adventure's in mexico ,part 1

for months ,i was listing to my friends plan a trip to mexico,,just in case,, i would become unemployed ..Well , the wed. after Christmas i became unemployed,talked to Dave  as he was 2 hours from driving over the mexican border in his van loaded full of kayaks,got my wife's blessing to leave[very impressive sense she is taking care of our 6 week old baby girl Sienna]talked to Brian about plans ,and bought a plane ticket to leave Friday for mexico.

meet up with Adam,Brian and Brenton in Houston on a layover,then fly to Veracruz,Mexico,, to meet up with Chris and Dave who made the long drive in the stout van ,loaded full of kayaks, from Pennsylvania. Sense we arrived at night we got a place in Veracruz to sleep. Before crashing out some of us paddle a bit in the gulf and joined in with the locals in celebrating new years eve .

New years day we started our drive south to Chiapas.On the way ,we tried for the Rio de oro,about 3 hours south of Veracruz. Using the river gypsies guide book for info,we went to the small town of Playa Roca Partida and asked around for a guy named .We had our doubts this plan was going to work,but to our pleasant surprise it ended up being the best all around day in Mexico.Found  Fernando,he joined us in our van for a short ride to put in 

There he led us on a 45 min. hike through pastures to get to the river,then we portaged around a 50 ft waterfall,then put on the water and enjoyed some fun class 3-4 rapids that brought us to a 30+ ft waterfall.Fernando was there when we got there,he swam across the river,right above the waterfall,and then  stood near the lip of the falls and gave paddle and tuck motions to us.[awesome]We all, basically, had good lines.Shortly after,there was another 30 ft falls ,then a short paddle to Gulf were we surfed the waves for on hour or 2 before beaching our kayaks and getting great foods at Fernando's restaurant,located right on the beach

the next day we continued our drive south to Chiapas.we drove alot,but because of slow traffic we did not make it to Palenque . Day 3 ,we traveled to the agua Azul where the river was brown and high,boating turn tourist day.We drove to Ososingo to devise a plan for our stay in Chiapas with high water.we used info from mayan white water to help us.
Day 4
 we choose to do the  upper tzaconeja a fun mini canyon run,that was at low flow

at the end of the run,some locals showed us another waterfall,so while Chris biked shuttle for us[thanks Chris]me ,Brenton and Dave carried up to run a fun 30 ft drop.

day 5,we started early for a long day on the upper agua azul. Chris took one for the teem and drove shuttle[thx again].this run had it all, beautiful with great drops.the first good rapid had 6 to 8 ft rock garden drops far as the eye could see.

there was a canyon that took 3 hours to paddle through with fun drops.one rapid, slick rock,me and Brian had to repel to portage the drop,while Adam, Dave and Brenton fired up this sketchy drop

the high light of the run was there was a canyon that gets so narrow that the sides actually touch and you are in a cave for 10 seconds or so

after the cave,the river does not let up,after a trib helps the flow,there is a quality rapid 1/3 mile long or so.at the take out,all the towns kids greeted us.we finished the day with food down by the agua azul.

Day 6

At breakfast, we met up with 2 boaters from Colorado, 2 from Montana and Seth from the UK. We all put on the Agua Azul after starting out to far left, we hopped over a channel and found the goods. A 40 ft slide above a 20 ft to 30 footer way beautiful and intimidating.

then portaged the 50 footer and another group of kayakers  joined in,Ben and company

the middle section was phrased as valley falls times infinity by Dave,with lots of fun drops around 5 feet or so

then we arrived at the big 5 . the first and easiest?is a 30 to 30 ft and the second person over miss judged his line,checked a tree,piton and broke his ankle.we all pitched in,roped him out of the canyon,carried past the big 5 and paddled 3 miles under moon light. all 15 of us then slept at the Zapatista's camp

more pics of agua azul

Day 7

early start to drive to Veracruz.first we helped Lief out by giving him and his wife a ride to the hospital to get his ankle taken care of.on our drive we got extorted out of 65 US[we had to many boats on the van]is what the shady cop wrote a ticket for on a blank piece of paper.o well ,we made it to Veracruz safe and on time to drop Brenton off at the airport and pick up Rob.Thank you Rob and Brenton for letting me use your boats in Mexico for the week each of you were not there