VALLE DE BRAVO - MEXICO

My next destination after Mexico City was the small town of Valle de Bravo, which I only visited more to fill in the time up to when I was planning on travelling to Acapulco. After a short bus ride south to Toluca, I made my way west over some sizeable mountain ranges to the small but popular (with Mexican families) tourist town. Completely void of backpackers, this lakeside town was surrounded by moutains and situated in an absolutely amazing location and provided plenty of opportunities for taking some great photos and enjoying some trekking through the forest.

On the bus trip from Toluca to Valle de Bravo I met a very nice American couple who had relocated to Mexico about 20 years ago. They were kind enough to not only advise me of the best places to visit around the town but also invited me to their house the following day for breakfast. The meal consisted of bacon, sausages and eggs, pancakes and copius amounts of tea and coffee, a warmly received feed ! All that was missing was the steak !!

After arriving toValle de Bravo in the late afternoon I eventually found somewhere to stay and then legged it up one of the hills and managed to arrive at one of the vantage points on the lakes edge in time to catch the last glimpses of the sun. I was unfortunately about 10 minutes too late to catch the amazing orange and red colours cast by the sun over the lake (due to a few navigational difficulties and perhaps lack of fitness). This, I will admit was one of the main reasons why I decided to stay on an extra day in the town and forego more time in Cuernavaca.

The next day, following breakfast with my new American friends, I had a look around a smaller town not far from `Valle` and visited a nice waterfall before walking back along the lake to the town. Thankfully my second afternoon provided me with plenty of time to capture many photos of the sunset over the lake, before I met up with a few boys I had befriended the previous night. We enjoyed a few racks of pool and a great pizza and also managed to catch up the following day and spent a number of hours hiking to the top of another hill close to where one of the boys lived. This adventure provided further opportunities for photos of the town, lake and surrounding mountains.

Valle de Bravo was definately one of the ´suprises´ of my trip thus far and the combination of an incredibly relaxed atmosphere, friendly local population and fantastic location being a more than welcome change after the hustle and bustle of D.F.

As a brief stopover en-route to Acapulco, I stayed 1 night in Cuernavaca. Despite my limited time in the city, I managed to have a reasonable look around and was impressed with the Zocalo, churches, cathedrals and other buildings of significance in the city centre. Unfortunately, I was unable to visit the archaeological ruins close to the city due to a lack of time, but I figured there would be plenty of opportunities to visit other sites of interest in the states of Chiapas and the Yucutan Pensinula.

Photos 1-3 : Views of the town, lake and mountains from a great vantage point just out of town.
Photo 4&5: Sunset on my second afternoon.
Photo 6: Waterfall about 1 hour from the town.
Photos 7&8: More photos of the town and lake from our hike on my last day.
Photo 9: Cathedral in Cuernavaca.