El Ocote

How one may imagine all of México to look
















Intrepid explorer













This is a photo of the hill just above the rock paintings. Can you see the multitude of wasp nests? Or maybe they're killer bee nests. We're all still alive at any rate.












A view of the valley below the famed rock paintings.










Rock paintings? What rock paintings? Ok sorry, the photos that I took of the petroglyphs at El Ocote just didn't do them justice. Even with the naked eye, the paintings were difficult to discern.
On Sunday we took a little road trip with Angie and Leo to a village about 30 km south-west of Aguas called El Ocote. The main attraction is of course the nearby petroglyphs.
Since it was past noon when we arrived and we felt we had to fortify ourselves for the long treck ahead, we started by having a picnic beside the small man-made lake. It was so-o-o peaceful there and clean and did I say peaceful? And the food we packed was pretty yummy to boot.
So after a leisurely lunch we hiked up a nearby hill covered with rocks and cactus to the area we thought we'd find the noted rock drawings. Did I mention we had to scale a fence into a restricted area? Anyway, after much searching and a short rest at the top (where we played "house" briefly in what looked like the foundation of a small stone structure), we headed back down the hill and over the fence to discover that indeed we were looking in the wrong spot. We only had to walk another 300 m to the bright orange gate, which we had to climb over and then up a short path to the wall of rock and at last the paintings.
The paintings looked to represent humans and animals. They were red in colour, though as I mentioned, faded. They are said to have been created prior to the Spanish arriving in the area (pre, mid-1500's). Likely sometime in last year, some clever person had climbed over the fenced-in area and done their own rendition of rock art with a piece of chalk.
Despite someone's obvious lack of respect (insert other descriptive words here), we were all suitably impressed. And it was a great way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.