Hierve el Agua

Rough nights the last few days. Pain running high. Hard beds, one pillow, no airflow in the rooms. It’s very hard for me to turn from lying on my back to lying on my right side. That turn requires muscle movements that make it extremely difficult for me at night.
At home I have the wooden bars on the head of the bed. Here I don’t. So every turn at night is a struggle that wakes me up.
And then there is the need to change position from lying to sitting on the bed in order to be able to pee a few times per night. Changing position from lying to sitting is really almost impossible here. There’s nothing to hold onto or pull myself with like I have at home. When traveling this becomes a major issue.
Eventually I do get to sleep a few hours in between all those hustles, as I got used to it, but in the last few days the church bells outside, Day of the Dead, ringing a lot. Beautiful tradition but not great timing. Your body already refuses sleep, then the bells say “stay with us.” So you do.

We’ve been moving through Mexico, Mexico City, Puebla, Tehuacán, Oaxaca, each place amazing in its own way, different vibes, aesthetics, people, faces, smells, food and so on.

Then we went inland, further, to small villages where there aren’t many options to stay. In general my options of places to stay are extremely limited when you look for something not expensive and somehow accessible. But here in the villages, comfort options drop even faster. Curiosity and the urge to see it all win. I want to see how life looks in so many places. It’s frustrating tbh. That feeling of missing out doesn’t let go. It’s a struggle and I feel my mind writes checks my body cannot pay.

I keep asking locals to recommend places they think are worth it. I keep asking, “Did you ever travel a bit outside here? What did you like the most?” And you see their eyes light up when they tell you about a place they loved and I can’t wait to see it.
We stayed in a little town called Mitla, an hour or so from Oaxaca city, and here a few people said Hierve el Agua is a must, so we headed there.

Hierve el Agua is a natural mineral spring site in the mountains of Oaxaca. Over thousands of years the water, rich in calcium and minerals, slowly dripped down the cliff and created huge frozen-waterfall formations out of stone. At the top there are natural pools right on the edge with big views over the valleys and hills. The formations are rare, the location is dramatic, and the pools sit in this wild mountain landscape. It made me imagine it as ancient and untouched.

On maps it’s one hour. In reality it was two rough hours.
Roads here are a tougher challenge than I imagined.
Absolutely no internet.
Never mind that we bought a local eSIM, it’s Wi-Fi here, and you find yourself searching for a spot where it connects just to do the very basics.
Detours without warning, Google Maps wrong a lot.
Outside the highways, road surfaces make you slow down every few seconds so the car and my Trekinetic behind it don’t suffer.
The AC works but can’t fight the heat for long, and when it fails you feel it climb up your neck as your patience runs thin.
No internet signal means if something happens you wait in the sun and hope someone comes. I can’t stand the idea. With MS the body hardly functions when the heat is on.

Locals say don’t drive at night. We listened, except again and again Google Maps isn’t cooperating (yes we downloaded the maps), and we find ourselves navigating small roads in the dark.
Night drives were adrenaline peaks I can’t even start to describe, and they also meant a reduction in physical pain, which is a huge deal, but that’s a different story.
On those roads I’m realizing there’s no safety net here. You rely on your body, your brain, and whoever happens to be around. I don’t like it.

Mornings are extremely tough.
The stiffness and weakness are a real scare.
The workout routine still did its job. Breathwork 20 minutes, intense, then cold water for six minutes, shaking the stiffness off just enough to move a bit and make it to the car or the wheelchair.
Going for coffee took time. There are very few options for a good coffee in the villages, and that morning coffee Feng Shui is something I can’t compromise on.

Then the village had roads blocked because they were making new giant speed bumps. Mexico builds speed bumps everywhere, and they are very, very high. The highest, widest, and most aggressive I’ve ever seen. I guess there’s a good reason, but they’re vicious and unreasonable in their density.
Traffic was diverted into tiny streets, everyone moving slow, trucks reversing whenever they feel like, dogs sleeping in the sun, tuk-tuks sneaking in from left and right. Nobody seems stressed though.
Finally after a nice coffee and two boiled eggs I specifically asked them to make for me, on top of an avocado, we hit the road to Hierve el Agua.

Huge beautiful hilly landscape, dust, agave plants and many types of amazing cactuses everywhere, dry land where life grows only because it’s stubborn. Beautiful dogs lying half-asleep on their sides. More and more mezcal distilleries on both sides of the road, stone wheels turned by horses, bottles lined up on shelves, wooden old huts, handwritten labels, amazing typography, plastic plants mixed with real old colorful clay ones, big cow skulls hanging off the sides, cowboy hats, rough sun getting stronger. I couldn’t stop looking. I wanted photos, but Iza didn’t want to stop, no road shoulder, and always noisy cars behind us.

As we approached another village, many people were standing around the road. We were asked to stop and pay for two tickets to pass, 20 pesos each. Not clear what the tickets are for, but it’s fair. We pass through their land, they maintain the road, they need the money.
Eventually we arrived to what looked like another village, and again we needed to buy two tickets, but this time it said Hierve el Agua on them.

We parked in a dusty lot. Iza parks with her usual invisible geometry, she reverses and fixes on an empty dusty lot. Stalls with fruit, coconuts, mezcal, junk snacks, water, ice cream with syrup, plastic toys, flowers, plastic tables under cloth-dried palm leaf roofs.
Dusty chickens walking around like they’re checking who enters. Kids on motorbikes, many tough-looking dogs mostly sleeping, old men with cowboy hats sitting in a parliament of their own. Vendors quiet and friendly when you come close, looking at the wheelchair with curiosity but not pity. No one speaks English even remotely. When you ask if they do, they don’t even understand the question.

I’m calling a Mexican man to help unload the Trekinetic from the car.
That’s easy, and always a nice moment, they’re always happy to help.
I’m in the wheelchair now and look for the trail. No sign where it starts. We try different directions. Every attempt bumps strongly on rough stones, so we need to be efficient to save battery and protect the chair. The last thing I need is a flat tire or some unknown machine error here.
I see a tourist-looking guy finally and ask him, shirt off, tattoos, easy face. I ask if he knows a way down with the chair. He looks at the slope, the chair, me. He says he was just down there and doesn’t see how it’s possible with a wheelchair.

For a moment I feel disappointment hit hard in my chest. Not even because I have to see it, but more because of Iza and the whole effort to get here, and the anticipation. Even though nothing in our research said it’s accessible, we met some locals in Mitla who said it was possible as far as they remembered.

He shows us where the path starts. We go check it. The beginning looks fine, wide, paved, gentle slope. Then after a few minutes it gets steeper. Still doable if someone holds the chair from behind, because angle is the issue.
Chair + me = ~115 kg.
I look around and see two Belgian guys. I explain I need a counter-hold. Iza can do it, but when it gets steep we need muscles for safety. They hold the handles behind me and we keep going. It’s scary rolling downhill on an electric chair, but I trust them. We talk a bit, keep going. Then the slope becomes mild again, so we thank them and tell them we can continue from there.

After a few more minutes the paved path ends. We’re not far from the pools but still above them. The gravel path becomes a flat, rough, rocky area that ends with a high step to go down, then another one and more.
I find shade under a tree and tell Iza this is good, I’ll stay here. I can see from here. Close enough. I’m okay.

Then we see the American guy again, he suddenly appears.
“You made it here?”
“Yes. But I want to reach closer to the pools,” I say, like we’re old friends already.
It did something to him. He looked, thought, didn’t say a thing, and left. I thought it was a bit weird.
But hey, after two minutes he came back with a plan. He explained he discovered a bypath that could work. Now he’s behind me, Iza in front, and we move slowly.

Sometimes I get out of the chair and hold a thin tree branch to lift and support myself while Iza holds me and Chris moves the chair down a rocky step. No rush. No drama. Actually big drama but in my head only. I talk to reduce the stress and ask his name. Chris. I ask where he’s from. Florida. What he does for a living. I sound like I’m interviewing him for a job he already took and it’s ridiculous, but funny. Then he says, “I’m a policeman. It’s my birthday today.”

Every step felt like borrowing strength from strangers, and paying it back with trust.

We reach the pools. I see it all. And there’s something about that moment, not victory, more like confirmation of what I always know about people. I was right. That feeling of trust and connection between people. That cooperation with strangers and with friends to make something tough.
It’s powerful and it lasts.
Iza gets into those amazing pools and we sit and look at the beauty of it all.

Many hours later, before it gets dark, we leave and the Belgians show up again just in time and push me up the steep part with a big smile.
Hierve el Agua itself, beautiful, yes. But what stayed today is simple: feeling close with human beings, the body doing its thing, the adrenaline pumping, and no pain at all for many hours.
That’s enough.