Tangerineys! What's up guys!
We are here at Grutas de Tolantongo in the state
of Hidalgo in Mexico. Our first time in Hidalgo.
Wow, do we have a story to tell you guys!
So Jordan, what brought us here?
Well, our friend who lives in Guadalajara, he planned this incredible trip! It
starts here at Grutas de Tolantongo and then we go to Pachuca to grab some
supplies and then to the middle of the woods next to this creepy really old
supposedly haunted cemetery. And then we're going...
Which was a selling point by the way. He's like "Then,
we get to stay by a haunted cemetery!"
No! Totally not a selling point for us.
But it might make for a good video for you guys!
So hopefully some crazy stuff happens
there - for you guys, not for me. I don't want that to happen.
And pueblo mágico - Real del Monte. That's where we're going. So, but before this we
came from Morelia to ... the city ... do you want to try to pronounce it?
Let me get out the spelling first.
Ixmiquilpan. Ixmiquilpan. But anyway, our
Airbnb was about 50 minutes away from grutas and that's pet friendly.
Unfortunately though, they don't allow Laska into this park here. So thank you
Hugo, which is Emma's cousin, for watching Laska! We really appreciate that! If
you have pet, you're gonna have to find some other solution to come visit here.
Sorry for the wind guys but dang! Look at this view! This is absolutely incredible!
Wow! I'm surprised I'm not shaking right now
because as I've told you 10,000 times I'm scared of heights.
We are only going to be staying in Grutas de Tolantongo
for one night. We paid 700 pesos for a room with one bed, a shower, a king size bed.
A gigantic king-size bed. You have to pay 140 pesos per person per
day at the park.
And 20 pesos per car per day for parking.
When we got to Grutas de Tolantongo, we realized that part of this phrase translated in Spanish and
the other half didn't. As is the case with many other cities and towns in
Mexico, the name of this area comes from a Nahuatl word Tonaltonka
which means "Home where it feels warm" Tolantongo is actually a misspelling
of that word.
So Jordan, we were hanging out in some of the hot springs for like I don't know an
hour, hour and a half, two hours.
What did you think of that? There's quite a few of
them here. What do you think there are? 25 maybe?
Probably. In this area. Yeah, yeah.
It felt really good! It's pretty cold here in this area right now! I think
there's a cold front going through. But I think the views of - you have these
canyons right here that are absolutely incredible!
How about you? I thought it was relaxing. I was really hoping it was gonna be
warmer because when we woke up, I think it was like, 40. 40s-ish and it only
got up to about in the sixties today. But I was surprised after we got out how
refreshed I felt! Like it was just nice cleansing, calming feeling. I did not enjoy
the getting out part [Laughter] and the freezing again.
But I think it's so worth it! Some good
advice that most people will give you is to come on a weekday, not on a weekend.
Like we're here, today's Friday, tomorrow is gonna be Saturday. However, I'm
genuinely surprised how few people there are considering it's a holiday, a Mexican
holiday weekend. It is?
Yeah! Oh, I didn't know that.
But we had one tub to ourselves. So
there are enough that even if there's a lot of people, you're probably not
sharing it with more than like one other group maybe, but in our case no one. It
was just our group. And we just walked all the way to the end of the tubs. Yeah and
later on we're gonna be going down to the river, hopefully, to
see the waterfalls. So you'll get another one of these...
[Laughter]
From the natural thermal pools which is also where our hotel is,
It is just a short
drive or you can take a 10 peso bus to the river and the gruta. This beautiful
turquoise color of the water is super obvious here! We learned that it has this
mesmerizing color because of the mineral salts in the water.
There's also another hotel in this area and they allow camping right by the
river. And we think that would be a really enjoyable. Super soothing to hear
those River sounds at night. And Jordan is actually not a camper in the
slightest, the last time we went camping was on Mount Lemmon and I woke up in the
middle of the night to find Jordan and Laska sleeping in the car with the
heat on. [Laughter] But I do think I might be able to convince him and to come back here
and camp right next to this river.
So we were told that if you wanted the tubs all to yourself, and sort of that it would be
like a sanctuary of peace and quiet, you should come out very early.
I don't know when these pools exactly open, but we were out here at around 7
a.m. and there were tons of people everywhere! So with that thought would be
early enough. And the hotels here don't take reservations, so its first come first
serve. So if you want a hotel room and you're coming on the weekend, make sure
you get here really early! If for some reason you can't get a hotel room, they
do allow camping on grounds, I'm not sure of the costs for that. But there are
plenty of tents set up right here on the hotel property
that you can use this last resort. Well, you can't use the tents, but you can use
the grounds, so bring your own tent.
I have to say, when we came out here and
the sun finally came up over the mountains enough to hit the pools, it looked
so pretty! And if it weren't 40-ish degrees outside, I would be less bundled
up, and all up in those tubs! However, we are going to pull it together so that we
can see the gruta part of this. This spectacular cave of some kind near the
river down there.
So...
Yeah! [Laughter]
This gruta - it's like a cave or it translates
directly as grotto.
And you can, this is where all the water starts, the thermal
water. It's hot, it's awesome!
Getting in there for us wasn't awesome
because we forgot flip-flops. We didn't bring water shoes.
Ow! This has got to be
the most painful reflexology ever! [Laughter]
Ow, it hurts so much!
Bring water-shoes!
You go through kind of like a waterfall.
Into this cave, tunnel area.
And you've got water coming down from the top.
If you don't have a warm shower, there you go!
You can go into this back cave area if you can swim up against the current. They
have a rope that you can like pull yourself along.
A bat cave? A bat cave!
There were bats, but it was pitch dark in there so maybe bring like a
waterproof flashlight if you want to look around in there.
But the whole thing, I mean it's just as relaxing as being in these tubs! I had a
really good time! Except, of course, when we were getting out because it was
freezing! [Laughter]
So when you get to Grutas de Tolantongo, at the entrance you can
either go right or you can go left. If you go right, this is the hotel we're
staying at, and this is where all these tubs are at. But if you go to the left,
that's where the river is, that's where the grutas are. So if we can stress
anything, or if we would do this differently another
time that we would come. And we want to come back!
And we want to come back. This place is incredible!
The incredible views.
The waterfalls and grottos.
But yes, what would we do
differently? I would want to come for more than one night.
And on the weekday. This
is a holiday weekend, so today, this is Saturday,
There's tons of people here.
Playing music, eating, having a good time,
but I kind of see this more as like a
relaxation experience. And having a bunch of people partying just made it like
chaotic. Yeah. And after we told you guys that we were going here, we got some
comments saying "Hey, make sure you go on a weekday." and we appreciate that advice
but this trip has been planned for months. By our friend Emma, so that's just how
it worked out this time.
And we certainly got a workout in while
we were here! One thing we did not anticipate we're how many stairs there
are. Getting down to all the tubs, going back up to the parking lot. So for
someone who was like on crutches, or a wheelchair, or you know, you have ankle
problems or something, I think would be totally impossible. Taking our luggage
back up all those stairs was no joke!
Also, this whole place is cash only.
Like we said, you can't reserve the rooms ahead of time, but you have to pay cash
for them as well, so bring lots of pesos.
We read online that the nearest ATM is
actually in the town that we stayed in the night before, which is about 50
minutes to an hour away.
We didn't bring any food or water with us and that
concerned us a little bit, but thankfully there's plenty of restaurants, and little
shops, and stuff to buy waters, drinks, food on-site.
Prices are pretty reasonable, for
example, we just shared a great plate of fajitas for lunch and it was 110
pesos. And huevos al gusto 50 pesos, coffee is 12 pesos, so really
really reasonable. Before you go, we're gonna tell you a little bit about what
you have to look forward to. Well, after we left.
Stop licking me! After we left
Tolantongo, we were using Google Maps to get to Pachuca. There was a route that
said "hey save 9 minutes," so we clicked on that, and it took us on this sketchy dirt
road that we were on for like an hour.
There's canyons on one side, so like if the dirt just like crumbled, we would
just be toppling down, and it was stressful. Just don't do it. If it says
save 9 minutes, you're literally never ever ever going to save that time! It
took us probably like 45 minutes longer.
Then it would have on the paved... Anyway.
And then after that we went to a pueblo mágico called Real del Monte.
Or Mineral del Monte where she got this hat. Hey!
Hey, hey, I can't see anything!
Oh my gosh! We also got to see
a very creepy cemetery within that pueblo mágico.
Afterwards, we went into the woods for some camping, and then we also went to
Teotihuacan. There was a lot of stuff crammed into these very few days.
So we aren't totally sure what of this is going to make it into a video, but
where are we right now?
We are in Puebla City and we're super excited to
show you guys this place because, well we haven't been here long, but we really
like it so far! Yeah, thank you guys for watching this video though!
Please give it a thumbs up if you liked it!
And to subscribe to our channel if you haven't
already. Laska requests that you do one more thing though.
GONG THAT BELL!
So you get notified when we put out our new
videos. And we'll see you there!