Thanks to a turtle, I stumbled upon yet another part of Jalisco which can only be described as “stunning” for its natural beauty.
This adventure began with an email from Universidad de Guadalajara (UdeG) biologist Jesús Rodríguez. “On your website,” he wrote, “I found a picture of a Spotted Box Turtle (Terrapene nelsoni) in a place where no one has ever described it before.” That place is known as Las Piedras (The Rocks), located seven kilometers northwest of Quila El Grande, which in turn is located 70 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara.
I camped near these rocks in 2002 on the advice of a friend, who put them high on his list of favorite sites for climbing practice. From my point of view, Las Piedras were just part of a spectacular view I could enjoy right from my tent door on a mesa overlooking a beautiful area as grandiose as any national park. Curiously, this area north of Quila has not been included in the Protected Zone of Quila, which covers some 15,000 hectares and can be accessed via the town of Tecolotlán.
I wrote back to Jesús promising to organize a trip to search for Spotted Box Turtles, which, by the way, are endemic to Mexico, and have been called “the least known chelonians in the world.”
Last Sunday, a contingent of ten headed for Ameca from where we followed a winding dirt road – with a great view – over the mountains to the sleepy town of Quila El Grande, which is anything but “big.”
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