April & her friends call this tree a "Gringo Tree" because the bark is red & peely......


Last Thursday we were able to take a day off of school and go on a tour with our friend and local tour guide, April. She has been living in La Cruz Mexico for almost thirty years. We went on two tours with her last year and had tons of fun. This year, she took our family and three other boaters to Boca for a challenging six mile hike.

After an hour car ride through Puerto Vallarta and over the hills, our hike with April started in the small town of Boca de Tomatlan. Through forests and over beaches we went with little respites along the way. The terrain varied throughout the day from the tropical dry rain forest to stretches of sandy beaches and dusty dry areas. April always led the group in the front of the line as we made our way on the skinny trails up and down the side of the beautiful coast line.









After hiking our way over three miles of hills and across little wooden bridges (similar to the rickety plank bridges people fall off of in the movies) we came to a little tiny speck on the map called Las Animas, meaning "The Souls". Las Animas is not a "town", but is a strip of sandy beach lined with palapa restaurants catering to the tour boats that come in from Puerto Vallarta. We stopped there for lunch and a rest.





Our destination was a water fall which we were all very eager to see. To get there we hiked another 3 miles to the little tiny village of Quimixto. This isolated community receives all of their supplies via pangas from Boca. They don't have cars or roadways to larger towns. Basically all the families that live there make their living from renting horses out to tourists who looked quite out of place in that unique area. We didn't rent horses, but instead hiked up a super dusty trail straight up to the water fall, taking giant steps over horse poop all the way. The waterfall was cool but puny compared to the ones we have at home. It was less about the waterfall, and more about the little adventure that we took to get there.



At the end of our day, we took a panga from Quimixto back to Boca where April's van was waiting.