La Malinche

The peak of the volcano after clearing the forest

This last Sunday, some friends and I headed up to the state of Tlaxcala to go hiking, AND TO CLIMB A VOLCANO. I can't tell you enough just how excited I was to finally climb a volcano. I have been in México for about 6 months now, and the city of Puebla is surrounded by volcanoes. The two that lie off to the West are Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, whose respective names mean 'mountain that smokes' and 'white woman'. And the other one which lies in the Northeast is La Malinche, or La Malitzin which is the given name by the Spanish who named it in honor of the infamous indigenous Mexican woman that served as an interpreter for Hernán Cortés as he conquered Mexico. It's  pre-Hispanic name was Matlacuéitl, a goddess of vegetation who was believed to be the wife of the Aztec rain god Tláloc. With that said, there's a cool myth about the volcanoes. According to the Aztecs and other Mexica people, the two volcanoes in the West, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl were a married couple, with La Malinche (Matlacuéitl) being the lover of Popocatépetl. According to Aztec spirituality, the gods live in the volcanoes and mountains, well unluckily for Popo, his volcano happens to be at his wife's side, which means he can only look across the valley at his lover with longing, for all of eternity.

In all 10 of us headed up to the volcano, half of us being foreigners (4 Americans and 1 French) and the other half Mexicans. Driving up to the volcano, which took about an hour and a half, we could see it's dominating presence in the horizon and it's no wonder, because the volcano stands at over 14k feet above sea level! We drove up a little ways up the side of the volcano (which is forest) and then parked out cars before setting out on foot.

After about an hour and a half of hiking, resting, falling and resting some more, we made it through the last thicket of the trees and came to an arid clearing where we could see the peak of the inactive volcano. From our perspective, it didn't look that far, nor that difficult, but boy were we wrong! The sandy soil made the climb that much harder; you would climb maybe 5 steps, and then slide down 3. At one point I was actually climbing with my hands and knees... I guess it was more like crawling, haha. I was even clinging for life to the clumps of dry grass and rocks big enough to hold my weight in order to advance upward.

This is me trying not to freak out

If you know me well, you'll know that ever since I was a child I have been terrified of heights and falling to my death. So, unfortunately I didn't make it ALL the way to the peak, but I did make it to the one below if off to the right. I consider this excursion to be a great accomplishment in my life long struggle with heights. The view from my resting spot was breathtaking, I could see the countryside all around me, and could even see Pico Orizaba (Citlaltépetl) in the neighboring state of Veracruz in the distance, which happens to be the highest peak in all of Mexico.

Citlaltépetl in Veracruz

After the climb back down, and about a dozen falls later, we made it back to the parking area and ate some seriously cheap and delicious food at a rinky-dink restaurant:

It was a really cool experience, and I definitely have another awesome story to tell my future grandchildren when I'm a decrepit old man. :)