Among Hippies and Nature

We decided to make an excursion off the beaten track to Capilla del Monte.  In the early 70’s, some hippies made this little town their home and shortly thereafter reports of UFOs and a subterranean elven city emerged.  They founded a “meditation” cult complete with energy pyramid and secret mountain meetings with the aliens.  Although I vowed once to never be fooled by the hippies again I decided the surrounding wilderness would be good for exploring even if I didn’t uncover the cavernous alabaster city of Glimglok.

Our bus dropped us off and then sped out of town leaving us in the midst of what appeared to be a quaint little village set in the mountains.  The scenery out the window looked amazingly like a drive through the hill country in South Central Texas, so we were off guard at first.  We were hunting for a cheap room to sleep in going from one little guesthouse to the next.  Each place got stranger and stranger.  The first few had quirky desk clerks but soon the pattern became unsettling.  Finally, after a recommendation from the vacant sunken eyed owner of the Bates Motel, we walked across the plaza to find an even more terrifying nightmare setting guesthouse with an even more braindrained alien-in-the-skin-of-an-old-woman (or AITSOAOW for those familiar with such things).  She had a bare, concrete-floored cellar of a room available for next to nothing and we took it, left our things, and headed for the outskirts of town.

Away from the influence of the Martian Mindwave Machine (MMM) we found ourselves clearheaded and in the middle of so very pretty country.  We headed past the scrub brush, scrap heap bottle strewn lawns and over a rock wall into a natural wonderland.  Once we were atop a big rock we could see a rocky canyon down the hill and headed straight for it.  We were walking along an animal trail for a while before it tapered off into a boggy swamp and a barbed wire fence and we had to start scrambling over rocks.

We came upon a nice lookout rock and sat admiring our little private pond and listening to the trickle of the water over rocks.  It became clear to us that this would be a perfect place for elves to live if they were not merely imaginary creatures (sorry kids) but their lives would be in constant danger because of the big buzzards that frequent the area.  While we joked about the various elf death scenarios we paused for some pictures.

Then as we were all quietly reflecting on the place we all realized some unsettling things.  First, this canyon had way too much greenery around a water supply that looked like it would dry up in the summer.  Second, we were sitting below the dam holding back the raging river that used to flow through these walls.  Third, the cult owned the land around the dam and this too was likely part of their chunk.  We were in crazy hippie cult land and hadn’t even known it.  Because of this and also because the sun was setting we headed back into town.

We walked around for a good long while taking in what sights we could find including the sunset over the lake, had dinner, and returned to our spooky house for the night.  It was beginning to get cold so Dave and I attemped to light the space heater with little success so he sought help from the crazy lady.  He got an eyefull of her getting out of the shower before she came to help us.  It was a night of most fitfull sleep, but we woke without any radiation burns.