Hierve el Agua
Interesting facts
- The rock is laid down by rainwater that turns slightly acidic underground, dissolves buried marble and then sheds its calcium carbonate on reaching the open air.
- Only two of the four springs on the upper terrace actually bubble; the effect is thought to come from underground currents, not from heat.
- Most of the larger petrified cascade is built by a single spring, the one rising closest to the cliff edge.
- Traces of other minerals such as iron, barium and silver in the water give individual stone 'stalactites' their own tints within the white mass.
- The deposition never stops: fresh calcium carbonate can be seen building up on the walls of the bathing pools themselves.
- Locally the formations are known as cascadas de sal, salt waterfalls, or cascadas petrificadas, petrified waterfalls.
- The nearest known parallel to the Zapotec lined canals lies far to the north, in the Hohokam irrigation works of southern Arizona around 650 CE.
- The springs are among the few sources of water in this dry, rugged region, and the place was probably also sacred to the ancient peoples of the Oaxaca valley.
- The site lies in Mixe territory, amid oak woodland, cacti and semi-desert scrub.
Why it is worth it
High in the dry hills east of the Oaxaca valley, two pale cliffs appear to be frozen in the act of pouring. They are not waterfalls at all but curtains of travertine, laid down grain by grain over thousands of years by springs so loaded with calcium carbonate that the water drops its mineral cargo as it trickles over the edge. The process is the same one that builds stalactites in caves, only here it happens in open air and on the scale of a mountainside: the cliffs rise between fifty and ninety metres above the valley, and nearly all of the rock on their surface is calcium carbonate.
The larger formation, the cascada grande, hangs about thirty metres down from a lip some ninety metres wide, high above the valley floor; the smaller cascada chica drops around twelve metres from a base about sixty metres across. On the terrace above them, known as the Amphitheatre, four springs bubble up at a mild 22 to 27 °C. Their fizzing gave the place its Spanish name, "the water boils", although the water is barely warm. It gathers in natural rimmed basins and in two larger pools cut for bathing, and the dissolved minerals tint it a milky turquoise that stands out sharply against the ochre scrub.
What makes Hierve el Agua more than a geological curiosity is the human work threaded through it. Across the slopes run small channels and terraces built by the Zapotecs, possibly as much as 2,500 years ago, to lead the mineral water onto cultivated plots. They are regarded as the only example of lined irrigation canals known in Mesoamerica, and in places the travertine has slowly coated the old channels themselves, so that ancient engineering and living rock have grown into one another.
The site lies in the municipality of San Lorenzo Albarradas and its neighbouring communities have long taken a close part in how it is run. It is best seen from the path that loops down below the cliffs, from where the whole white cascade can be taken in at once, rather than only from the pools at the top.
Getting there
Hierve el Agua is about 70 km east of Oaxaca City by road, and roughly 43 km from Ocotlán de Morelos as the crow flies. The nearest airport is Oaxaca's Xoxocotlán International Airport (OAX), about 50 km away. Without a car, the usual route is a bus or colectivo from Oaxaca City to Mitla (around an hour), then one of the shared pickup trucks that leave Mitla for Hierve el Agua when full; the last ones return in the late afternoon.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Mitla 14.4 km · archaeological-site
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From the encyclopaedia
Hierve el Agua is a set of natural travertine rock formations in San Lorenzo Albarradas, Oaxaca, Mexico that resemble cascades of water. The site is located about 70 km east of Oaxaca City, and consists of two rock shelves or cliffs which rise between fifty and ninety metres from the valley below, from which extend nearly white rock formations which look like waterfalls. These formations are created by fresh water springs, whose water is over-saturated with calcium carbonate and other minerals. As the water trickles over the cliffs, the excess minerals are deposited, much in the same manner that stalactites are formed in caves. One of the cliffs, called the "cascada chica" or the Amphitheatre, contains two large artificial pools for swimming as well as a number of small natural pools. One of the artificial pools is very near the edge of the cliff.
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