Cumbres

I am coming out of a long hiatus with some images of two mountains I have scaled in Mexico.

The first is the lava domed volcano Ajusco, located to the south of Mexico City, which I climbed on March 22, 2009. At 3,930 meters (12,894 feet), it is the highest point in the Federal District. As such, it is visible from anywhere in the city if one can get a little altitude (when haze and pollution do not obscure it).

I was able to see if from the bedroom of my old 6th floor apartment in La Condesa.


A closer view from an enclave of cabañas in Delegación Tlalpan. One can see that it just breaks the treeline. This area is the only part of the Federal District to receive snowfall in winter. The summit to the right is known as the Pico de Aguila (the Eagle's Beak).


At the summit, I encountered multiple crosses, which are a typical feature of peaks in Mexico, high and low.


Ajusco has a double peak: this shot of the higher peak is taken from the lower of the two. I did not realize I was climbing the lower one until I had already reached the top. While the valley in between does not seem impossible to cross, I was wanting for daylight (although I started early, I had spent the better part of the day trying to find my way to Ajusco by bus and clueless taxi, and later walking in search of a trailhead).

I took the most northern route, which leads to the lower peak. My colleagues have since informed me there are two other trails, and the western one will take you to the peak shown below. Look closely and you will see it is also topped with several crosses.


Messages left below to be read from on high.


And life flourishes in the most remote of places. The abundance of lizards in Mexico always reminds me I'm not in Kentucky anymore.


Panoramas from the summit. Fortunately, I came on a clear day and was able to soak in the view of the entire city below. It is a powerful and humbling feeling seeing all of the vast metropolis alone and in utter silence.



Proof I scaled in an unflattering picture. I went alone, which in hindsight was foolish, as the trail can convert into rockslide and the weather can shift rapidly. My descent was in twilight and I was lucky to make it back to the highway just when the sun was setting. My luck did not hold for a taxi or a bus, however, and were it not for the generosity of a family tending to their closed quesadilla restaurant in giving me a ride to the bus station, I may have had to walk it all the way back too.





The second peak is the inactive volcano La Malinche (a.k.a. Malintzin) in Tlaxcala, about two hours east of Mexico City. This I scaled with a group of 9 others last Saturday, May 22nd, 2011. At 4,461 meters (14,636 feet), it is the 5th highest point in Mexico. That's 500 feet higher than Pike's Peak and just over 1/2 the height of Mount Everest.

Here is the approach from the north


The form to the lower right is not a tepee but a granary taking advantage of the tendency of grain to cone when poured. This building type is common to the east of Mexico City in the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Hidalgo (from what I have seen). For a further look inside, I'd recommend seeing Alejandro Joderowsky's movie El Topo.

A view looking back over the trail on the ascent through the pine forest.


A view of the summit from the treeline.


Tlaxcala to the north, from the sand/rockslide. This was the most difficult portion of the entire trail, as every two steps up the sand would slide back one. Coming down was much more fun, as one can slide all the way. Cows were grazing along the slope, which makes me think the altitude must really do something for the grass.


On the ridge leading to the peak.


A striking scene.


The crosses atop La Malinche have been removed (by whom, I cannot say), leaving only their bases. Other signs of religious activity are present, however.


The summit.


Eight of us made it to the peak.

Taxco

Here are some images from Taxco, where I went about half a year ago. Taxco, like Guanajuato, was a silver boomtown of the 17th century. A French immigrant of the 18th century made a fortune and had the Baroque Santa Prisca built for the town, one of the most impressively gaudy examples of ecclesiastical architecture I've seen in this country.

Brown, Red, & Green roof:

The town is nestled into a hillside and gives many places in Europe a good run for their money, especially since you don't need nearly as much of that in Mexico. This is the central plaza in front of the cathedral, and near the summit of the hill you can see a statue of Jesus that while not as big as that in Rio de Janiero keeps the same vigilant watch nonetheless.

After the silver was all gone, Taxco fell into decline. William Spratling, an American, did a lot to make it known and part of the modern tourist circuit. He's pretty well liked in the town, and their is a museum in his honor to go along with this bust.

Reminds me of Italy, the high and the low. This bend in the street can only be made by backing up to make a 90 degree turn half way up the slope.

Just some church, also like Italy...

and another....

And here's a rather rustic palacio (read palazzo). It seems the finesse of renaissance architecture I saw in Italy never made it's way to Mexico (perhaps because it never fully blossomed in Spain). By the time neo-classical architecture really came into it's own in the time of Porfirio Diaz, it was already spent (there are some exceptions, notably the Palacio de la Mineria). Nevertheless, I feel the rusticity and in your face functionalism of the Mexican hacienda or urban vernacular speaks better of this rough new world than would some pleasure villa.

Raw architecture:

Urban appreciation from the Casa de Humboldt, where the German stayed for one whole night while traveling through Mexico.

In Mexico, death is always on the mind, and in the street

Again like Guanajuato, their is immense and inexplicable veneration of Cervantes.

Containers of plastic....

clay....

and glass.

Once again the city spilling down the hillside.

And the Jesus. It is further than it appears, and I'd recommend a taxi ride to get there. The taxi drivers of Taxco, all in old white VW bugs, must be among the best drivers in the world. They daily wend their way through tiny streets at sloping at 45 degree+ angles while weaving amongst children, pedestrians of all ages (no sidewalks here), dogs, other cars (all streets move both ways). And all cars here are manual transmission.

Jesus' watchful view of the town reveals just how incredible this site really is, and how made for silver people must be.

And nearby is another impressive hill, this one of plastic bottles.

One can take a gondola to make easy work of scaling the summit of another nearby hill.


It offers another view of the town. As the town recedes and the hills draw near, one can discern just how sprwaled out the city has become.

At the summit of this hill is the local fancy-pants hotel and restaurant (maybe 80 or 90 bucks a night), complete with a putt-putt that's size is belied by it's advertising.

The other half lives in the gullies, where they must walk quite a way to reach their cars (the world is divided into many halves).

We went to nearby Cacajuamilpa to see its famous caverns. It is reached by a beautiful if uncomfortable combi ride which takes you through villages at the extreme of modernity, just an hour and half away from the world's richest man. I paid the extra 50 pesos to arrive at the mouth of the cave in style on a zipline over the forest below.

Local fauna waiting for a generous or careless tourist to drop something good to eat, I assume. They seem pretty unfazed otherwise.


La boca.

The cavern is one immense hall extending about a mile into the ground. In some places, its roof is about 60 meters high. It's full of awesome formations that are incredible enough to make you overlook the bad lighting and the guides who only point out what cartoon characters the formations look like.