I’ll be honest: I’d never heard of a Pueblo Mágico. Apparently it’s a special designation conferred in Mexico by the government–though state or federal, we never learned.

All I can say is: Aquismón fits the bill of Magical Town.

Word of warning. You know those really talky blog posts I sometimes do? This one isn’t that. I have pics to share!

Our first day there, all I really did was walk around and revel in the beauties of the place.

Not only the houses, but the yards themselves spoke of people who loved color and design.

Oh, and the gardens???

Carved out of the base of the jungly cliffs of the region, the village still hosted what looked like some magnificent old growth.

We stayed one night in one teensy little hotel, directly above an alley bustling with vendors…

…and two more in another small place, even more modest, with a very sweet courtyard. Pretty sure we were the only guests in both.

The tree shading El Esposo in this picture was bursting with blossoms. Hijo Dos assured me that, yes–that’s a mango tree, meaning that these…

You could tell that the citizens of Aquismon had a lot of pride in their village. I saw zero trash, and this sign on a public wall explained why:

We made two excursions from Aquismon. The first involved getting up before daybreak, and driving up, up, up a twisty road into the mountains behind town…in order to walk down, down, down 600 steps to a giant hole in the ground.

Not just any hole, though. This is El Sotano de Los Golondrinas, literally, Cellar of the Swallows.

Gazillion birds spend the night there, and at daybreak, come swirling out again. If you’re lucky. Sometimes, if it’s cloudy, they decide to sleep in, and you’re left just staring at their giant hole. Which is, admittedly, pretty cool: 1600 feet deep (512 m); the deepest cave shaft in the world, and the second-largest cave in Mexico.

We were semi-lucky: enough birds swirled out for us to be able to ooh and ahh and call it a swirl (though not exactly sky-blackening).

Next day’s excursion was a little further afield: Cascada Tamul, the highest waterfall in the region. We learned we could either hike to it–with instructions that sounded a bit iffy for folks like us with rental cars and bad knees–or rent a spot in a lancha and paddle up toward it.

The trip wasn’t far, maybe 30 minutes of paddling, but it started spectacular and stayed that way.

When we got to the actual falls themselves, so many other boats were there, full of people taking photos, it was actually an anticlimax.

Truly, though, I was more captivated by the journey than the destination. Especially the fluted limestone…

…which I couldn’t stop taking photos of. Even though I was supposed to be paddling.

But probably THE COOLEST part of the excursion was the Cueva de Agua (Water Cave) we stopped at on the way back downstream. Our captain pulled the boat over to let us all troop up some rough steps, then even more steps, up the bank…

…to this. Exactly as advertised: it’s a cave full of water sprung straight up from the earth. And warm.

I wish, oh how I wish, we could’ve seen it without anyone else there, as we did the Puente de Dios at Tamasopo. But being part of a group, we didn’t have a choice. Luckily folks were nice, and gave each other plenty of space in there.

Afterwards, waiting for everyone to have their swim, we enjoyed sitting in the cascading creek from that magical cave.

This photo of that creek pouring into the river captures the whole experience better than I can describe.

But, lest you can’t quite believe what that photo is showing, here’s the same waterfall, looking up from the river.

And one more:

Back in Aquismon, I walked around some more, soaking up that cute little town. I even found a few ugly things, like these drying intestines at a carniceria (butcher’s):

But the sunset from our hotel balcony was right on brand.

Next up: Jalpan (another Magic Town) and La Sierra Gorda. Thanks for traveling with me!