Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Mexico’s Frozen Waterfall?



“As you approach Hierve el Agua you would be forgiven for thinking that you are about to witness close up one of nature’s magnificent sites – that of a large, full flowing waterfall. However, closer inspection would reveal to you that what you thought was water cascading down the side of a hill is something else entirely. Very much of the beaten track and little visited the waterfall is in fact a natural formation of rock. In Spanish the name means the water boils but it looks more as if it has been frozen – perhaps there was some irony on the lips of the person who gave the place its name. Later, however, we will discover the reason for the name… Below these pools the formations of white rock spill down the mountainside, looking very much like a waterfall. The water drips continuously through the cliffs (not, as you might expect, from the top) and loses the minerals on its way towards the ground. They are deposited on to the side of the mountain – in a very similar way that stalactites are formed in caves.”

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