Last week we took a van ride to visit the Petroglyphs on the ancient holy grounds of the Huichol Indians, making a few interesting stops along the way. April, our tour guide, takes people on private tours all over the states of Riviera de Nayarit and Jalisco. She is also a surfer and a local animal lover who moved from California with her husband twenty five years ago.

Our first stop was in the town of La Panita for a Mexican street market. This market was busy with locals and tourists of every shape and size. There were stands selling stuff from underwear to pottery. There were people selling food, buying food, and eating food. I guess a better name for it would be a flea market like we sometimes call them at home.

An hour later we were off again. On our way to the petroglyphs, we stopped at a fruit stand where a little old Mexican woman was selling fruit and candy. You pull into this side stop where she has a shelf covered with Mexico candy and fruit. She was sweet and looked so happy to see us! We tried a little fruit and some candy, including Yaca and Cajeta. Yaca is a little bit bigger than a cantaloupe but shaped like an oval and has bumpy skin. From a distance it looks like it could be a nest of some kind. Cajeta tastes like creamy caramel and is made from goat milk.

Our ride to the Petroglyphs was enjoyable but bumpy. We had to go down this dusty lane with lots of potholes, rocks, and a whole lot of dust! After suiting up with backpacks and walking shoes we set off. We had to walk about two miles before we got to the actual petroglyphs. What is a petroglyph? Petroglyphs are drawings the Huichol Indians carved in boulders an estimated fifteen hundred years ago. The Huichol Indians worship nature. People have tried to understand what the drawings mean but since there was no written language, nobody can say for sure. We hiked through the jungle to find many of these glyphs. It’s hard to believe that we were in real lush jungle. The technical term for this kind of jungle is a Tropical Dry Rain Forest due to the fact that it does not receive as much rain as a typical rain forest.

For me our day at the Petroglyphs was a day of experience. You see the sweet and the sour in everything, but I think the most important part is seeing everything in between.