#20 Ooh the suspense...

14 de Mayo, 2007

¡Buenos Tardes!

I am currently in Cuidad Serdan, Puebla, right underneath the highest mountain in Mexico, Pico de Orizaba. I have been here for several days now and have had many adventures. The adventures never end in Mexico.

I left Veracruz on a very poorly rigged and wobbley Fiona. She inched her way over the course of 5 days to Orizaba. The road there took me along a nicely paved road through small rolling hills toward the mountains. I managed to become part of a wedding in Mata de Agua. The Mexicanos sure know how to party. It sucks though, when you wake up in the morning after a wedding looking into the eyes of a cow. No it`s not what you think. I camped that night beside a river and when i woke up there was a herd of cows gathered around my tent watching me sleep. I discovered some wonderful beans that morning as well. thier pods are covered in some great fuzz that causes pain like you wouldnt believe. And nothing but time stops the pain. It drives you insane because you can`t scratch it, you can`t wash it and it`s persistent. Water helps a little, but it still takes 10 minutes or so to stop stinging.

"Donde puedo obtener los plátanos" I asked. This means "Where can i get some bananas?" Several minutes later I was invited into the house, fed, given a shower in a bucket and a bed to sleep in. Easy as that. The Mexican people have been amazingly friendly.

I made the mountains the next day, and climbed over 3 big passes into Orizaba to look for Ulises. I checked my notes again for his address and realized i was in the wrong town so I carried on down the road to Nogales and found the Lake there. La Laguna de Nogales in a little lake under a mountain with the clearest spring water. It is so cold and refreshing in the hot Mexican spring. I didn`t take one shower in my time in Nogales (about 2 weeks), but prefered the clear, cool waters of the lake instead.

I stayed around the lake for several hours, hoping my friend would show up, but as night approached and I was getting ready to find a place to sleep, some people saw me and my bike and asked if I was the friend of Ulises. They took me to his house (technically my house, I paid the rent last month) and I set up my hammock and settled in.

Within the next few days I biked back into Orizaba to find a new bike. I found an excellent bike shop there who built me a great bike. It has a steel frame, 26" wheels, very simple setup for fast fixes on the road. I have dubbed her La Burra "Mary". Burra is a female donkey. Mary the Mule. She is an amazing bike. She`s a little slow going up the hills, but she flies down them at obscene speeds.

April 20th was a good day. If you don`t fully understand the signifigance of 4:20, you don`t need to. For those you who do, I had a great time. We cooked a funny light green drink called "Cafe con Leche". It is translated as Coffee with Milk, but has nothing to do with Coffee. We had a good buzz on from it to say the least.

April 25th was my 19th birthday. On the 24th Ulises and I packed our backpacks and headed out into the mountains in search of a waterfall we were told about. 3 hours or so up a dried up creek bed we came to the waterfall. It was small, but supplied a great place to camp, with a little lake of fresh drinkable water. In the morning we headed down a little ways before finding a steep valley to climb to the top of the mountain. I would have liked to have made it to the top, but several vertical walls near to top pf the valley made continuing impossible. I managed to get injured on the way down as well. As I was climbing down, with Ulises above me, I heard crashing sounds as a rock barrelled towards me at high speed. It didn`t get me but a smaller one hit my ankle. Not 10 minutes later another rock hit the same ankle. After that I made Ulises walk below me.

The next night we took the bus to Atzacan to work. Ulises is an Artisano and makes bracelets and necklaces out of seeds. He is teaching me his trade. Very beautiful jewelery. There was a fair there and I spent the whole night dancing and got invited onto the stage to dance. The only problem was I had no girls to dance with, but the band quickly rectified that and called 3 girls up on stage with me. Like I said before, these people know how to through a party. Later that night after a mad dash in my birthday suit from a house chased by a broomstick I flagged down a ride to try to get home. The guy turned out to be quite drunk and had some problems driving. He had to slow down for a speed bump, so I jumped out as he wouldnt let me out. He grabbed my shirt in the process, and almost ripped it in half. It took a 90 peso taxi ride to get my somewhat inebriated body home at around 5AM.

May 1st, 2007 signified 1 whole entire year of travelling. My journal entry says quite simply "Slept all day..." Me and Ulises made a special cake the day before, which is why I slept all day. I had planned to get back on my bike that day and head out for Pico de Orizaba, but plans changed when I woke up at 5 PM. oops.

I left the next day though on Mary, bound for Tlachichuca under the mountain where I could climb it. I spent a whole day climbing uphill out of the Orizaba Valley. I camped half way up the hill and finished it around noon the next day. It was a very big hill. Out of the valley the terrain levelled out and became a flat plain full of fertile fields, and right in the middle, the behemoths of Sierra Negra and Pico de Orizaba. As I biked along I noticed a sign that said "Gran Milimetro Telescopio". It is a telescope that sits atop Sierra Negra at 4600 Meters. This is also the home of the highest road in North America. Being the highest road in North America, I decided I needed to bike up it.

I took me 2 days to get to the top. The road was paved for a while, but after the little town of Texmacilla it turned into cobbles, and finally into gravel. The going was very difficult. The higher I got the less air there was and coming from the low, humid valley I was not acclimitized for any kind of elevation, least not on a cold mountain with snow. I made it though with much toil and many breaks. I camped at the top and had funny dreams about giant killer pineapples...

The next morning I headed down. About half way down my brakes failed and I started hitting some extreme speeds on gravel roads. It was after the switchbacks though, so it wasn`t as dangerous. As I got down farther my head stopped hurting so much and things got better. The road turned to pavement again and not having brakes didn`t matter so much as I tore down hill into the valley on the open road. I made it into Tlachichuca that night and found The Hotel Los Tres Garcias. If you are ever in Tlachichuca, look them up. They have a very nice hotel there. I spent 2 nights with them and met Saul there. He offered me a place to stay at his house in Cuidad Serdan, which is where I am now, and have been for a week.

Now, as for Pico de Orizaba, or Citlaltepetl. The plan was to climb it last Wednsday, but my friend who I was planning to climb it with wanted to do it on the weekend, so I agreed on Saturday. I borrowed crampons and an Ice axe, packed my Camelbak (by the way, my hat is off to Camelbak for making a wicked good backpack) and headed out for the Volcano, with my friend Pimpoes in his sisters car. I had planned to climb from the northern side, a much easier accent, but decided to take the southern route instead. It is a much more difficult climb. We got to the first road block and started walking. The road entered the forest and climbed up and up passed the odd house or herd of sheep, through little feilds of corn and towards the mountain. We passed Xipes, the ecotourist hotel in the mountains, but Pimpoes told me that was for "Mujers con caros" not "Hombres de la Montañas". It started raining shortly after that so the 2 men of the mountains pitched the tent and hid from the water for about an hour.

We carried on after it stopped and as we passed to tree line the snow began to fall. we walked into the night between Sierra Negra to the South and Citlaltepetl to the North. we pitched the tent behind some rocks out of the wind around 9PM, made some hot tea, ate some chocolate and went to sleep.

Most people wake up around 1 AM to start thier accent. We woke up around 5 AM, well rested and ready. We packed everything and headed closer to the mountain. After an hour of walking up we left most of the equipment, including the tent, sleeping bags, my stove, most of the food, a backpack and every other unneeded thing hidden behind a large white water tank. There is a small building right under the mountain near the snow that Pimpoes called the Albergue and we arrived there around 7 Am. I put another pair of socks on under my sandals and we headed upwards. The sun peeked over the mountain at around 830. The weather in Mexico is on a perfect schedule. We had till almost exactly noon before it would start to storm on the top of the mountain, so we had to hurry. Scrambling through the rocks was relatively easy, considering I was much better acclimitized at this point, but I still needed to stop often to catch my breath. Pico de Orizaba is 5756m above sea level making it the highest point in Mexico, and the third highest in North America.

Around halfway up, near the glacier Pimpoes called up to me from quite far below me. He motioned that his heart was beating too fast and he didnt want to continue. I told him give me 3 hours, and if I`m not back at the Albergue, to come find my body. Shortly after this I made it onto the glacier and put my crampons on my sandals. Yes, I was still wearing sandals at this point. I left my boots at the Albergue, on purpose. I was wearing 5 pairs of socks and a plastic bag under them, so I was quite warm and dry. Slowly but surely I made my way up the very steep ice. On footstep at a time was enough to keep my mind occupied. My body felt good though, not very affected by the elevation. my heart rate was fine, my breathing was good and I felt a constant adrenalin rush from such an amazing adventure.

As I neared the top the winds began to pick up. I knew it was close to noon by the sun directly over head. the snow began to fly soon after and the winds increased in strength until i was forced into the cover of some rocks. At this point the Mountain let me know in its own subtle ways that I wasn`t going to climb any higher. everything became dark as the clouds swirled around me and blotted out the sun. The wind screamed trough the rocks around me and battered my face with sharp snow. I pulled my toque over my eyes to protect my face and sat in the cold wind eating chocolate for half an hour. The wind slowed down a little at this point and I took the chance the got out of the rocks. As I did the mountain taunted me with a perfectly clear veiw of the summit but a stones through away, and as the thought to climb the last hundred meters crossed my mind the winds picked up again and I started down.

The decent went down without a hitch. Not being attached to any kind of ropes and only a pick to save me I took it slow but steady. At one point I slipped on the open ice and slid about 20 meters before my crampons caught the ice. You can`t imagine what 20 meters of out of control sliding 5000 meters in the air is like. I took it very slow after that and as I got lower the winds died a little. At this point I had planned on trying again in a few days from the other side, but some events to come have hindered that. I saw Pimpoes far below me near the bottom of the glacier, apparently I had been gone more than 3 hours. He had seen the storm on the peak and came out to find me. The reason most people climb this mountain very early is because the weather, especially in the spring is very volitile.

I made it down to Pimpoes and we walked back to the Albergue. On the way down we met some more climbers there for the day. They had jeeps as the road runs almost all the way up to the Albergue and agreed to take up down. They went and had an adventure on the mountain while Pimpoes and I walked back to the water tank to get our gear. Now comes the reason why im not attempting the mountain again. we got the water tank and there were no bags. No backpacks, no tent, no sleeping bags, no equipment of any kind, nothing. Someone stole it all. Well, not all...they left 1 bag of peanuts, an orange, half a bottle of water and a salt shaker...

We made our way back to the jeeps and waited for several hours for the others to return. When they did we eagerly hopped in the trucks and tore down the gravel roads for Atzizatlan. They dropped us off at the parada for the bus and we took the half hour ride back to Cd. Serdan. Once there a large bowl of rice and tortillas, several glasses of water and a shower were very welcomed. I went to sleep early last night feeling very good to back at a lower elevation. Oxygen does amazing things for the brain.

So today is a day off. I will be heading into the market soon to buy some new blankets, as I now have nothing to sleep with. Ill need to get some more gear before I take off, but Im not planning on replacing everything lost on the mountain. Mary will be much lighter because of it. I try to look at everything on the bright side.

The plan for now is no plan, as usual. I think in a few days I will leave Serdan bound for Zacopoactla, then on to Jalapa before returning to Nogales. Ulises is very serious about bicycling with me to brazil, and it will be nice to bike with someone who knows the area. Other than that who knows, you`ll just have to wait for my next update, just like me.

Peace my friends.

Steve in Cuidad Serdan, Puebla, Mexico