La montaña? Va!
Pase el año nuevo bien pedo. Yeah Spanish is pimp and coming to Mexico has been exactly what I needed.
First of all I climbed La Malinche (4,644 meters tall) which was a badass way to start the trip. Climbing was surprisingly hard but just as Padre Roman promised, La Malinche was a magical place. However, I couldn´t have done it alone and I was joined by my brother Bernie, my aunt Ceci, and El Club de Alpinismo San Alfonso for whom La Malinche was their maiden hiking expedition. El Club was pretty cool and it was made up of Padre Roman, Padre Paco, Padre Roberto and about 30 young men and women around my age from DF, Aguascalientes, and Torreon. All the hikers were real cool and we became good friends. So. Day 1 started off in a cramped and smelly bus heading from Puebla (a great city which Ill get into later) to Canoas (a small city where I met a badass old and drunk man who used to be a pro runner and who gave me pulque, a very good and traditional old drink made from magey which can only be made from scratch and never bottled). We started hiking up the stoney road of Canoas and after about 4 minutes of hiking with the first group I was breathing heavy. It was cool seeing more indian looking Mexican people and I bet they thought we looked funny since they had no trouble going up and down the road, especially the ones that had little donkeys. Anyway. We hiked for about 5 hours with breaks in between. The mountain was beautiful and very foresty and thanks to sheer power, concentration, and water I managed to keep up with the first group. Yeah group 1 was awesome, we kicked ass. We got to our camp site which was at the foot of the mountain and ate and waited for the other two groups. Later that night it got real cold and we made a camp fire. The fire was awesome. After eating we took turns telling hilarious jokes and everyone who told a joke got a shot of tequila after each joke. Fuck yeah, good times. There was some really funny jokes about priests and nuns. The campsite was about 3,000 meters in altitude and you could see Puebla, the volcano Popocateptl and la bella durmiente from camp. Oh, and you could see so many stars. The night was cold. Padre Roberto, the anoying one, woke us up at 2 am singing a song about faithful christians and it was time to start our journey up the calvary. I was scared at first but then I felt the mountain and thought of how far I had already gone (all that was left was about 200 meters-- 200 REALLY STEEP METERS) and I felt powerful. It was dark so we used flashlights to see and followed one another up the mountain. At about 4,000 feet it gets pretty hard to breathe since the oxygen is so pure and the pressure is different from McAllen which is almost at sea level. Hiking turned into crawling and several men threw up. Breaks were of the essence, especially when I felt my heart pumping extremely fast. Throughout the calvary I kept telling myself I am Warm and Powerful (thanks SSLYBY). The climb was nevertheless awesome and the group really helped one another a lot by sharing encouragement, water, soda and snacks. We were united in our struggle, except for Padre Roman who wasnt having trouble at all, he wasnt even wearing gloves. We reached a stopping point and waited for group 2. Waiting sucked because I got cold and the pressure got to my head, its a scary feeling. Group 2 caught up and I was pleased to see Bernie even though he was having trouble and was getting real fucked up from the pressure. We climbed a little more and finally got to the very top of the mountain, la cumbre. By this time the pressure had messed me up and I think I passed out sitting down. It was also fucking cold- about 7 degrees centigrade below zero. We waited. Second group made it up and I was very happy to see Bernie who despite almost dieing had made it to the top. We froze our butts off and waited for the sun to come up. Beautiful colors and warmth. We had mass at 4,644 meters in the air and Im glad it was a short one because I was so cold. The Descent (lol) was a lot easier and funner. Gaston (yes the guy from Beauty and the Beast) led us down the wrong trail and we got lost for about 30 minutes. Everyone in group 1 got pissed at Gaston because since earlier that day we didnt have any more water. We got our bearings straight and on our way down found a little stream that had dried but a friendly little shepard kid led us to his spring and let us get water from it. Damn that was some good natural water. It felt really good to look back and see a towering mountain and know that you had been at the very top and it felt good to drink pulque.
Well, thats all for now but more tales to come. Goodmorning.
First of all I climbed La Malinche (4,644 meters tall) which was a badass way to start the trip. Climbing was surprisingly hard but just as Padre Roman promised, La Malinche was a magical place. However, I couldn´t have done it alone and I was joined by my brother Bernie, my aunt Ceci, and El Club de Alpinismo San Alfonso for whom La Malinche was their maiden hiking expedition. El Club was pretty cool and it was made up of Padre Roman, Padre Paco, Padre Roberto and about 30 young men and women around my age from DF, Aguascalientes, and Torreon. All the hikers were real cool and we became good friends. So. Day 1 started off in a cramped and smelly bus heading from Puebla (a great city which Ill get into later) to Canoas (a small city where I met a badass old and drunk man who used to be a pro runner and who gave me pulque, a very good and traditional old drink made from magey which can only be made from scratch and never bottled). We started hiking up the stoney road of Canoas and after about 4 minutes of hiking with the first group I was breathing heavy. It was cool seeing more indian looking Mexican people and I bet they thought we looked funny since they had no trouble going up and down the road, especially the ones that had little donkeys. Anyway. We hiked for about 5 hours with breaks in between. The mountain was beautiful and very foresty and thanks to sheer power, concentration, and water I managed to keep up with the first group. Yeah group 1 was awesome, we kicked ass. We got to our camp site which was at the foot of the mountain and ate and waited for the other two groups. Later that night it got real cold and we made a camp fire. The fire was awesome. After eating we took turns telling hilarious jokes and everyone who told a joke got a shot of tequila after each joke. Fuck yeah, good times. There was some really funny jokes about priests and nuns. The campsite was about 3,000 meters in altitude and you could see Puebla, the volcano Popocateptl and la bella durmiente from camp. Oh, and you could see so many stars. The night was cold. Padre Roberto, the anoying one, woke us up at 2 am singing a song about faithful christians and it was time to start our journey up the calvary. I was scared at first but then I felt the mountain and thought of how far I had already gone (all that was left was about 200 meters-- 200 REALLY STEEP METERS) and I felt powerful. It was dark so we used flashlights to see and followed one another up the mountain. At about 4,000 feet it gets pretty hard to breathe since the oxygen is so pure and the pressure is different from McAllen which is almost at sea level. Hiking turned into crawling and several men threw up. Breaks were of the essence, especially when I felt my heart pumping extremely fast. Throughout the calvary I kept telling myself I am Warm and Powerful (thanks SSLYBY). The climb was nevertheless awesome and the group really helped one another a lot by sharing encouragement, water, soda and snacks. We were united in our struggle, except for Padre Roman who wasnt having trouble at all, he wasnt even wearing gloves. We reached a stopping point and waited for group 2. Waiting sucked because I got cold and the pressure got to my head, its a scary feeling. Group 2 caught up and I was pleased to see Bernie even though he was having trouble and was getting real fucked up from the pressure. We climbed a little more and finally got to the very top of the mountain, la cumbre. By this time the pressure had messed me up and I think I passed out sitting down. It was also fucking cold- about 7 degrees centigrade below zero. We waited. Second group made it up and I was very happy to see Bernie who despite almost dieing had made it to the top. We froze our butts off and waited for the sun to come up. Beautiful colors and warmth. We had mass at 4,644 meters in the air and Im glad it was a short one because I was so cold. The Descent (lol) was a lot easier and funner. Gaston (yes the guy from Beauty and the Beast) led us down the wrong trail and we got lost for about 30 minutes. Everyone in group 1 got pissed at Gaston because since earlier that day we didnt have any more water. We got our bearings straight and on our way down found a little stream that had dried but a friendly little shepard kid led us to his spring and let us get water from it. Damn that was some good natural water. It felt really good to look back and see a towering mountain and know that you had been at the very top and it felt good to drink pulque.
Well, thats all for now but more tales to come. Goodmorning.