de Romos, where they just happened to be celebrating their Feria de la Birria.
Here, the local mayor received us in this beautiful park, which has a picturesque pool. And he said, “Bienvenidos! We have some yoga mats here for you, and physiotherapists who will help you do some stretching exercises after your hike.”
“Claro que sí,” we replied. “Let’s do some stretching!” This was looking more and more like a Mexican-style trek, with all the comforts and conveniences that one could ever want.
After all this, we took a shower at a gym a couple of blocks from the park. And then, of course, we went to the main plaza to eat some of that famous birria.
They had set up a big stage where very loud banda music was playing. And there we sat, eating birria and drinking tequila. It seemed too good to be true!
The next morning, we got up at 5 a.m., and I was dead tired, but we had 23 kilometers ahead of us, so we started walking.
Vineyards and prairies
We were now in the Valle de Aguascalientes, a very active farming region. So we went from wild nature on our first day to this agricultural environment on our second. We hiked through vineyards and fields of corn and lettuce. And it was so beautiful!
Finally, we arrived at the observatory and planetarium in the town of Tepezalá, where I slept on the roof, hoping to see some stars, but it was too cloudy. The next morning, we found ourselves walking through prairies, which, in reality, were probably abandoned crop fields.
Suddenly, we had five dogs hiking with us. Unfortunately, several of them had been rolling in something disgusting and smelled really bad. When we came to some railroad tracks, we decided to chase off the dogs. This, we succeeded in doing. But now we found that our trail was flooded.
Bushwhacking our way to Milwaukee
This forced us to start bushwhacking, and we ended up walking through unfriendly weeds that stuck to everyone’s pants like glue — except for me, as I was the only one wearing shorts. But the bushwhacking brought us to three beautiful, abandoned haciendas, where we came upon a huge walnut tree, which was just beautiful.
After 34 kilometers, we arrived at Rancho Ubuntu, which reminded me of a typical desert camping park in the U.S. Here we bathed in a nice little lake, and then I slept like a baby for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we continued hiking and came to a sign saying “Milwaukee: 6 kilometers.” This gives you an idea of what this trek was like: lots of surprises.
Royal treatment
We eventually found ourselves on paved roads, entering the city of Aguascalientes and walking to the cathedral. The idea was to visit the Virgin of the Assumption, after whom the trail is named.
At a certain point, the streets were closed off due to a parade that took place earlier that day. They kept it closed a little longer just for us, so we marched down the middle of the main avenue all by ourselves. They really gave us the royal treatment!
Once again, it was all very Mexican. I loved this trek!
Would you like to hike this trail? See the Camino de la Asunción.
John Pint has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of “A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area” and co-author of “Outdoors in Western Mexico.” More of his writing can be found on his website.
