Xilithla was the site of Edward James’ Castillo. An expressionist set of buildings in the jungle, originally built as a monkey sanctuary. Edward James was an Orchid collector and enthusiast, and he was so upset that many of the flowers on his site died that he decided to make statues of them in concrete so they would never die.Valles was an extremely uninspiring town, and I couldn’t wait to leave, so we spent the one night before heading deeper into the jungle to explore Xilithla and Aquisimon.
Xilithla was the site of Edward James’ Castillo. An expressionist set of buildings in the jungle, originally built as a monkey sanctuary. Edward James was an Orchid collector and enthusiast, and he was so upset that many of the flowers on his site died that he decided to make statues of them in concrete so they would never die.
A walk round the site was enough to almost dehydrate us , so after a few hours exploring the jungle,culminating with a terrifying hike up to a tree house with an amazing view of the surrounding countyside. We headed back to Aquisimon to find a room.We suffered in the heat, our walking pace reduced to a meander, moving from shade to shade avoiding the sun.

We rose early on our second morning to see to Sotano di Golondrinas- the Cave of Swallows. We got in a pick up to take us up the mountain at 5am so we could watch the swallows leaving the cave, and after a bumpy 90 minute ride up the mountain, we hiked another 20 minutes back down to find the cave.
We arrived just before sunrise, perched on the edge of the cave. If you were brave like Jacquie you could have a rope round your waist and a local would lower you over the edge for a better look, I on the other hand was happy on the edge.

We waited and waited some more until finally the birds started leaving the cave. Unfortunately this was one of those times where the trip had been built up so much, and so many people told us how amazing it was that we were disappointed.
Sure it was a good day, but the best Mexico has to offer-no way!
We followed the cave trip with a walk through some natural caves and we were lead in and out of these huge caves by a local guide who loved showing us his secret nooks and crannies- ooh err!

We got back to our place around 2 am and both went straight to bed exhausted. We slept most the afternoon and couldn’t leave the air-conditioned semi comfort of our room for more than an hour at a time after that.
We ventured out for some food and as we sat down I heard the familiar rumbling of a Harley. A couple of minutes later a pair of Harleys rode into the square. I rushed over to greet them and realized these were the same guys I had spotted and chatted to a week or so earlier in San Miguel De Allende. Pedro, Hector, and Hector’s 12-year-old grandson Pedro
I showed them where I was staying and we arranged to meet for dinner.
We sat around in the square drinking sodas and eating Tacos with our new Harley buddies, and hatched a plan to ride together the next day to the waterfalls at Tamul.