Hello again and welcome to OnVallartaTime! This week’s post is different – a trip to a very special place. But meanwhile, to catch you up on our lives…

We have visitors! Peggy’s and my daily routines are changing, at least for a while. That’s a good thing — we were getting into a bit of a rut, as you might imagine. What else would you expect, when we wake up every day to perfect weather, and we have to make the difficult choice of what to do that day.  Hmmm… Go to the beach and hang out? Go explore the town? Or is this a day to do our regular chores, like shopping, or taking the laundry down to the corner lavandería? Well, we have to get out of the house in any case, the maid is coming today.  You know, like that…

Anyway, yes we have visitors. Our friend Eve is here for the month of January; she rented a condo on a hill near our hill. Her friend Linda arrived to stay with her for a week.  And our friend Liep will be arriving later today, also to stay for a week.  He will be staying at the Hotel Playa los Arcos, a Mexican-family-oriented hotel on the beach just a few blocks down from us on Olas Altas.

But back to the subject of this post…

Last year we visited with Mark and his family, who live here in Puerto Vallarta.  Mark is the son of Eve’s mother’s friend, and he’s married to a Mexican woman with three children.  He told us about a place he and his family like to go, a special location in the mountains they call “the healing place.” Many people swear by the place’s healing properties; there have been many miraculous cures. So we decided that we would go there this year for sure. As Eve’s arrival in PV neared, I called Mark and made the arrangements.  He kindly agreed to take us in his truck, and we offered to buy the gas.

The healing place, known officially as Centro Magnético (Magnetic Center), is located in the mountain settlement of Yerbabuena (mint in Spanish) a few miles up in the mountains outside the valley of the town of Mascota, a former Colonial mining town. It’s 62 miles from Puerto Vallarta, but as Mark says, “it’s 62 miles and 88 topes.”  He has counted them.  Topes (toe’-pes) are Mexican speed bumps, also known locally as “sleeping policemen.” Every little settlement and wide place in the road has them instead of a reduced speed limit, usually one upon entering the settlement, and one leaving it, sometimes only a few feet apart. They are very effective – if you don’t slow way down you could easily bottom out or lose your suspension. They are also hard to see in the dappled sunlight and shadows on the road. The topes, plus the fact that Mascota is on the old, winding mountain highway to Guadalajara, means that the 62 miles takes three hours each way.

Map showing Mascota in relation to Puerto Vallarta.  The highway heads up the Ameca River Valley into the mountains, turns south then drops down into the valley where Mascota is located.

First, a little back story on the place itself. In 2009, not so long ago, a famous curandero (healer) was performing a healing for a family near Mascota, when he took one of the family members aside and asked if he could accompany him to his property.  There, the healer walked around in a small field and stuck a stick into the ground.  “There, that’s it!”, he declared. That was the beginning of the Centro Magnético, originally called Tubo de Luz (Tube of Light), a place where magnetic energy converges and aligns in your body, and that can heal all kinds of ailments. Since then, the family has barely developed the location, building a typically colorful low wall encircling the original spot, with a covered area for sitting. There’s no charge, just a donation box. This place is not yet “discovered,” and is only minimally visited.

On the appointed day, Peggy felt that her back couldn’t take bouncing around in a truck for six hours, so only Eve and I went. Mark picked us up in the square near where we’re staying and we were off. Once out of town, the trip on the mountain road was breathtaking, with mountain vistas and precipitous heights.  We climbed nearly the entire way (the elevation of Mascota is 4,100 feet). Near the summit, jungle foliage gave way to pines and then we descended into the beautiful agricultural Mascota Valley.  Once through the town of Mascota, we took a small side road part way up into the mountains to Yerbabuena and the Centro Magnético.

 On the road — watch out for topes!

 Looking down into the Mascota Valley

 View of the town of Mascota

Another view of Mascota

Mascota Valley view

 The ruins of a large church in Mascota. When the silver ran out in late Colonial times, the church was never completed. The grounds are kept up as a park and museum.

 Entrance to the Centro Magnético site. It’s a little complicated getting here from Mascota — I don’t think I could find my way back here on my own.

 The Centro Magnético. That’s me in the background arriving at the site.

 A sign explaining the site and what to do.  I won’t translate the entire thing, but after detailing the site’s discovery, there’s a “Prayer and Concentration” that goes, with hands raised and facing the sun with eyes closed, “My God I place myself in your blessed hands to ask you (pray) for my health. Jesus I have faith in you. San Germán. In the name of God I ask for my health.” We were told to say this out loud. The sign goes on to say to touch the parts of your body with your hands and to raise your thoughts to God and the Virgin. It also says the maximum time to stay in the circle is 10-15 minutes (5-10 for children), and to thank God and San Germán for interceding for me and my family, amen. Everyone is to enter barefoot.

 Here I am in the circle. With bare feet, you stand straddling a nubbin of a wooden stake in a square of dirt in the center and say the prayer out loud. When you speak, there’s quite a surprise — your voice is amplified and reverberates! This is evident to you only, not to anyone listening. I asked for the healing of my various ailments. Later, I went back in to do the same for Peggy’s back.

Eve in the circle

Mark, our guide and driver, with brothers Hector and Juan, caretakers of the site. The Centro Magnético is just visible in the background.

 Well, folks, that’s this week’s post about the Centro Magnético, the Healing Place. I hope you enjoyed it. No miraculous cures came about from the visit (yet), but there’s no denying that there’s “something.” You can feel the energy. I kept imagining the tubo de luz, the tube of light, surrounding me, reaching to the heavens. And then there’s that echo…

As a parting shot, here’s a pic of our current gang here in PV. That’s Linda, Eve, me and Peggy at dinner at a wonderful restaurant very near our condo, Fusion Gourmet.