The petrified waterfall — calcium-encrusted mineral springs that have been overflowing the cliff edge for 10,000 years, drop by mineral drop
Hierve el Agua (literally 'the water boils' — the name refers to the bubbling appearance of the carbonated spring water, not actual heat) is a set of natural mineral springs at 1,700m elevation in the Sierra Madre del Sur near Mitla in Oaxaca, where calcium-rich water has been overflowing the cliff edge for thousands of years and depositing limestone formations that have created the appearance of frozen waterfalls cascading down a 40m cliffside. The formations (petrified cascades — technically travertine columns and terraces, not true waterfalls) are unique in the Americas: the closest geolog…
Hierve el Agua was a ceremonial and agricultural site of the ancient Zapotec civilisation centred at Monte Albán — the irrigation canals carved from the spring outflows fed terraced agriculture on the hillside below, and the springs themselves (warm, mineral-rich, and visually extraordinary) appear to have had ritual significance in Zapotec cosmology. The site is in the territory of the San Isidro Roaguía community, who have managed access and benefited from tourism revenue since the 1990s — one of the earlier examples of community-controlled tourism in Oaxaca.