Bridges and Borders:
Down the River in Veracruz
by Ron Mader

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"These shoes have walked some strange streets -
stranger still to come."
- Bruce Cockburn

October 1995. I fly into Mexico City for an environmental business conference and snag some time to get away outside of The City. Francisco Madrid of Mexico's Tourism Secretariat (SECTUR) invites me to explore some of Mexico's nascent ecotourism projects. I'm glad I agreed.

Tom Buckley, a friend and sports editor for the Mexico City News joins me for the outing. He's never been on a river, and I'm not sure if can swim. We pay for the inexpensive, first-class (better movies and free Cokes) bus ride from Mexico City to Xalapa. At the state tourism office, Luis Ross and Roxanne Arredondo makes arrangements for our first night's lodging at the enchanting Posada Coatepec, 15km south of town. We are greeted by the jovial owner, Don Justo Fernandez, horse breeder and hotelier. He treats us to a gourmet dinner and later gives us a tour of the ever-expanding Posada.

The next day his son Justo IV offers us a tour of the Ecologico, a private natural reserve on the outskirts of the extinct El Cofre volcano. It's a beautiful drive through the fields. The rain lightly falls, in what the younger Justo tells us is traditionally called chipi chipi rain - a steady, light rainfall that's perfect for the coffee crops. The problem is that the rainfall is diminishing as regional deforestation rockets upward.

Ecologico is one of many such private ventures that are located on the outskirts of national parks and reserves. It's one way to extend protection of the ecosystem. This project is geared more as an unusual animal park - with yaks, bison and zebras - chewing grass in the white mist.

That afternoon we lunch with Justo and the white water rafters from the Mexico Verde company. This is a lively group of nature enthusiasts, wearing company tennis shirts and shorts. They drive us to the town of Jalcomulco where Mexico Verde has established a camp ground and invests heavily in the city. We are visiting before the weekend rush. A Salinas mask dangles from the campground bar. The evenings must be filled with music, liquor and political vaudeville. I'm disappointed we're here for such a short time.

That night the Mexico Verde drops us off at Xalapa's Fiesta Inn, a hotel with wall-to-wall carpet and a fine restaurant, but little of the Posada's native charm. Veraventuras treats us to a day outing on the Rio Antigua. It takes almost two hours to drive to the launch site, and we pass through numerous climatic zones. Veracruz seems to have a little bit of everyplace in the world within its boundaries.

The best way to see the Filobobos archaeological site is via the river. We don lifejackets and pick up the oars. The water seems ice-cold, but it's clean and invigorating. The river has a Class 1-3 rating, which provides some excitement, but nothing too scary.

We visit El Cuahilote and Vega de la Pena sites, each complete with stone carvings, ball courts and pyramids. These sites were recently discovered and still are mostly covered with soil, moss and trees. El Cuahilote boasts a natural spring underneath one of its pyramids. Water has always been important in this area.

The raft trip is exhilarating, despite the guide's notice that the river is rather low and therefore slow. Still, seeing the forests and orchards and cattle pasture from the river makes for a wonderful trip. Two years ago when I visited Xalapa, I heard rumors of river trips, but there was at most one company that functioned part of the time here. Now there are five companies, each pulling Veracruzanos, Chilangos from D.F. and foreigners from abroad into this lacustrine world.

Of course, the trip doesn't end perfectly. Tom stumbles on his way out of the raft and pulls a muscle that basically incapacitates him for a month. Such is the real-life, real-time danger of adventure travel. The real world doesn't have amusement park restraints.

By the time we return to Mexico City, we're both mentally and physically refreshed. I've seen something in Mexico I've witnessed in the United States and Costa Rica and Ecuador, but rarely in Mexico - that the outdoors can offer both a beautiful aesthetic experience as well as a form of economic livelihood. This trip is just beginning.

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Ron Mader lives in Mexico and hosts the award-winning Planeta.com website -- www.planeta.com. Ron is the author of the Exploring Ecotourism Resource Guide and can be contracted for presentations and workshops.

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