Surrealism, rainforests, and a great big rock

Tags

Mexico, Outdoors, Travel

After fully immersing ourselves in cities for a few weeks it was time to get us some nature. Where better to start than La Peña de Bernal the world’s 3^rd highest monolith? A monolith? We hear you ask. Why that sounds mighty impressive, please tell us more. Of course dear reader, yes it does sound impressive, and we were certainly excited about it. A monolith is a big ole-standing rock, you may be most familiar with the world’s largest example – Uluru. With the mighty Uluru in mind we happily scampered onto our bouncy old bus and began the hour long ride through scorching Mexican desert to get our own piece of the giant rock action.

Upon arrival and closer inspection it turned out that this rock was in fact a dyke – the inside of an extinct volcano type – not the derogatory lesbian type. And without stretching the dyke comparisons too far, we’ve probably seen more imposing ones in clubs back home. Beautiful she was, but not the towering monstrosity we had anticipated.

Nevertheless, we trudged onwards and upwards. A small food stop followed by some minor disorientation and we were at her feet. As we strapped on our hiking boots, already sweating somewhat from the heat, we weren’t sure whether to feel smug or overdressed as we viewed the city girls teetering in jeans and street shoes and families casually strolling up the rock carrying tiny babies in their arms. Eventually we settled on reservedly smug as we passed them by climbing higher and higher. We had been told that without professional climbing gear we could only go halfway, scoff to that, we’re kiwis, we said and over the barrier we went. Climbing gear certainly wasn’t needed to get a lot higher than the recommended stopping point, and in fact there were several other people on the rocky plateau already. From this point the remaining ¾ of the monolith was virtually straight up and we could see why climbing gear was supposedly “necessary” for such an excursion… pffft. There were climbing hooks and staple handholds hammered into the rock and Mikey scaled up three quarters of what remained, before coming back down due to a combination of extreme wind, old(er) age common sense (which is a right pain in the arse!), and the fact that he was out of view from anyone – in the event that he did get blown off.

Spot the Mikey!

Needless to say, one could EASILY climb to the top of this giant rock and have amazing views, without climbing gear on a less windy day. At least, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Nevertheless the view from our ¾ way up vantage point was pretty damn worth it. We had a panoramic view over hundreds of kilometers of desert. The small town of Bernal was nestled immediately at our feet and then as far as the eye could see was sand and cacti. Eagles, kites and ravens flew closely overhead and all in all we were highly satisfied with our first venture into the wilderness of Mexico.

Jump forward a week or so from the previous wee adventure and we found ourselves again in Bernal, this time passing through to explore yet more outdoorsy deliciousness. Although the trip there could be described as less than appealing, a narrow windy road (it had over 860 turns) uphill makes for views that not only take away the breath, but also other things that would best be left inside the body. Still the transition from barren desert to lush conifer forest over the course of a few hours was very impressive. We disembarked our bus in the town of Jalpan de Serra rather late in the evening, well after sunset. Tired, lost, and still somewhat queasy we set off on what at the time seemed like a rather daunting task entitled “where the hell are we going to sleep tonight”?? After a long heavy walk and miraculous understanding of some instructions delivered in the kind of high speed Spanish that can only be achieved by those who do not require breath, we found a cheap hotel and crashed, ready to refresh ourselves for splendours of tomorrow. And splendours were delivered. Just a 20 minute walk from the town and we found ourselves at this lake.

Being the middle of winter (yet still hotter and more humid than a Wellington summer) your average Mexican was not currently interested in lakeside vacations, so were more or less had it to ourselves for a day. Swimming in a warm, beautiful, and empty lake – how awful. Man we miss studying and working.

We camped lakeside for just one night before heading up to the mountainous town of Xilitla. This town is perched on the side of quite a steep hill – it’s strange to behold and can’t really be explained through words and/or pictures – you need to go there and understand this for yourself! Anyhoo, on the outskirts of Xilitla was what we came to see – Las Pozas de Edward James. Now, if you’ve ever idly wondered what it would be like to step into a surrealist painting this is the place for you. These 38 hectares of land were designed and cultivated by surrealist artist Edward James. It is filled with orchids and other tropical plants so huge you begin to feel like Alice in Wonderland. You wander past bizarre structures that tower above you, staircases that lead to nowhere, and pathways that you can never find twice. Brylee found one area that she particularly liked but once she found Mikey no matter how hard she tried she could not find her way back there, until she was walking down an entirely different path and found it through an entrance that she swears wasn’t there last time. We loved it so much that we managed to flatten the batteries on both our cameras about halfway through, so this blog will have to provide just a little taster and for the (sur)real thing you’ll just have to see it yourself.

Xilitla itself is a spectacular place. Surrounded by lush rainforest it’s the perfect place to just sit quietly and enjoy life. Each morning we would crawl out from our tepee (yup we said tepee) and just be blown away by the sight of the fog gently drifting through kilometres of greenery sparkling with the morning dew. Bliss.

The art wasn’t too shabby either.

While we loved all the wilderness places we were discovering we have to give a shout out to Querétaro, our base from which we explored. Querétaro really deserves a blog entry all of its own but with many other waiting in the wings for us to get to it gets relegated to little more than a mere footnote, sorry Querétaro you deserve more from us. It is a city with a population the size of Auckland and yet it feels very small and intimate with its beautiful old buildings, plentiful cafes, and cobbled streets.

We spent a few very happy days just wandering around soaking up the chilled vibe here. We also spent time with some fantastic new friends who could not have made us feel more welcome (most of whom can be seen in our car squeeze in the festivals blog). If you need to rest and re-coop as you travel through Mexico, Querétaro is a great place to do it. And make sure you take a stop by Santa Rosa Viterbo, a church that puts on a water/light/music show every hour, cameras failed to even vaguely capture how spectacular a show it is or the delight this caused in us, so much that Brylee made Mikey stay a whole hour so we could watch it again!

 

After so much city action and boosting around we decided it was time for a change of pace, next stop – the West Coast!

Queretaro and its surroundings

Culture shock level – non-existent

Awesomeness level – extreme