Word: xilitla
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Dates: during 2009-2009
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...Pozas (the Pools) are an excellent first stop and typify the region's color and extravagance. These extraordinary gardens near the mountain village of Xilitla were devised by the English surrealist poet Edward James, who worked on them from 1949 right up until his death in 1984. Giant sculptures, pagodas, moss-covered follies and staircases to nowhere sprawl over 80 acres (32 hectares). Nearby is James' former home - a truly incongruous mansion of turrets and Gothic windows rising out of the jungle. Today, it is a fabulously quirky eight-room hotel, La Posada El Castillo...
...tano de las Golandrinas (Cave of Swallows) lies a half-hour drive north of Xilitla, and is famed for two reasons. The first is the vast cavalcade of resident birds (which are in fact swifts and green parrots, not swallows) that emerges from the cavernous blackness in a kaleidoscopic exodus lasting for several hours every morning. The second is base-jumping, which is possible because of the cave's 1,220-ft. (372 m) depth. If you're not up to flinging yourself into the cave mouth with nothing but a parachute between you and oblivion, no matter. Professional handlers...
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