Camping in Cuatro Ciénegas

Trip Start Jan 07, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Mexico  ,
Monday, April 7, 2008

This weekend I went camping in Cuatro Cienegas with some friends. I had a great time.  Cuatro Cienegas is a very interesting place.  It is in the middle of the desert, but it has several pools (pozas) that are fed by ground water. I'm not sure, but I think they're heated by some kind of geothermal activity. The water was warm even during the night.  A lot of these pools have fish species that are unique to Cuatro Cienegas (NASA has been studying some of the pozas lately). The camp site was typical and relatively empty.  There were also sand dunes nearby.  By far, the best part for me was the sky. There were no lights within about a 15-mile radius, so the stars were amazing.  Also, there was no moon, which made it even better.  I would actually put the nighttime sky I saw on the same level as seeing the Grand Canyon. There were tons of shooting stars. Swimming in 80-degree water in the middle of the desert while watching shooting stars--I'm not sure if it gets any better than that. The next day, we hiked out to see the dunes.  We walked about 4 miles during the heat of the day to see them.  I drank about 3 liters of water and wore a long sleeve shirt.  It's so hot and sunny that you'll burn even if you're wearing 45-spf sunscreen.  The white sand was also very cool.  The camping itself was also quite a bit of fun.  We had hot dogs and good old marshmallows, or bombones, as they are called here. Everything went extremely well.  I'm definitely planning on going back to Cuatro Cienegas someday.  
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