The Volcano Paracutín

This was a day of epic proportions, and it's not often that one gets to start that way. We stayed the previous night in Uruapan and we got to wake up much too early in the morning to hop a bus to get to where we needed to go. Keeping in mind that I jumped in a lake the previous day, I started the day with shorts and five shirts.



However, our "base camp" for the day was high enough in the mountains for frost to exist. We hopped off the bus on the side of the road, and let me tell you, the backwash from cars was really darn cold! But we found a spot to lay down what our plans were and we were approached by a guide. Before we found him, we had turned down one guide with an eye patch and we were about to turn this guy down, but he made some convincing arguments. So we hired him, him being called don Pablo. And he showed us to his house and throughout the volcano...



This is basically as downtown as we could have gotten. As we headed through town, we stopped at a convenience store and bought waters and fruits. I think I bought two oranges and three bananas for $7 pesos (70 cents US) And we continued out of town.



I also saw this cute guy as we were walking through town. Not much story, but I felt it was a good enough picture.



On our way out of town, don Pablo stopped for a quick prayer. I thought it was mostly neat that there was a place outside of town for religion. Afterwards, he pointed out where we were headed, like so:



The hill behind it kinda hides the volcano, but we were going to cross across the lava field, and climb up to dark hill and then head up the light brown hill. It's not the greatest picture, as the side of our ascent is out of frame, but the volcano is also about three to four hours away by foot.



And we start walking. In a large circle from the volcano, all the ground is dust. Throughout the forests, the plains - everywhere. Volcano dust. And we continued on.



And our fearless leader, don Pablo, lead us through an aguacate field. Aguacates, pretty good stuff... But the plant is ready for harvest every six years, and the field we traveled through had four years to go. It was pretty interesting, because all the plants have a little house to protect them from the strong sun.



As you can see from here, we start to enter the bigger rocks. This was 90 minutes after we met our guide, and forty minutes after we left the outdoor church. But as the sign clearly says, 2 hours to the volcano. Not a problem, we get to the top of the mountain by 1:30 at this point, we can make it out in plenty of time. One selling point of the guide was that he'd be able to get us in and out in a faster time.



Two hours into the trip. This was 50 minutes after our roasign, but that volcano looks really darn far away. This was also our first break, which probably lasted a few minutes too long. But we started hiking again...



Here we are at our second break. 40 minutes later. You can't see it, but the mountain is still far away. And this is one of the very few pictures with don Pablo in it.


And we continue on...


And our third break; we're at the base of the volcano. Finally. It's 1:39, and we began at 9:30. We've still got the volcano to climb, and we need to walk out. But heck, I think we might be able to do it. Why not?



At this point, we're about halfway up the volcano. If you reference the first picture of the volcano, there's the shorter hill and the bigger volcano? We're basically at the top of the small hill. There's still a -long- way to climb.



This is nearly the final of the final climbs. We had yet to round two bends and another climb. But, for those of you who have climbed dunes before, this was exactly the same. Except with larger rocks. It's not any easier, either.



But we finally made it to the top, and it was an incredible view. I'm not sure exactly from where we began, but we walked from the green part all through the black part and up a volcano. Oh yeah, this picture was taken just before 3pm. Hmm... Time crunch might be starting about now. But this picture is neat because of the three mountains in the distance.



And this picture was a requisite. Because when else am I going to be on top of a volcano to do a handstand? There'll be better pictures of me in a bit, I promise.



The climb up took a long time, but it was promised that we'd get down the volcano in less than five minutes. Turns out he was right, too. I took a few movies while I was on the top of the volcano, and a few on the way down. Very exciting stuff, especially when we figure out the math to figure out how fast we could travel down the hill.



This picture had to be taken because, well, we are very cool. We climbed a mountain. We've got Anna, Melissa, don Pablo, Noah, and Erin. Brad and Jessica are out of the frame, and I'm holding the camera.



We finally reached the second destination of the day after a forty minute (or so) ride in the back of a truck. They said it would have taken forty minutes on foot. Somebody really has to learn distances. We finally got there about 5:30. Our bus leaves at something like 6:15; I don't think we're going to make it. But we've had a hell of a day.



And we've made it back towards civilization. We're even dirtier than before, we're darn tired, and we're still not anywhere close to Querétaro. But at this point, the camera went away after more than 100 pictures.

We sat in this little town for long enough, and missed one bus, and the taxi drivers didn't come back for us. We caught the second bus and missed the bus back to Querétaro. We had to take another bus to Morelia and catch a connecting bus back home. I got back home at 3:30am and didn't quite make it to my test at 7am. But I got to reschedule and the next day I went to México, D.F.

Oh yeah, and because I promised another picture of me...



Four days of beard, nine hours of sun, and kilometers of walking through volcano dust. Enjoy it! Oh yeah... I finished the day with the shorts and only one shirt.

Part 1 of long weekend

Well, I could easily spend an update on each city we visited last weekend, and that's yet to be seen. But I figured I should start from the beginning and work towards the end. So, on Friday, we skipped class that was cancelled anyway, and hopped a bus to Morelia in Michoacán. We found this flag in the plaza with a statue of Melchor Ocampo.


This is the heart and soul of the city. Basically, all directions in every city in Mexico is in relation to the location of churches. But this one is a little bit easier to figure out. It's pretty darn big. What I really appreciated is that the clock on the side of the tower is accurate.


The following day, we headed to a place called Angangueo. In this place, there are hundreds of thousands of butterflies. It's darn amazing to watch all the butterflies fly around.


Heck, it's impressive to see the butterflies sitting on the ground. At times when we were here, you could barely walk because there were so many butterflies. We got up to the top of the path and stood in awe at all the butterflies.


We stopped for food on our way out, and it was pretty good. I had chicken in mole sauce with rice and blue corn tortillas. Mmmm. Then we headed the three hours back to Morelia.


The next morning, four of us went out to find an alley in which there are many poems. It was quite easy to find - right behind the acueduct. The poems were very moving and it was awesome to find the alley so quickly.


I didn't take so many panoramic shots this weekend, well, not of every place we went to anyway. But this is the one of Morelia. We're right in front of the acueduct and there's a plaza across the street.


Sunday, we went to Pátzcuaro. There's not exactly a whole lot in Patzcuaro. This place is oriented around two plazas (Querétaro has at least three I can walk through on my way to school, and many more in other areas). But we were there for the lake, and also the old architecture. But mostly the lake. Though they've been working on cleaning it, it's still very dirty. I know first hand. No pictures of me in the lake, but there's a few pictures of me being a bit wet. But the soccerball didn't go back into the water.


But this was the view from where we had our picnic. It's not visible in these pictures, but there's an island in the middle of the lake that has a really big statue. But we didn't have enough time, or inclination, to go out to the island and visit there. Plus, we had to get to Uruapan that night because Uruapan is close to our final destination for the weekend.


The top of a frickin' volcano. Monday, I took much greater than 100 pictures. And I've just decided that Monday deserves its own update, because there's quite a bit to it. Plus, I've got some other things going on as I write this. So I'll be getting back to it later.

A little out of order

Well, I didn't take any pictures of DF, and thus it's easier to write the update. But I start with Tuesday morning. It was a huge weekend, and it's going to be a huge update, too... But Tuesday morning, I slept through my 7am class and exam. Oops. I was a little worn out. And the bus was to leave Wednesday morning at 7am. It was, thankfully, a little easier to wake up on Wednesday than on Tuesday.

So I arrived on campus before 7am and the bus left around 8am. Yay Mexico time! I slept for nearly the entire trip to DF (about 3 hours) and we went to the Museum of Anthropology and History. It was sad that we were in a crunch for time because we all could have spent a few days in there. But we got in for free because we're students. I can't really tell you what all we saw because there was quite a lot (and none of it helped for my exam this morning).

When we finished with the museum of anthropology, we took a walk to the Castle in Chapultepec (the museum of history), which was very cool to walk around. Again, we could have spent many hours in there. I could see living there, but it'd have to be a colder climate. It's kinda easy to tell I'm a northerner. And when we finally left, we went to go eat, but couldn't find a suitable place until after walking for much too long. But my stomach is still mostly intact, and I didn't have to resort to cannibalism (though it was close). I had enchiladas rojas (3) and enchiladas verdes (2) because one of the girls wasn't hungry and couldn't finish all three. After eating, I was enjoying myself much much more.

And we continued on to an exposition of the art of Goya. It was very interesting. Very cool. I enjoyed the political art and the art about the War of Independence of Spain. The drawings of the bad-ness of war took me down a bit for awhile, and I heard a few times, "How can he draw that?¿?" But my only response was "How can he not?" Very interesting. And then we waited around out front for a long time waiting for everyone to show up so we could get back on the bus to go back home to Querétaro. We were supposed to leave around 7, but it was more like 7:30 or 8, and we got back home at 10:50pm. Grabbed a taxi to the house and woke up this morning at 5:30 for my 6am walk and my 7am class.

When I get through all the pictures for the weekend, I'll write the update and post it soon as I can. Until then!

half update

A full update is coming. But right now, I'm sunburned, my feet hurt, and I've got class real soon. And I'm tired. That's what happens when your bus arrives in the hometown at 3:30am. I missed my 7am class, but am allowed to take the exam on Thursday. And I think I leave tomorrow for D.F.

But I took over 300 photos and a few movies of my weekend. So I'll try to update Friday about the weekend and Monday about the trip to DF. Phew. I want to go to sleep.

San Miguel de Allende

I went to San Miguel de Allende last weekend with a friend. San Miguel de Allende is known for the really big church located on the left side of this picture. If you're up to it, you can zoom in on the picture pretty well without too much loss to the details. Like Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende is located in a bit of a valley. But it doesn't appear that San Miguel de Allende is as dry. Also, like Guanajuato, San Miguel is quite the tourist town. Lots of Americans and foreigners buy their retirement homes here.

We arrived about midday and did a little bit of window shopping before we got hungry and we sat at a place called, I think, The Terrace. I had a Negra Modelo and some enchiladas potosinas. It was all quite good. Afterwards, we started walking. My friend had studied in San Miguel and knew the way around pretty well. So we headed to a school of art.

And saw these on the way. And, well, heck. I just had to take a picture of it.

At the school of art, we found some mariachis, located behind where I was standing when I took the big panorama. I thought these guys were pretty cool, too.

And this one was pretty impressive, too. It encompasses floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I'm just not able to put them all together to make it look better. I'm pretty certain it's not strengthening stereotypes, but the drunk on the left in the sombrero is kinda funny looking.

Later on, there wasn't much to do, but we heard of a bar called La Cucaracha, which supposedly had the least expensive prices on beer. We thought it was going to open between 6 and 7, so we took a walk up a hill (maybe half to a mile long, at 10-15% grade or so) to the motorcycle rental place. $280 pesos ($28USD) for a bike for the day. But we were headed to bars, and I didn't think we'd really need it.

When we heard that La Cucaracha wasn't going to open until later, we continued walking. It must have been the innate US collegiate student instincts, but I found an Irish pub within five minutes. Happy hour(s)* still in effect for another hour and so we stopped in. We ordered a Trois Pistoles (9%) and an Indio. Played a few games of billiards and another Indio was ordered. Paid the tab of $90 pesos because we knew where to find some live music. *Happy hour(s) was for national beers, like Indio. Thus, $40 pesos for the two Indios, and $50 pesos for the Trois pistoles. Oops.

We wandered down to Flannerty's where there was to be music at 8:30pm. But we had to kill 30 minutes before anything was to happen. Luckily, there was an art showing across the street with lots of people. This meant that there'd be wine. So we checked out the photos and paintings (which had price tags between $375 and $1900 USD to feed youths) and had some wine and cracker with cheese. We still had ten minutes, but went back across the street. We ordered some quesadillas and a new type of beer Leon from the Cancun area. It was all pretty good. The show began promptly, and we met the trumpet player in between sets. His name is Paul. What he was doing at Flannerty's was just an impromptu thing and later he'd play at Mama Mía's bar afterwards.

Not the greatest picture, and I remember in retrospect that I should have taken a movie of a few songs. But ah, well. But I did buy the CD that Paul had pressed with his regular band. As we attempted to leave, we got caught with the $100 pesos minimum per person. We had spent all of $90 pesos so far, so we ordered quesadillas and nachos to inflate our bill a bit. So we ended up spending $200 pesos regardless, but had a total of $190 pesos.

We went to Mama Mía's and listened Paul's band until late at night, and then a second band stepped up and played lots of American pieces like Lenny Kravitz and Janis Joplin, but also threw in the mix some old Mexican standards. We ordered an Indio and Negra Modelo there, too. On the four beers and glass of wine during the night, we were a little hung over the next day. Maybe it's the air. It was a good trip.

For this weekend, I have no idea what's going on. Superbowl Sunday, and no classes on Monday. I'm going to have to get some cocacola for my 7am class and drink part of it on the way to class in the mornings. I think some people are headed to Michoacán. I'll have to figure out which way the wind carries me.