Turtle to Angahuan - Paricutin Volcano

We realized Patzcuaro is only a couple of hours north-east of the Paricutin Volcano, so even though it is a little out of our way, we thought it would be a shame not to head over to see it.  

I can't get over how much it looks like northern Ontario here.

Patzcuaro is at 6,800 feet above sea level, the trip to Angahuan had us going through Uruapan which is at 4,800.   We dropped 2,000 feet fast.   I'm not sure what the red line in the middle of the road means, but there were even flourescent bumps on either side of the line.    The highway even has the run away lanes for trucks when their brakes fail.

The change in pressure caused the air in this water bottle to compress, it reminds me of scuba diving.   

Uruapan 

We didn't stop in Uruapan, but we made a wrong turn down a back road...another tight squeeze.   

From Uruapan it is a quick drive up to 7,600 feet to Angahuan, another native Perepecha town.  

From our campground we can see the steeple from the church in Paricutin that is buried in lava rock along with the town.    The Paricutin volcano can be seen in the background and is one of the seven wonders of the natural world.    Beginning in 1943 it erupted for 9 years, burying 2 towns.  

We were told it is a half hour hike down to the church from our campground, so we packed some water and headed down.    It took us 1 1/2 hours because we made a wrong turn.   We ended up walking all the way around to the back side of the town and found a road that led to the church.    This is truly something to see.   

This is inside a chamber that is almost completely buried under lava rock.   

This is the outside of the above chamber.

The church was still under construction when the volcana erupted.   This steeple was completed.

This steeple, from the other side of the church was not yet complete.   

The Perepecha have a small market set up just outside the area covered in lava.  

We thought we could hike up to the top of the volcano.   This was the only house we saw between the church and the summit trail leading up. 

This is a view of the steeple from the other side. 

After a short hike we came to this lava field.   In order to get to the volcano you have to cross it.   There was no chance Gerry and I could make it across this, so we headed back.    We learned later that you can take a horse to the base of the volcano, it is a two hour ride, then it takes another 40 minutes to climb to the top on foot.   

Gerry is demonstrating how deep the volcanic ash is in the area.    In many spots in the area it is as if you are walking on the beach...except the sand is black aash and it makes your feet very dirty.

We were struck with all the vegetation growing in the area.   

 

I grabbed this picture of Paricutin erupting in 1943 off the internet.   It is a fascinating story and I encourage you to look it up.    The volcano rose 1,391 feet out of a corn field over a 9 year period.   The first week it rose 5 stories and was 1,102 feet within the first year.    

We are both so exhausted after our 1 hour hike, which turned into a 2 1/2 hour hike down and up, down and up, down and up.    I fear we will both be crippled up for a couple of days....but....it was worth it. 

Not my birthday

March 2nd, is usually my birthday, but this year my grandson Trent was disappointed that I wouldn't be home to celebrate it, so I have decided to postpone it until after I get home.   I'll let you know when it will be once Trent tells me.

In the meantime, Gerry is accustomed to treated me extra special and letting me have my own way on my birthday, so even though it isn't my birthday, it sure was a nice day.

It started with Gerry bringing me my coffee, and then we went for a walk in Patzcuaro to go out for breakfast.

We had no idea where we were going, but this sign seemed to indicate we would find something to eat as well as something to do if we turned down this street.   So we did, and we did.

There were several shops along the way with life sized wood carvings.   I particularly liked the skeletons on the roof of one shop.    They take their dead seriously in this country.   Gerry really liked the friars.

We found a little restaurant that brought us scrambled eggs and ham....we were quite sure we ordered eggs easy over with bacon...but what the heck.   My Spanish leaves much to be desired, and obviously our hand signals don't work so well either.  lol.   After breakfast we hopped on a ferry to head over to Isla Janitzio.     We even had live music on board, followed by a collection hat. 

The island was interesting.    It is inhabited by  the Purépechan peoples.   They speak their own language on this island with a population of 2,500.   Apparently only about 25% of the folks speak spanish and many of the elders have never left the island.

They gave us a little fishing exhibition, then paddled over to the ferry with a collection dish.

The Island had a little bit of everything, even a live sex show.

At the top of the island, a massive concrete statue of Mexican independence fighter Jose Maria Morelos rises 156 feet towards the sky.    But first you have to get there.   Staircase after staircase winding through shop after shop after restaurant after shop of the indigenous crafts and foods.    We read on Kevin and Ruth's blog that they ate some Iguana at one of the restaurants here.   Too bad we just had breakfast and simply had no room left for Iguana.  

Interesting craft made from spark plugs...somehow I doubt this is from their culture, especially considering there are no cars on the island.

You can climb up the inside of the statue into Jose Maria Morelos hand, but we stopped at the base of the statue.   The view was beautiful from here, and we were winded already.  Heck, we stopped about 10 times just climbing the stairs this high.

The statue was so big, I wasn't able to get far enough away from it at its' base to get a full picture.

They had a playground, restaurants and even a public pay washroom at this level.

We peered up into the statue and snapped a picture...around and around the ramp goes up to the top.    We need to get accustomed to the thin air at this altitude.   I can't believe how winded we were.  Patzcualo is at 6,500 feet above sea level.   That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

There's my honey, looking happy.  I had just told him I didn't want to climb all the way up.  :)

This is one of 3 churches we saw on the island.

Ooops, we made a wrong turn coming down and came upon this cemetery.  

The ferry ride back was uneventful, no music, no fisherman.  There had to 30 ferries at the dock.   We are told it is very busy on weekends and during the summer with Mexican tourists heading to the island. 

By the time we got back to the trailer park we were exhausted.   It was only about 1:00 p.m., but I needed a siesta to get ready to go into town for dinner.  

 Patzcuaro is a beautiful little town, with two town squares, numerous churches, a market that goes on for at least 10 square blocks, and lots of little restaurants.   

 I've never seen a market as big as this one.   I don't think anyone in town would have a need for a grocery store, or a department store here.   Every town should have a market like this one.     

We stopped for dinner and had two amazing dishes.   We shared our entre's and were so full when we left we could hardly move.    This doesn't look like much, but oh my goodness it was delicous.   It is a chicken enchilada, the sauce on the left is a hot chile sauce, the sauce on the right is a chocolate sauce.

This dish blew my mind.   Who would think of filling a hot pepper with chicken and cheese, and then wrapping it in pastry, deep fry it and put it in a pineapple/mango/orange sauce.   This could have been dessert. 

We are back at the trailer park and thought we would take a couple of pics before we call it a day.   They have a big hole in the ground, which they have dug out to make clay bricks.

 . 
All the buildings on the property were built using the bricks they made, including this one.

Myrtle seems quite happy here after yesterdays crazy drive.   We let her rest, but first thing tomorrow morning we are turtling down the road to Angahuan to investigate a nearby inactive volcano called Paricutín.   It is only about 2 hours from here.    We are thinking we will camp overnight, then come back to Patzcuaro the next day for another day before heading to El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary.

I`m really liking inland Mexico.    The days are hot, the nights are cool and the sights are interesting.

     

Turtle to Patzcuaro

I woke up with the birds this morning, looked out the window and saw the most amazing sunrise over Lake Chapala.   By the time I jumped out of bed, put my shoes on and grabbed the camera it was too late to capture the most spectacular moments of it.   It was still beautiful.

We got an early start on the day.    Bertha seemed to be giving us a hard time again.   She wanted us to go back toward Guadalajara to pick up Mex 15.   That would have taken us an hour and a half out of our way.    Bertha was saying 5 1/2 hours.   The program on our computer found this route, and said it was only 4 hours.   It appeared to be a possible lovely drive along the lake, then cut up to Mex 15.  Even that seemed out of the way to us, but we figured we would drive along the lake and force Bertha to see it our way.     She often changes her mind when pushed hard enough.

Indeed, part of the drive was beautiful.

There were a few little towns along the coast, with very bad roads.    The locals were giving us some funny looks...as if they had never seen a motor home on these roads before.   

There were quite a few spots that we had to tell Myrtle to hold her breath to fit through.   Even so, we thought we had bested Bertha. 

After about an hour and a half of bumpy, crazy, tire killing road  we came upon this Y in the road.   Well, we had already committed, so what the heck.    Bertha had come on board by this time, so we figured everything was A - OK.   We had figured we would take about 30 minutes to get this far.  



Holy friggin hannah!!!!    We climbed this bumpy, crazy, tire killing, edge of the cliff hill for 2 kilometers, and were a half kilometer higher in elevation by the time we reached the top!   The road didn't end there.    

See those tiny little toy houses?  That's the village we left behind when we started up the hill.

Finally, we get off the tire killing, crazy bumpy road, by this time we are only 2 hours behind schedule.    It was kind of fun, we didn't mind too much.   Until we hit the 3 hour traffic jam.   We saw 4 ambulances and 2 tow trucks towing transport trucks.   We figured there was a bad accident ahead.   It was like a parking lot.   I even went back into Myrtle, figuring I would chill on my computer for a while.    I couldn't find it.   I knew I left it on the bed above the driver compartment...but it just wasn't there.     oh oh....I did hear something fall.....yup, the road was so bumpy my computer flew off the bed, six feet through the air and landed in the stairwell by the side door.    In all the driving we have done, nothing has ever flown off of the bed.  Not a scratch on it, and it works like a charm.    When we finally reached the part of the road that was causing the delay, it was a 40 foot bridge under construction!     The ambulances must have gone elsewhere.   lol.   Ok, so now we are only 5 hours behind schedule.     

Mex 15D!!!!!   What a sight for sore eyes,

We were up over 2 kilometers above sea level here.    The leaves are changing colour, the temperature drops, leaves are falling, and it actually smells like Ontario, Canada in the autumn.    

At this elevation it is cool enough for pine trees to grow.      Our campground is on the opposite side of this lake.    Lago de Patzcuaro.

We finally pulled into our campsite at 5:00 p.m.    We left Lagu de Chapala at 8:15 a.m., for a 4 hour drive.     We should have listened to Bertha.   :)     We are so exhausted, and hurt like hell....we didn't even take a single picture since we got here.    Tomorrow is another day, and another adventure.