Day 54 – Climbing La Malinche Volcano
Knowing that we would have a big hike ahead of us today, we set off early from Puebla. It was a couple hour drive up to the trailhead at a staggering 3,100m. We quickly realized that it was a Sunday as the whole city seemed to be up here doing the hike.
We began hiking rather late, at 10am, without knowing much about the trail. We’d heard estimates of between three and six hours one way, to the summit at 4,462 meters. It’s pretty incredible being able to hike up a mountain of this altitude in just a day. Mountains of similar height would be heavily glaciated and require proper mountaineering equipment to climb.
We started below treeline and quickly had a setback when Viki discovered that there was avocado in her sandwich, half way through eating it. She’s allergic to avocado. Luckily it was not grave and we were able to continue the hike upwards. We were stopped by the police on the way up, who asked if they could take a photo with us. We agreed, but asked that they pose in a selfie with us as well (see photo).
The trail soon crossed the treeline into a steeper section of loose scree / volcanic sand. It was slow going, especially because of our headaches at this altitude and Viki’s avocado-induced stomach cramps, but we eventually made it up to the final ridge line and then across to the summit. 3h50m to the top. We saw many mountain runners on the way up (and many lycra-clad road bikers on the access road), which was a fun change from the typical people we encounter.
Shortly after starting our descent it began to hail. Hail? In Mexico? It didn’t take long of feeling the stinging hailstones on our skin to realize that it wasn’t a dream. We donned our rain jackets and made slow progress down the trail that was now very muddy and slippery. Getting back to the trailhead we bought ourselves some corn (we love Mexican corn – served steamed, rubbed with mayonnaise, sprinkled with powdered cheese, and drizzled with chilli sauce, served on a stick). We then settled in for a cold night (hovering only slightly above freezing).
Day 55 – Drive to Mineral del Chico
We woke up to what sounded like hundreds of dogs barking before sunrise. There are a huge amount of street dogs across Mexico and this seemed like a haven for them. Grudgingly, we got up and worried about whether the temperature had gone below zero, which would have destroyed our engine. We’ve been filling it up with water, rather than coolant, as it’s been leaking quite quickly, which is fine when the temperature is above zero, but can destroy the engine if the temperature hits freezing.
Luckily the car started and we were off on our five hour drive to Mineral Del Chico, a “Puebla Magico” up in the mountains north of Puebla. Mineral Del Chico is surrounded by one of the oldest national parks in Mexico. The drive was very pretty, winding up along narrow switchbacks past lakes, waterfalls, and cool rock formations.
The town itself is very small, with just one main street about four blocks long and a big pretty church at the bottom. Being in the state of Hidalgo, we tasted their local specialty for lunch “pastes”, essentially the same as English pasties, but with more chilli. We wandered about the town and then settled in for another cool night in the van.
Day 56 – Mineral del Chico
Today was planned to be a hiking day in the national park. We woke up however, to dense fog, which remained for the whole day. So instead, we did nothing all day. It was wonderful. First of all we cooked muesli for breakfast for the first time in ages. We then read, watched videos about van camperisation ideas, and used the computer for the whole day. In the evening we learned that we could set up our camp table inside the van and had a smashing time cooking dinner. We finished the day off by watching a very appropriate movie, “Coco”, an animated film centered around Dia De Los Muertos.
