Week #14: Pena de Bernal, Tequisquipan, Parque Nacional Iztaccihuatl-Popocatepatl y Cholula

Before starting this post, I thought I'd mention a new blog series that I'm planning to start soon. This blog (Tumbleweed) has focused mostly on capturing our travels to keep friends and family updated on what we've been up to. I try not to go into too much detail but just hit the highlights of our travels. In my next blog venture (please let me know if you have any ideas for blog names - that's always the hardest part!), I plan to go into more detail on a specific topic. The audience is likely to be people who want to do something that I just did or are just generally interested in the topic that I'm writing about. My initial ideas for posts are exploring the wide variety of Mexican breakfasts (exhaustive and all incredibly delicious!), describing how to do the hike that we just did in Parque Nacional Izta-Popo and more general assessment of van travel in Mexico. If you have requests for topics, please let me know!

We started this week by driving to Pena de Bernal which is just about an hour outside of the City of Queretaro. Bernal is a pueblo magico and is famous for having a 433 meter tall monolith which is one of the largest in the world. It is an imposing rock formation that can be seen from throughout the area. We hiked up as far as you can go without climbing gear (about 90% to the top) and it felt like we were doing the hike with the rest of the country of Mexico as it was a federal holiday (Constitution Day). It was great to see so many people hiking though and I'm pretty sure that Ginny and I were the only people in shorts. We stayed at the base of the monolith and for a brief respite from Mexican food, I made banana pancakes for breakfast (see photos below).   

                                                    

The valley around Pena de Bernal is known for being one of the best wine regions in Mexico so we went wine tasting at a winery called La Redonda. We did a tour which was entirely in Spanish and the guide spoke incredibly fast so our comprehension level was 25% at best. But the tour included two generous pours of a red and white wine so we were happy campers by the end. The white wine was pretty good but the red wine was way too sweet for our taste. 

We spent the next couple nights in another pueblo magico (yes, it does sometimes feel like we're doing a tour of all 132 pueblo magicos in Mexico!) called Tequisquipan (Tequis for short!). Tequis turned out to be one of our favorite pueblo magicos as it has a low key vibe, some great stores and restaurants and was just a lot of fun to be in. It also took the cake for having the most hotels for a fairly small town, many of which had thermal pools which occur naturally in the area. 

After a couple days in Tequis, it was time to leave the state of Queretaro and head southeast to visit the Parque Nacional Iztaccihuatl-Popocatepatl (Izta-Popo). We thought about visiting Mexico City as it was fairly close but we had heard horror stories about driving in Mexico City and decided that it would likely be part of another trip (preferably sans van!). We had also heard that the cops in Mexico City are the most corrupt in the country and many Mexicans avoid visiting CDMX for that reason alone. Our drive to the the national park brought us into the CDMX state though and resulted in our first encounter on this trip getting pulled over by the cops.  The cops told us that we were in the restricted circulation zone of CDMX and weren't allowed to be driving with our US plates. They told us the fine was 8,000 pesos ($400) but that they would be happy to take care of it on the spot if we preferred. After some back and forth, we agreed to pay them 2,000 pesos ($100) in exchange for them letting us go and not citing us for the infraction. We avoided any other cops on the way to the park and will be sure to not get anywhere near the CDMX region for the rest of the trip! 

The main attractions in the Parque Nacional Izta-Popo are the two volcanoes of Izta-Popo which are the 2nd and 3rd highest mountains in all of Mexico. Izta is 17,160 feet above sea level and Popo is 17,802 feet above sea level (Pico de Orizaba is the tallest mountain at 18,491 feet above sea level). Izta is a dormant volcano but Popo is still active and considered one of the most active volcanoes in the world. We parked near the visitor center and set out bright and early for a hike up towards the summit of Izta. We started at 12,000 feet above sea level and could definitely feel the elevation but the scenery was stunning and we forged ahead along an excellent trail that had very few people on it. Ginny made it up to 14,000 feet before turning around and I continued another bit further to reach 15,000 feet before throwing in the towel. See photos below and if you'd like to learn more about hiking in this beautiful country, check out my yet to be written blog post!  

On our way out of the park, Ginny drove the van down this fairly rough dirt road while I did my morning run down the same stretch of road. Ginny picked me up at the bottom of the dirt road and let me know that she had hit a big rock on the way down the mountain. We checked for damage and noticed that  the running board on the side of the van was bent out of shape from hitting the rock. Fortunately our sliding side door still opened but we were a little concerned about how we could fix the damaged running board. Once we got to our destination in Cholula, we both stood on the running board together and jumped up and down and it bent back into place. Who knew that steel was so malleable, eh?

We've been in the suburb of Cholula which is just outside of the City of Puebla for the past couple days. Cholula is famous for having the widest pyramid in the world. Most of the pyramid has not been excavated and the Spanish built a church on top of the pyramid in 1520 so it will likely never be fully excavated due to the cultural significance of the church. Cholula is full of street festivals, museums, great food and is also well known for their textiles, ceramics and for the local specialty of fried grasshoppers (we tried them and they're very crunchy)! We've seen more people riding their bicycles around this city than any other place in Mexico and many of the bikes have 2-3 people on them which is always fun to see. See photos below for highlights of Cholula.

I'll close this blog post with a few random observations from our travels through Mexico so far:

- There is a general lack of change at most stores and restaurants that we visit. Trying to get anyone to break a 500 peso note ($25) is a herculean task so carry plenty of smaller notes and coins! 

- If you didn't know better, you'd think that there were only two teams in Major League Baseball - the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees - based upon the hats worn by Mexican fans. Ginny claims she's seen some Red Sox hats too but they're definitely in the minority.  

- I've mentioned that they don't mess around with COVID here (mask wearing is much more prevalent than the US) so be prepared to have your temperature taken whenever you enter a store, restaurant or museum. However, most things are open and we see very few closures as a result of the pandemic.  

- Pay attention when you walk down the sidewalk - there are many hazards from uneven pavement, uncovered manholes, dog shit and exposed electrical wires hanging all over the place. So strolling down the street can be a real adventure!