Bernal

Alright. Almost as promised... I got ill on Tuesday and was under the weather until yesterday\today. Anyway. On Sunday, I, along with some friends, climbed a monolith. The city lies only about forty or sixty minutes away from Querétaro and the bus ticket cost $28 pesos, or about $2.80 American.


Here was our challenge. That's me in the foreground, and Bere with her arms spread out and Ángeles in the tie died shirt with Ryan working the camera. But that beast in the back was the challenge. And the sheet of rock that I'm standing on is the first part of our ascent.


We had to make a few wall climbs, and this was the first. Ángeles and Bere first climbed up where we see Ryan finding his grip. I took a more difficult path just to his right. I thought it was a little bit faster, but that was kinda the point of the day - to find the fastest way up.


We're a little more than half way up at this point, and all that's left is the rock climb that involves rebar bent in odd positions hammered into the rock face. It was kinda neat. But the point with this is that we could only climb up so far before needing climbing gear. So we got to where we could and chilled out for a little bit.


Oh my gosh! Ryan snapped this picture as I fell... But luckily I was able to climb up in no time... Actually, at this point, I was checking out how far down it was. Looks something like five meters, or twenty feet, and before it leveled out, there was maybe four feet or so of grade. And after it leveled out, there was a good couple hundred feet before finding the foothills and civilization.


But this was what it really looked like. It was a fun little spot we found - good for a rest, and excellent for pictures. But yeah, there was a long way down by that point. And just a little bit more to go up.


But my acting earlier sparked Ryan's acting, too. And what a scared face he's got!


But, like everywhere I go, I managed to get a panoramic shot. Not quite as full as I might have wanted, but I was climbing with friends. It was a shame that we got there when we did because there was still haze on the hills that later burned away by 2pm or so.


You can't really see them, but there are two kids repelling down after reaching the very top. This picture is only important for a picture later on.


And Ryan was third to climb down with me taking the tail. But check out that face of determination yet again.


But I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the climb. Now, I fully know that rock climbing is difficult and there's a very good chance that it's not going to be a future hobby for me, but don't I look cool doing it?


And what did we think of the trip? Ryan quite looks like he wants to climb another rock, and Bere gives international "It's awesome" symbol of the thumbs up. Ángeles is a bit camera shy, and we'll have to use our imagination to see her. But also to be fair, she was on the upswing from an illness on Sunday.


After the short little downhill climb above, the rest of the trip down had raillings and steps. But these are our friends after they came down. I think they had the right idea. We ended up walking down to a restaurant-store and having some micheladas and afterwards some ice cream. And then we basically just went to wait for the bus. This was the view from our corner:


It doesn't look so big from far away, but I took at least one more:


Actually, I edited this one a little bit, too. Now, as my photo editor is Microsoft Paint, it's not the greatest edit in the world. Especially when I couldn't really see what I was doing in the big picture of things. So that little tiny red smear you see when you try to inspect the picture closely? That's the point we were able to climb to.

But then we got on the bus and rode back to Querétaro. It was a good day. Nobody fell. The ice cream was yummy. And we slept the bus ride back. And then I had tacos that night and wrote and went to bed and slept through my alarm the next morning. Good times, good times. And as I put this online, I notice that there was a picture I accidentally left out. That'll be forthcoming, I guess.