Presa Corrinchis (Corrinchis Dam)

Today is the Sunday before Christmas. All week the carillon in the church has been playing Ave Maria and then We Wish You a Merry Christmas early in the day. Today, we see lots of people all dressed up and heading to the morning service.

We decided to take a taxi to a nearby dam that we had been hearing a lot about.

The Corrinchis Dam is an artificial lake fed by the Mascota River. Actually it is very similar to the Shand Dam and Belwood Lake, but surrounded by mountains and a lot deeper. The dam has a length of 7.5 km, a capacity of 30 million cubic meters and reaches 50 meters deep. Construction began in 1974. There are some islands. One bigger one is called El Conejo and another, El Beso. Bass, catfish, tilapia, carp, and otters live in the lake. On the edge of the lake, the vegetation is made up of oaks, pines, cacti, nopales and some deciduous shrubs.

At one time, all the land in this area was owned by one land owner who grew sugar cane. Now,
the area has corn fields, squash, melons and lots of cows and horses.

The taxi driver dropped us off in the restaurant area. People come to eat here at noon so only one place was open and we enjoyed the beautiful views and had a coffee. The owner was complaining that ants had stripped almost all of his Christmas cacti of their leaves and red flowers.

It was such a lovey day, that we decided to walk back to town along the dirt road. It is close to a 10 km walk, mostly downhill, with lots to see. We were pretty high up so the views of Mascota were great. Chris will have difficulty picking only 10 photos to put in this footprint!

Our end reward was a cold green drink (celery, nopal (cactus), orange juice and pineapple) and a gourmet vegetarian pizza at the Cafe Napoles restaurant.Read more