Date Added

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Posted In

Featured, Photography

Tagged

Alseseca Cuidad Valles kayaking Mexico Micos Santa Maria travel Veracruz Whitewater

Mexico ~ which way to the Big Banana?

Description

Tom Parker slides over the lip of the first drop bellow El Torro on the Micos. Late season levels (January) kept us floating on the whole trip but things were dropping steadily. Two more views of the relaxing wonderland of the Micos' travertine which can read 9m on the gauge early season (when it must look quite different). Back down near Tlapocoyan we finally made it into the Big Banana section of the Alseseca after two days of trying. In the end Antonio of Adventurec guided us down to the fall (tip, from the cemetery at Nicolas Bravo head down the track and bear right, not left as we were told, down to a tributary and roughly follow this to the Grande Plantino which you'll be able to hear). Adventurec is a great place to stay to explore the sections of the Alseseca and Pimiento section of the Alto Filo. You'll get great info and help there from the rafting and kayak school and the wealth of knowledge on hand from Antonio, Alex and Tom McEwan. Once you know your way around there you can cut down on the time you spend trudging through banana plantations and find some great drops in the ancient, deep (volcanic stone?) gorge of the Alseseca. I really can't recommend Mexico as a winter destination enough. Two shots of the back of Chris Eastabrook's head at the takeout for the third canyon of the Santa Maria and also dropping into the Toboggan (also know as S-bend) on the race section of the Alseseca. Finally we made our way back to Veracruz via Punta Poca Partida and the Rio Orro. All you need to know about this one is to trust the Wikipaddle description, go there and ask for Fernando (centre). Fernando now has replacement canyon shoes for the one he lost crossing the river on foot above the fall in the photo and also has a 20m Palm cored throwline from Tom Parker to replace the two lengths of climbing rope he had which do not reach the bottom of the gorge. We were indebted to him for his enthusiasm and effort helping us to extract Chris from between the two lower falls on the Orro when he delivered another of his devastating boofs to his back (but that's a long story).