Today we went to the Xinantecatl Volcano near Toluca. There were 6 of us (Denis, Irama, Iramita, Benjamin, and Al and me) and 3 dogs in the van. When we got close, we had to take an unpaved road further up the way. Denis remembered some of the route so we passed the parking lot and continued up. We got to a point where the road was too rough for the van so we turned around and headed back down but she knew it wasn't correct. We passed two groups of hikers and stopped to talk to them. Then we turned around and headed back up. We saw some lumberjacks so we stopped to ask them directions. It turns out we were on the wrong road so we turned around again. As we headed back down we stopped first at the group of 6 hikers and 1 dog. We told them they were on the wrong trail and offered them a ride back down to the parking lot. They finally agreed and loaded it to the van. Then after a little drive down we saw the other two guy hikers. They agreed to our offer of a ride so they squeezed in to the van too. It ended up we had 14 people and 4 dogs in the van for the ride back down to the parking lot. It was an international group with representatives from Mexico, United States, Argentina, and Peru in the van. We all laughed and took a photo (minus the 2 guys that exited when we arrived at their car). We all had a good laugh!
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| Us all the way in the back seat with our new amigos! |
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| 12 of us amigos plus 4 dogs (after dropping off 2 guys) |
We parked the van and paid 50 pesos each (~$2.50 US) to get a ride in another van about 40 minutes further up the volcano and above tree line. Then we started hiking...up. The walk didn't look far but with the elevation it was hard to walk in the thin air. We walked to a view spot where we could see two lakes, the sun and the moon.
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| Iramita, Benjamin, Al, Nancy, & Irama |
We walked down into the volcano and to the moon lake first.
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| Al & Nancy |
Then we walked over to the sun lake.
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| Benjamin, Iramita, & Al |
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| Iramita & Nancy |
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| Irama and Al |
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| Nancy & Benjamin |
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| Al, Benjamin, Iramita, Nancy, and Irama in front |
It was so beautiful in the crater.
After visiting both lakes, it was time to hike up and back out of the crater. I used several photo stops to catch my breath!
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| Sun Lake |
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| Hiking back out of the crater. |
We ended up hiking about two hours in the crater visiting both lakes. Since the dogs could not do the hike, Denis stayed behind with them. We decided we could walk back down to our van and save the 50 pesos each and it took us 1.5 hours. One of the van drivers showed us a shortcut which saved us some time. We were all exhausted and so happy to see our van! Hallelujah!
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| Iramita, Al, Irama, Benjamin, Nancy, Denis, Negra, and Cholo (don't know where Dickie is) |
It was back to Mexico City where we stopped to eat pozole for dinner and sleep!
It was an awesome day and only 28K+ steps!
