TEN DAYS IN MEXICO
Oct. 6, –Oct. 15, 2002
Click on pictures to inlarge.
We were 100 miles east of Mexico City on our way to a town called Tlachichuca (Tah-chee-chew-ka) and a mountain called Pico de Orizaba. A huge volcano standing 10,000 feet above the cornfields surrounding it, Orizaba is the 3rd highest mountain in North America at 18,406 feet above sea level and only 60 miles west of the Gulf of Mexico. At 9:30 in the morning I could see it’s snowcapped summit already disappearing behind a vale of clouds.
Our goal was to climb it but right now my brain was fried. I was unable to do the simple math required to figure out how long I had been awake. We had gotten up at 3:00 AM the day before, flown to Dallas and because we were flying standby we got stuck there. We spent the rest of the day trying to get out. Late that night we finally got on a plane to Mexico City. Then we spent the rest of the night riding buses to get to Tlachichuca by morning. Calculate the 2 or 3 time zone changes and my brain went whirling out of control.
Sitting beside me on the bus, my 13-year-old son, Prescott, was sleeping with his head resting on my shoulder, his mouth hanging open. Across the isle, my wife, Jen, slept uncomfortably. Every time the bus slowed down her head snapped forward, looking like it might break her neck. Her eyes would pop open and she would push herself back into the seat only to have her eyelids force their way down over her eyes again. At least they could sleep.
Getting a hotel and some sleep would put us a day behind schedule but going to altitude in this condition would be useless anyway. When the bus dropped us off in the town Zócalo we ask for directions to a hotel and man directed us to a place a few blocks north. We hefted our 3 very large backpacks plus the duffel bag, plus our day packs and dragged ourselves down the street.
Like Mount Danali/McKinely, the highest mountain in North America, Orizaba has had a few name changes. The Mayans called it Citlaltépetl (Star mountain) and it seems most of the folks living around the base of the mountain still call it that. My guess is that when the Spanish came in1519, the name was too hard to say so they changed it. Good for me because I can’t say it either, but the hotel owners didn’t understand the problem so they named their hotel Citlaltépetl. I still can’t say it.
The hotel was orange and our room was pink. I’m not quite sure what color the central courtyard was but the green, fluorescent lights and all the plants gave it a greenish glow. Our room was pretty small for the three of us and all our junk but it was clean. The bathroom was raised 16 inches above the floor and set back into the wall. It didn’t have a door just a white, plastic shower curtain hung across the front. It had a shower and hot water but no shower stall. When you shower it just sprayed the whole bathroom. The owners were a very nice young couple with a three-year old daughter.
I understand the need for rebars in a cement and cinder block structure but I really don’t understand why in South America and apparently in Mexico they never cut off the excess. It sticks out the tops of pillars, out of roofs and walls years after the building is finished. In our hotel room we had rebar loops hanging down out of the ceiling. The ceiling and walls had obviously been painted many times but not the rebar.
We wander around town and bought pastries and fruit and spent the rest of the day resting. That night we went to bed early and I finally got caught up on sleep.
Pico de Orizaba
The hotel owners help us line up a truck and driver to take us up the mountain the next morning. At 8:30 sharp he showed up to drive us the 15 miles and almost 6,000 feet up to a stone hut standing on the north shoulder of Orizaba. We loaded our gear into the white, 1983 Jeep Cherokee and climbed in. The truck bumped its way out of town. The dirt road was full of two wheel donkey carts, bicycles and horseback riders. Three or Four miles up the road we left the cornfields behind and entered a more forested area. Tall pine trees covered the hills with an occasional green pasture dotted with yellow and white flowers. I never thought of Mexico having pine forests but here they were.
At first we could see the snowy summit of Orizaba high above the trees but as the morning pass the mist and clouds crept up and over the east side of the mount eventually enveloping the entire peak. We finally found ourselves driving up a wide, grassy, gradual sloping ridge into the clouds. Through the mist we could see the grass end as the hill turned abruptly steep. Here, at the transition, stood a tall stone hut with a metal roof and door. It is called Piedra Grande. My GPS said the hut was at 13,930 ft., just about the same elevation as the top of the Grand Teton. Our jeep pulled up along side the hut and we piled out. Through the windows we could see backpacks and other gear lying around in the hut. There were other climbers here. Guadeloupe, the driver, gave us a few pointers on how to find the route and we finalized his instructions on when to come get us. We agreed that if the weather was good the next morning we would climb and he should come get us that evening. But if the weather was bad he was to come back the following evening so we would have one more day to make an attempt. As he drove off down the mountain we started unpacking our warm clothes and preparing for a test excursion up the mountain.
Before we got around to leaving three climbers came back to the hut. They had been out in the fog practicing their ice axe skills. Armondo was a climbing guide from Mexico City. The others two were first-time climbers paying him to take them up the mountain. They had been there three days acclimatizing and practicing their rope and ice axe skills. If the weather was good we would all be attempting to climb the next morning.
Prescott had been aerobically strong from a very young age. At 12 years old he had skied the Wasatch Overland Race five times. Now he was running cross-country and doing well. Jen was strong too but she had hadn’t climbed much above 14,000 feet but she wanted to. For me it would prove, mostly to myself, that I had recovered from a broken back one year before. I had crashed my paraglider and spent 2 month in bed and 7 months in a big plastic brace. I was feeling lucky to be walking let alone climbing an 18,000-foot mountain. I had a fear that I was suddenly too old.
It was about 11:30 by the time we started up the mountain. Within minutes the hut had disappeared into the fog behind us. It wasn’t long before our hearts were pounding in our ears and our lungs were heaving. We struggled up through the steep gravel and rocks trying not to work too hard. After a while Prescott started complaining of having a headache. In forty-five minutes we sat down on some rocks and rested. We ate a few snacks, gave Prescott some aspirin, and then climbed another few hundred feet. By now Prescott was feel pretty bad. We got out our rope and harnesses and practiced putting them on. We walk 50 feet up the hill to see if we could travel roped together and stopped again. Prescott was done. He had made it to 15,200 feet but he was feeling to sick to go farther. By this time the three other climbers had come up behind us. They were going to turn around at this point so we decided to send Prescott down with them. Jen and I wanted to go a little higher. We only got to 15,490 when Jen suddenly started feeling bad. She lay down on the rocks and said she was done for today, she was going down.
From here the route looked a bit more complex. I wanted to check it out so I would be able to find the way the next morning in the dark. Jen would head down and catch Prescott. I would go up a little farther. I got about 300 feet higher when a loud crack of thunder rolled across the sky. It was followed by almost continues thunder for the next 10 minutes. It convinced me to turn around. I was just about back to where I had left Jen when I realized it was clearing up. No more thunder and the fog even lifted enough to see the rock section above me. I turned around and started back up.
At 16,300 feet I came to the foot of the glacier. I sat down in the dirt at the edge of the ice and pulled out some food and water. Sitting still I realize that I was feeling pretty bad. I had gained over 8,000 feet sense 8:30 that morning. I had left the hut 4 hours earlier and climbed 2,300 feet. Right at that moment it seem to have really caught up with me. From here up the route would be on snow and pretty easy to find. It was time to go down.
When I got back to the hut both Prescott and Jen were in their sleeping bags and looking pretty green. My head was pounding but nothing a few aspirin couldn’t take care of. Jen told me she had been throwing up. Prescott and I both took aspirin but Jen thought she would just throw it up. Within half an hour Prescott and I were feeling okay but Jen still wasn’t any better. I fixed some dinner and Prescott and I ate. Jen went to sleep. When she woke up again 30 minutes late she got up and threw up. It wasn’t looking good. She should have improved by now. I talked with Armondo, the guide. He had a lot of experience with people at high altitude and had even been on K2 in the Himalayas.
He gave me a lot of information but the bottom line is it’s very tough to know how bad the altitude sickness is until something bad happens. The danger is that fluids can build up around the heart or the brain. If enough fluids build up the pressure it puts on the brain or heart can kill you. Diamox is a diuretic that is supposed to help keep that from happening. We had some Diamox but we hadn’t taken any. If Jen took it she would need to be sure to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. She was afraid she would throw it up with the water but she finally took a quarter of a Diamox tablet.
So how bad was Jen? It had been at least 18 years sense I studied the effects of high altitude and I was feeling I was unqualified to make decisions about it. Jen finally decided for herself. She would go down. She wasn’t getting better. It seemed unlikely she would get better soon. If she just stayed the same it would be a miserable night. If she got worse we would be going down anyway and that could be much worse. If we went down 1000 feet it could make a big difference. It was a good decision. It made sense that we go down. We decided to leave Prescott at the hut. Jen and I would take just our sleeping bags and a tarp and walk down the road until we lost a 1000 feet and sleep there. We took our sports-radio so we could talk to Prescott and headed down the hill. It was foggy and dark but walking down the road was easy. The road lost altitude quickly for about 500 vertical feet but then it leveled off and we weren’t losing any more. Jen was already feeling a lot better. Was it the altitude change or the Diamox or both? We found a flat sandy spot Jen said she thought we should sleep there. We set up the tarp and crawled under. We were soon asleep.
In the middle of the night we both woke up to pee. When I looked at my watch it was 2:00 in the morning. If we hadn’t had this little problem we would have start the climb at 1:00 AM. I said to Jen, “We would be climbing right now.” Jen said, “If you want to you could go climb.” I had given up on that idea last night when we left the hut, now the idea was back. I lay there and thought about it for a while. What a great wife who can know better then I what I want to do. If Jen said she was feeling okay, why not go for it? We got up stuffed, our sleeping bags and started back up the road.
When we got to the hut Prescott was sleeping. He had let us know last night that he was glad we wouldn’t be climbing. He didn’t want to get up so early just to feel bad. He and Jen would both stay at the hut. Armando and his two clients were gearing up to climb. He said I could go with them if I wanted. They were putting on harnesses and boots and everything. I realized that they might be very slow. I was planning to carry my boots and wear my walking shoes for the first 1000 feet. By myself I would very little gear. It seemed I would be moving much faster. I told Armando that I would have to change shoes so if they caught me I would go with them. I left a minute before them, at 3:00 AM.
To the top
With my light shoes I cruised up the first part of the trail soon leaving them far behind. In an hour I was up to were Prescott had turned around. I changed into my big boots and stashed my shoes under some rocks. I was very glad I had climbed this section the day before. The little beam of light from my headlamp limited my visibility even more then the fog. I only lost the route once and I figured it out quickly. I was at the base of the glacier at 5:00 AM. I sat down at almost the same place I had sat the day before. I put on my crampons and got out my ice axe. I took a big drink of water and ate some Power Bar before crossing out onto the snow. The day before I had felt really bad at 16,300 feet but this time I didn’t feel bad at all. I had taken half a Diamox table when I left the hut. Maybe it helped.
The snowfield was huge and in the dark it was hard to decide which direction to go. I thought I wanted to gain the northwest ridge so I held a little to the right but I basically went straight up. At first the snow was a little breakable and I was sinking in three or four inches each step but I eventually climbed out of that onto a beautiful Styrofoam textured snow.
The sky was clear and below me I could see lights twinkling far into the distance. It seemed like there were cities all the way around the mountain. I could see the constellation Orion over my head but it was very hard to see the top of the mountain. It seemed to be the same color as the sky behind. I just kept going up. I was holding pretty close to 1000 vertical feet per hour. I was at 17,000 by 6:00 AM and I could feel the altitude. I was slowing down. The wind had started to blow and it was getting cold. I pulled my hood over my head and even though I had heavy gloves on I had to swing my arms to get my hands warm. I looked for the lights of the other three climbs but couldn’t find them. As I stared out into the darkness I felt a shudder of loneliness go through me. If something went wrong up here I was really all alone.
During the next hour the sky lightened and a spot of orange formed in the east. The orange spread quickly across the horizon and climbing higher into the sky. I kept stopping to take pictures. As the sun came up two pink streaks of light were shooting out to the west from the peak. I could see the sun hitting the other three big volcanoes out towards Mexico City but the flat land was still in the dark. To the east, out where the ocean should have been, there was a big cloudbank. The humid gulf coast air was already on its way. The clouds would engulf the mountain in a few hours.
Jen and I had agreed that we would turn our radios on at 7:00 AM. I was still a little below 18,000 when 7:00 rolled around. I turned on the radio and almost immediately Jen came on. I looked down the hill where I had come from and could see the hut. I told Jen that if she went outside she would be able to see me. We talk for just a minute before I told her I was going to turn the radio off and try to make it up the last 800 feet.
By now a thin vale of mist was forming just at the summit of the mountain. It was tough going due to the altitude but I finally made it to the edge of the summit crater. The cloud was blocking my view but I could tell I wasn’t at the summit. I walked around the edge of the crater to the west. Then I could see the monument of metal that climbers had left on the summit. Mostly crosses but now they were lying in a pile. A few minutes later I was standing beside them. I could see the cloud vale forming just below the summit on the east side and blowing over me. It was clear and sunny everywhere else. I could see the white and blue cathedral in Tlachichuca. The pink cathedral in Ciudad Serdán was glowing in the sunlight. I thought about my friend Todd Hoover who had flown his paraglider from here to Tlachichuca. It took him 20 minutes to get to town. It would take me all day to get back there.
I didn’t stay long on the summit. Just long enough for some pictures and a bite to eat. When I got back around to the north side of the crater rim I turned the radio back on and checked in with Jen. I was below the cloud vale and I had a great view off the north side of the mountain. I could see the hut where Jen and Prescott were and they said they could see me. I could also see the other three climbers just coming out onto the snow. They had been sitting at the edge of the snow for almost and hour. They told me later that one of them got sick and they were trying to give him time to feeling better.
I chipped out a little shelf in the snow where I could stand and removed my crampons, stuffed them into my pack and grabbed my ice axe. The hill was about the angle of a steep black diamond ski run. It was steep enough you could get hurt if you let yourself slide, tumble and roll down it but it would be easy to stop yourself if you knew how. It was going to be a quick decent. I took a few steps to test the snow and then gave a push. I slid down the hill on my boots. I could slide along at a good speed. It is amazing how hard it can be to go up and how easy it can be to go down. I had to work hard at staying balanced but I could go several hundred yards down the hill before needing to stop and breath. Within minutes I was all the way down to where the other climbers were crawling up the hill. I stopped and talked to them for just a minute before running/sliding on.
When I got to the base of the glacier I looked back up at the peak. Thick clouds were already circling the summit. It wouldn’t be long before it would be clouded over all the way from the summit to the hut. By the time I got to the hut the clouds had caught me. It took me 2 hours to go from the summit to the hut. Prescott hiked a few hundred yards up into the fog to meet me. Because I was pretty tire he seemed more excited that I had made it then I did.
It had been a 7 hours climb and now it was only10:00 AM. Jen and Prescott were feeling fine but there wasn’t much to do. They walk down and got the tarp we had left down the road while I tried to sleep. Just after they returned it started to rain so we just hung out at the hut. Our ride wouldn’t come for another seven hours.
When Jen and I had hiked down the hill the night before I was convinced that we wouldn’t be climbing the mountain at all. I was really glad I got to go up. It had been 15 years sense I had been on a big mountain and with my broken back problem this year I wasn’t very confident that I still had what it takes to climb that high. There was certainly no reason I should still be in that condition. We went up way to fast for good acclimatization but I was able to deal with it. I think the Diamox help.
I’m sure it would have help Jen and Prescott if we had spent a few days acclimatizing. I should have known and planned a little more time. Prescott felt good about the fact that he didn’t get to climb. He had no desire to suffer. It was no great lose to him that he didn’t make it to the top. Jen on the other really wanted to make it. It was hard for me to think of making another attempt the next day so I wasn’t pushing it. Jen really thought she could climb the next day but she didn’t say anything. A day or two later I think she was regretting that she hadn’t tried. Maybe we should have hung out another day and tried. Next time we will work on scheduling for acclimatization.
Armando’s driver came around 1:00. He was quite a character. He entertained us the rest of the afternoon, hugging everybody and telling stories. His name was Joaquin and he was about 55 years old. He said he had been bringing climbers here for 30 years.
The three climbers didn’t get back to the hut until 3:00 in the afternoon. They had spent 12 hours on the mountain. They spent the first four and a half hours in the dark and the last six hours in the fog and rain.
We were back in Tlachichuca by 6:30 PM. We went back to the Hotel Citlaltépetl and got our old room again. We seemed to be the only guest at the hotel. There was a sign in the courtyard that said “Restaurant” so we asked the owner if she would make us dinner. Apparently it wasn’t very common to have people ask but the meal was good. We had fried chicken, French fries, refried beans and fresh tortillas with a soda each and a bottle of water. It all cost just over 100 pesos or about $10.00. We ate in the courtyard of the hotel. The owners had a little girl maybe 3 years old. After dinner Jen gave her a few of the little toys we had brought with us from our daughters, Addison and Ria’s, collection.
Off the Mountain on to the Tropics
We were done with the mountain climbing part of our trip. From here our plans got more fuzzy. Prescott really wanted to go to a tropical place, a place with rain forest. I didn’t want to go to a tourist place. From the guidebooks I had picked out an area about a hundred miles south of Veracruz called Catemaco. We really didn’t know how to get there from where we were so we decided to go to Veracruz first and then figure out how to get to Catemaco. We took a local bus from Tlachichuca to Serdán. It was a 20-minute ride on a bread truck kind of bus. It rolled along down the road stopping every few minutes to pickup or drop off people. Fortunately it wasn’t too crowed because with all our junk we took up a lot of seats.
From Serdán we got a bus to the city of Orizaba, about half way to Veracruz. It was a pretty nice bus, much like a Greyhound in the USA. Our guidebook didn’t have much good to say about Orizaba but I liked the look of the town. About 15 miles before we got there we started down a hill, down and down and down. Serdán was about 8,000 feet. By the time we got to Orizaba we were not far above sea level. The town sits in a canyon at the base of the mountains. The mountains are tropical at this elevation, covered with lush, green vegetation. At least a couple of small rivers ran through the town. In just a few hours we went from the ice, snow and freezing temperatures of Pico de Orizaba to the tropical heat of the Gulf Coast.
We had only about an hour in Orizaba. We went out for a quick walk and took some pictures. We met some schoolgirls who wanted to talk. They were yelling “hello”, from across the street. Hello was about the extent of their English. I took Prescott’s picture with them. I would like to go back and explore the area around Orizaba some day.
Veracruz on the other hand showed me nothing. It’s a big city of over four hundred thousand people with lots of traffic. We got a hotel room near the bus station, left our stuff and went out to see some of the city. We took a city bus to the city center and did some shopping in the tourist shops along the waterfront. It was all junk and we didn’t buy anything. We went to the tourist information center and asked about the Catemaco area. The girl was very nice, spoke English and gave us a lot of good information. Then it was time to eat.
There were a number of people on the streets with flyers from different restaurants trying to solicit business. A couple of them got a hold of us and eventually talked us into going to their restaurant. They had all kinds of seafood on the menu and it seemed like a good place, right on the Gulf of Mexico, to have a fish dinner. I order “pescado con mojo”, even though I had no idea what it was. When it came it was a foot long fish, fried and covered with a sautéed garlic sauce. It was so good!
Now that we were done climbing we didn’t need most of the stuff we were carrying around with us. We had a goal to find a place to store the excess stuff. So we went back to the bus station to check into lockers. They had lockers but to get to them you had to have a bus ticket. We decided to buy our bus tickets to Catemaco so we could get in to check out the lockers. For $9.00 we could leave most of our unneeded stuff there for 3 days. We decide it was worth it. We would bring our stuff in the morning and put it in the locker before we got on the bus. When we got there at 5:30 in the morning to catch our 6:00 AM bus we found the lockers didn’t open until 7:00. We would have to take it all with us.
It was a good thing we bought the tickets the night before. This was the fancy bus with assigned seating and movies in route. All the seats were full. If we had waited until morning we might not have gotten on. We got to Catemaco about 9:00 AM and were immediately attacked by tour boat operators wanting to take us for a tour. The town of Catemaco sits on the shore of a big lake of the same name. Out on the lake were a number of islands and other sites apparently popular with tourists, none of which seem overly interesting to me. Our goal was to get to the Gulf Coast about 18 miles to the east. There was a little town called Sontecomapan and a beach called Playa La Barra. That was were I wanted to get.
We found a guy who worked at the bus station who would put some of our extra gear in his storage unit for a dollar a day. We left a bunch of our stuff and went out to find a ride east. The most common method of travel in the country is in the back of Nisson pickups with racks, something like a cattle rack, on the back. Here in Mexico they call them Pirates. We found a Pirate going to Sontecomapan, which was the only town that shows up on the map in the direction we wanted to go.
The Gulf Coast
There were six other people in the truck and we started talking with them. They were well dressed. They didn’t look like farm people. They said they worked for Direct TV and that they were on vacation. There were 4 girls in their early 20’s plus one of their mothers and a 20-year-old guy. The guy’s name was Ricardo; the mothers name was Juliet, and then Gris, Malagras, Lydia and Sydia. We asked them a lot of questions about the area we were heading into. By the time we reached Sontecomapan we had all decided to go to a place called Montepio together. Our Pirate wasn’t going any farther so we all got out in Sontecomapan.
We followed them down a path to a place behind a little restaurant. It was a beautiful little swimming hole with crystal clear water coming out of a spring right under the swimming hole. Prescott, Jen and I and a few others swam in the cool, clear water. Gris and Malagras swam in their clothes and Ricardo swam in this underwear. It was about 4 feet deep with a gravel bottom. Tall, exotic looking trees stood all around the pool. Fifty feet down stream, pulled up on the bank, were several brightly colored, canoe like, boats full of fishing nets. The place was a photographers dream.
Suddenly it was time to go. Sydia had found a big, flatbed tow truck to take us to Montepio, or so I thought. We grabbed our clothes and packs and ran for the truck. The truck bounced along down the dirt road, everyone talking and laughing in the back. Now and then we pasted little farm villages and huts. We saw farmers out cutting grass with their machetes, boys picking oranges and chickens looking for bugs. We would catch glimpses of the bay through the trees.
I was very impressed by the tree fences. The farmers had planted trees every 8 feet or so all around the fields and along the road. When the trees got as big as a fence post they nailed wires to the trees. The trees kept on growing. The whole field was lined with trees and there was no need for fence posts, there were trees everywhere. My guess is fence posts rot out to fast in this climate.
After half and hour the truck slowed and turned onto a side road. From what I had seen on the map we weren’t supposed to get off the main road but no one seemed concerned.
This should have been a big clue that we, Prescott, Jen and I, didn’t have the whole picture but we didn’t get it for quite some time. Our Spanish is okay for simple conversations but as soon as we don’t know exactly what the topic is we start having to guess a lot about what is being said. The three of us were self-sufficient. We had food, water and shelter and money. We were fine. What we were missing was that our new friends had none of this. They had gone to work that morning and for some reason, we never figured out, decided to go to the beach for the day. They had nothing. The ladies were wearing little sandal. They only had a few pesos between them. Further more they had, apparently, never been past Sontecomapan. They didn’t know anymore than we did about where they were going, probably less because we had been studying the books and maps.
After a mile or so the truck turned onto another road and stopped to let us out in front of a little country store. Malagras asked the store operator a question and he waved back that way and said, “Playa La Barra”. That was the beach we had originally set out to find. La Barra was good with us. The only reason we were going to Montepio was because our friends said it was a good place, but they had never been there. We walk down the road for a mile and a half or so. It was a little hot walking along under the tropical sun with a big backpack but other then that it was beautiful.
La Barra wasn’t really a village it was more just a cluster of little huts at the end of a 5-mile long sand, beach. After Prescott and Jen passed out more little toy to the kids in the huts we went to the beach to swim. We were all thirsty and hungy after our walk so Jen gave everyone snacks and water from our packs. The beach sloped slowly into the water so we could wade a long way out. The water was a little murky but it was very warm. The waves weren’t very big but big enough for Prescott to have a great time trying to bodysurf them. Jen and Prescott collected a lot of sand dollars while wading up and down the beach. Once again Ricardo and Malagras swam with us while the others worked getting a ride.
We still didn’t know that they had no money. We didn’t see why it was a problem. There was supposed to be a Pirate at 4:00 PM going back to Sontecomapan so we could just take that. Gris and Sydia went to find a truck that could take everyone. They were gone for a long time. Eventually the other concluded that Gris and Sydia weren’t coming back and that, they to, would have to walk back in search of transportation. We said we were going to stay at the beach. We said good-by and they walked off down the road. Fifteen minutes later Gris and Malagras came running down the beach. They had found a boat to take everyone someplace. I sent Prescott running down the road after the other. He had to run quite aways to catch them. They got a ride back with an army truck full of soldiers with machine guns. We finally got everyone together at the boat Gris and Sydia had found. Now everyone were really thirsty and hungry. I pulled out the last of my water and passed it around. They would have really been hurting without us.
I had no idea where the boat was going to take us but a free boat ride sounded good to me. La Barra is actually on a point of land that separated the Gulf from a freshwater bay. We could go out into the ocean and then north to Montepio or we could go inland into the bay. The bay is quite big and it would be possible to go all the way to Sontecomapan in the boat. We went inland but not to Sontecomapan. It turned out that the boat driver was a friend of a friend of Gris’s and he took us just a couple miles to his house. It was really nice out on the water. There were a lot of other boats, mostly fisherman setting nets or pulling them in. Some were checking shrimp nets. All along the shore were little huts with brightly painted boats pulled up in front. We landed in front of one of these little houses and all piled out. We walked up to the house and were greeted warmly. Apparently this was Gris’s friend.
We stood outside the door, under their orange trees, and they passed food out to us, tortillas, beans, cheese, and meat. The meat was tender and had a great sauce on it. The cheese was a kind of stringy mozzarella freshly made and the tortillas were fresh too. We picked some oranges from the Orange tree and ate them too. They past out water with ice, but we were afraid to drink it. Our friends assured us that it was filtered water and fine to drink but we didn’t.
I was just waiting to see what the next move would be. I think they were trying to talk someone into giving us all a ride to Sontecomapan but in the end we started walking down the road. We walk down the road in the shade of the fence post trees. A huge black cloud was forming to the south. It would rain in a while but for now it just made it cooler. We took pictures of the Brahma cows in the pastures and of strange bugs we found crawling on the trees. Prescott and I talked about our impressions of life in this tropical place. It was good to be in the country. We could have camped right there and I would have been happy but our friends needed to get home.
After an hour or so a Pirate came up behind us. I though, good everyone will be happy, but no. There was a serious discussion about cost. Once again the language barrier made it hard to figure it out. Then it hit me, our friends have no money, at least not enough to get all six of them anyplace. I figured out then that they only had about two dollars. I stepped up and put in 30 pesos ($3.00) so we all could get a ride. The pirate took us to Sontecomapan before the rain began.
After getting drop off in Sontecomapan we all walked up the road to the hotel. It would cost $10 per night for the three of us to stay. It would have cost at least $30 in Catemaco. I figured we should share some of our savings. Sixty pesos ($6.00) would get our friends back to Catemaco. It wasn’t easy to get them to take the money but they finally did. We waved good-by as they climbed into another Pirate.
Sontecomapan
Hotel Dalfino (dolphin) was nice enough. Painted all blue. The room was big with two double beds if you can call them that. The beds were the worst we had seen yet. They were more like hammocks then beds. It had a bathroom with a shower but no hot water. The best part was a big porch out onto an even bigger yard with patio chairs for us to sit in. We spent most of our time sitting on the porch. There was no one else staying at the hotel so we had it all to ourselves. In the yard grew grapefruit, oranges, papaya and coconut. There were banana and mango trees but no fruit on them. For us folks from Utah it was nothing less then a miracle.
Compared to the other towns we had been in Sontecomapan was a tiny village of maybe 1500 people. There was one main street, the road through town, with very few cars, no buildings over two stories and a swimming hole. The clear, spring water, swimming hole we had visited in the morning was just a block down the road. The residents were mostly fisherman or farmers of both. Everyone stared as we walk down the street but they were nice to us. Most of the houses were surround by fruit trees and flowers; many had chickens, turkeys and pigs in the yards. We enjoyed just walking around town. Prescott loved swimming at the spring.
The next morning we went down and rented one of the bright colored boats near the spring. Ours was made of fiberglass and painted turquoise. It’s name was Olivia. It was kind of a cross between a canoe and a dory. It was setup with short oars that crossed when the handle came together. We paddled our little craft out the little channel that lead to the freshwater bay and then up a near by creek. It was like being in the Amazon. Just what Prescott was looking for. We saw several of the big electric blue butterflies. We pick a fruit called a La Bampa. We didn’t know what it was but the adventure of getting it was worth it. Then we went out into the bay where a small river made a sand delta. We waded along in 10 to 18 inches of water, watching birds and looking for fish in the water. Prescott had his dive mask with him and he swam most of the way. After checking out some mangroves we headed back to Sontecomapan and our hotel for lunch.
That afternoon we went for a hike up into the hills north of town. We got some nice views and lots of oranges. The oranges are all green but they are super juicy and they taste great. Prescott must have eaten 20 of them. He loaded his pack with them to take back to the hotel. That night we went to one of the restaurant. Prescott had fresh shrimp and I had Garlic fish. We both share a little with Jen.
In the morning we packed up all our belongings, put our packs on our backs and walked out of town. Prescott must have been feeling warn out after our day of boating and hiking. He had gotten sunburned while swimming and he complained about the pack on his back and about how hot it was and how tired he was. All in all he had been fun to have along. He didn’t complain about much of anything and was interested in doing everything.
We didn’t get far before a Pirate came along and picked us up. Back in Catemaco we got our stuff out of storage and caught another bus to the town of San Andres Tuxtla, only about twenty minutes from Catemaco. San Andres Tuxtla is the town our six adventures friends lived in. We got a hotel right across from the bus station so we could be ready to catch the early bus to Mexico City in the morning and then walked down town to the market.
It was hard to tell how big the market was because it was spread through several streets and narrow ally ways. From any one place you could only see a little of the market area. The markets are a lot of fun. Little stand set up under canvas and plastic tarp selling anything you can imagine. There were stands selling fish, meat, music, farm tools, hardware, incense, candy, plastics, chilies (a department separate from fruits and veggies), pharmaceuticals and much more. The agricultural products are always my favorite. Fruit stands selling bananas, oranges, carrots, corn, apples, gapes, avocados, peppers, lemons, guavas, and many other things I may or may not recognize. It is so colorful and bright. The ladies selling the stuff look so much like the country and it;s all so cheap. The hustle and bustle of the place is great. Everyone pointing and testing and pricing and weighing we are just a little distraction in the normal commotion of things.
We had thought abut the possibility of running in to one of the travelers from our adventures at La Barra but seeing the crowds of people in the market dispelled that idea until standing beside us with a big smile on her face was Gris. She was in the market doing a little shopping with her sister when she saw Prescott’s red shirt. We kind of stand out in the crowd. We talk for a while and they gave us their address so we could visit if we wanted.
After a while I got tire of walking around. We found ourselves at the Central Plaza and sat down on a bench on the porch of an old building on the edge of the plaza. In Mexico they call this kind of central plaza “Zócalo”. It was Sunday afternoon and the place was bustling. In the Zócalo there were several young men setting up huge, black, loud speakers and other people setting up barbeques. On one side of the Zócalo sat a whole row of shoe shiners sitting under big umbrellas. We sat and watch for quite some time. It seemed they were getting ready for some kind of event that evening. All of a sudden the sky opened and rain poured down. People ran for cover in all directions. We were already under the cover of the porch so we just sat and watched. Now that the Zócalo was mostly empty it wasn’t as good for people watching but walking back to the hotel in the rain didn’t seem very interesting either. A shoeshine guy had found shelter beside us under the porch so Prescott hired him to clean his running shoes. We were all surprised how much cleaner he was able to get them. The rain lasted for some time so when it let up it was time to look for dinner.
We had seen a nice looking restaurant a few blocks away. It was quite full so we took it to be a good sign and went in. I got some kind of stew like mix with tortillas. Prescott and Jen got some kind of sandwiches. After dinner we went back to the Zócalo to see what was going to happen. There were a lot more people and venders there. Before long it became crowded. We walked around and around the plaza with all the other people. There were clowns and men selling balloons. A parade came buy with pretty girls throwing out candy to the crowd. We figured out later that it was like a beauty contest. I bought some tacos and empanadas from the ladies selling food. It was for some kind of fundraiser. We heard there would be dancing at nine but we had to be up very early the next morning so we walked home before it started.
Back to Mexico City
The next day we took the buses all the way back to Mexico City. The buses had air conditioning and seats like on commercial airlines. We had three different videos to watch on our 8 hours of traveling, all in English. The bus system is one of the most advanced programs in Mexico I suspect. The reservations and seating on the fancy buses is all computerized. You can buy a ticket and reserve a set from any bus station and it goes onto the national system. The whole thing is more like an airport. One of the things we liked best was that they didn’t allow smoking in the terminals or the buses. In fact most of the country was pretty smoke free.
We got a taxi from the bus station in Mexico City to the city center. The one main complaint we have about being in Mexico was the taxi drivers. They were out and out lying cheats. Only one gave us a straight fair and that was because we bought and redeemed a special taxi ticket at an official taxi vender. We tried buy and using the tickets another time but the driver came up with another lie to cheat us again. Even the driver at the hut tried to cheat us by taking another road so we wouldn’t see the driver we had already paid. We caught on and he knew it, so he didn’t try to charge us but I was ready to refuse to pay if he did.
Our guidebook recommended several hotels near the city center and we were soon checking into the Hotel Juarez, $20.00 for the three of us and we got a bathroom door and a shower stall. We left our stuff in the hotel and went out to see a little of the city. In the Zócalo there was a group of Indian from near Acapulco selling crafts. It was the best souvenir shopping we had seen. We spent most of the afternoon in the Zócalo shopping for and buying presents. I had to exchange money twice to cover the cost.
That evening we went for an adventure on the subway. Of course it was rush hour and the subway was packed. We got smashed onto a car so tight we couldn’t move. When we got on we saw a sign pointing to the front car that said “women and children only”. We didn’t know why until later when Jen told us that some guy was grabbing her butt while we were all crammed in. It was a first for Prescott and kind of an eye opener I think.
We got up at four in the morning to go to the airport to catch our plane home. We had no problems this time getting on. In Dallas we put Prescott on a plane to Salt Lake City and his mom met him there. We flew back to Oakland and Roy, Jen’s dad, met us.
It was a short trip but we manage to cram a lot of traveling into it. It was long enough that we all felt good about getting home to familiar territory, especially Prescott. I felled really good about making it up Orizaba, it proved that I wasn’t a complete handicap at this point. I have spent much of my life traveling and adventuring. This trip made me realize that I miss it, but also that I can still do it even with 3 kids and 10 houses. My next adventure;? I want to go to Ecuador and enroll in a Spanish speaking class.
The End