Nevado De Toluca

The road up the mountain to the snowy volcano overlooking the city of Toluca is rough dirt. You’d think I would rant about that as I have about potholes in asphalt but it was expected and dirt in pursuit of an interesting destination is fine by me. Google Maps said it is 8.6 miles to the entrance gate at the ranger station. iOverlander said the road was tough; I was ready. 

It was bumpy owing to the many rocks peppering the surface but in between the rocks the road was covered with gray talcum powder. Subsequently that dust got onto every surface of GANNET2. Brilliant. But the scenery as we climbed the mountainside, The Nevado de Toluca, the views were worth it.

Naturally you could have knocked me over with a feather when we passed some cyclists having a fun ride in the thin fresh air. I thought we were pretty heroic until that moment!

I later met a guy who parked at the top and went running to the bottom and back up again. We chatted and I was the one who was breathless, not him. 

It was early evening, around 4:30 and the sun was starting to head to the horizon and the scenery was spectacular. We also found the lower entrance gate unstaffed at the village parking lot so we were not asked for the 60 peso ($3US) entrance fee. I’d have been happy to pay but the ticket sellers apparently go home early. 

We bounced slowly along at ten miles per hour. The drive up took almost one hour and by that stage we were a long way up above sea level when we parked for the night. 

We passed a Telmex antenna array a couple of miles before the entrance gate but if cellphone signals we had none. 

It really is a pretty cool spot even for flat landers like us. Perhaps especially for us, used to being at sea level. 

Power poles suddenly appeared so we weren’t exactly off the grid.

In the distance you can see the ranger station on the far right, the long low police station and off to the left the public toilets, which worked even though you had to flush with a dipper filled from a water barrel. I figured all that out later. The road behind was another few miles to a campsite, reportedly a field with no facilities, a base camp for a climb up the mountain. 

We arrived after 3pm when the place officially closes. There are no signs to direct a late arrival to park but a ranger appeared from the little hut spewing woodsmoke.  

There’s a ten dollar charge to reach the campground but here we were at 13,650 feet (4150 meters) and free to park for the night for nothing. The mountain itself is the fourth highest in Mexico at 15,350 feet or 4680 meters. 

We backed up under the ranger’s direction near the bathrooms which was convenient. The building below to the left houses the ten person State Police detachment. 

Evening throws long shadows. 

The valley two and a half miles below us: 

The temperatures were quite pleasant out of the wind and in the sun but we were nowhere near acclimated for this altitude. There are a lot of numbers today but let me try to run this by you. The highest road in the US is in Colorado called the Mount Evans Scenic byway at 14,140 feet. Pikes Peak is 25 feet lower. So this madness is within spitting distance. I’ve never driven this high though last year we camped on public lands at ten thousand feet near Durango in Colorado.

Rusty absolutely loved it. I of course was worried about him but he pranced around constantly tugging me out to go for a walk. I staggered behind him but he had no apparent altitude problems. He sat outside in the freezing wind and only came in to eat a huge dinner. He slept long and loud. Layne couldn’t sleep at all and I struggled to get comfortable. We listened to Rusty snoring happily. 

The toilet anteroom has a spectacular view though it was very  cold porcelain you sat upon as you contemplated your achievement driving up here. Oh and we had a faint cell signal on the throne. I checked and sent an email and a couple of texts. The toilets had seats but bring your own toilet paper, a common requirement in Mexico. You can just see one of the water barrels used to flush. I was amazed by the civility. 

We put up our window covers and it was just as well. Overnight lows were at freezing and we had the space  heater to keep us reasonably warm.  

Morning cake and I was reluctant to get up. Around eight I took Rusty for a walk with him prancing around and me huddling under my woolen poncho properly known as a serape. 

It was a weekday, a Wednesday morning yet there were lots of cars and people gearing up to hit the trails. I had planned to take walk to the lakes not vet far up but I was in no condition. 

Dogs are welcome where cats go but not on the trails. Fine by us! 

The views were spectacular from the road and I was glad to be there. And breathing. 

This trip was a test run for our plans to go high above sea level driving the Andes. One lesson I did learn is that we need to acclimatize as we go uphill. I think we will be taking a slow drive uphill in Colombia, pausing to get used to the lack of air as we go. This drive was a wake up call. 

GANNET2 did great. I don’t push my heavy home on dirt roads and up hills, but there was nothing to indicate we were at high altitude as our Promaster started ran and stopped as normal. 

Time for a souvenir photo (“Do I look as though I just strolled down.” “Yes dear,”) and off we went back down.  Up next, a place in Hidalgo  State that makes a tourism living by selling Cornish Pasties. True story. 

A Gringo Drive

I had heard about Mexico’s fourth highest peak the Nevado de Toluca, (14,993ft/4570meters) the snow covered volcano of Toluca.  We achieved our goal of spending a night in the parking lot at 13,650 feet which sounds impressive to me. However getting there from the butterfly sanctuary was a drive from

hell and that I survived it without completely blowing my stack was even more remarkable. 

I am not fond of the State of Mexico and I have no doubt I was being unfair but the ghastly potholed roads coming out of the mountains to the city of Toluca (9,000 feet that felt like sea level for some reason) set my heart against the state. Some local people fill in a few of the holes for a tip. They don’t fix the problem. 

It was such a bouncy swerving drive I envied the dude on the horse. Make no mistake this is poverty country, crap roads, no cell signal and dusty tumbledown villages. 

You have to look carefully but you’ll see the patchwork nature of the road. GANNET2 just rumbles over this stuff which you cannot avoid as it is the entire road surface. 

And then we came upon a gorgeous forest of Australian pine, the trees they wanted to remove from Fort Zachary…and I said let’s lunch here. 

Rusty romped then sat and suggested we might stay the night. It was lunchtime but I thought maybe Layne could lose a couple of backgammon hands to me and we could rest. I told Rusty I’d see what she thought. 

Sure enough Layne had been thinking along the same lines, not the losing at backgammon part, and was entirely happy to plan a night here. That was until a pack of five hungry dogs showed up from a nearby village. We shared out all the dog food treats and tortillas we had and canned the stop. Rusty was not happy surrounded by street dogs. We left and got back on the crappy torn up roads of Mexico State. 

There are moments when I’m driving through Mexico I have what we call “gringo moments.”  My language grows intemperate and I wave my arms around in a manner my Italian mother might recognize and I curse everything Mexican. It’s a moment, a way of letting off steam. It’s unreasonable and impolite. But it is necessary. 

Why in the name of all that’s holy can’t these goddamned Mexicans build a decent road? Highway maintenance? A concept unknown south of the Rio Grande. And on and on, Layne turns up the air conditioning and looks out the window and waits. Look at these potholes! How does a civilized country put up with this corrupt shit? Doesn’t any government big shot live around here to order his road paved properly? And on and on. On the pauses Layne starts the audiobook on the audio system. Then pauses it after I’ve caught my breath and some other monstrous injustice about the road, other drivers or universal Mexican irritation sweeps into my overloaded brain. I start and Walt Longmire pauses as I continue my interrupted rant. 

I mean look at this random stretch of gravel that just appeared. The four cars? They just scattered each looking for a clear path in some madcap LeMans start struggling to reach the asphalt to be the first away to the next effing pothole. You think this sudden plunge into dirt didn’t provoke another in an endless series of gringo moments? 

How about this one, below? I’m on the shoulder looking for smooth asphalt, while the car is risking all his suspension in a crazy effort to get past, but the minibus (collectivo) took the biscuit by passing us both in the oncoming lane. More rants. 

Suddenly the life of an impoverished campesino has its attractions. For a moment. Then another rant about Mexico’s inability to look after its people. Longmire was getting short shrift today. 

Waiting for a bus? Poor bugger. We listened to another chapter as the rants subsided, a few moments of solidarity with public transport riders. Actually buses are a good way to get around the country as they run often and cheap. Their survival skills put me to shame! 

And then perfection. How long will this last Layne asked as I was silenced by a stretch of billiard table cloth. Oh, Mexico van build great roads. They just have to have someone to give them permission. Well, okay they never got around to striping the road so lane changes are perilous guesswork but they also forgot to put the effing topes back in. No speed bumps for a few blessed miles. A gift! Thank you Mexico. 

We saw some crowds in a couple of villages and couldn’t figure out what was going on. So finally we pulled up to a couple of young men leaning  up against a car and asked what was happening. “Is it some religious event?” Layne asked out the window. 

“No,” he replied. 

We waited but no further information was forthcoming as he stared blankly at us,  so we pressed on bouncing like a giant yo-yo on the crippled asphalt. 

Finally we got to the city east of the capital, at 8,000 feet elevation. The road sign said Mexico City was 46 miles away which for a city of an official population of nine million was too close. The traffic conditions in the capital would produce a few rants…plus they have strict traffic rules to combat appalling pollution. You even have to get a special permit to drive there. 

Forget Mexico City but we’d given away all Rusty’s food! We had to get more before dinner time so Toluca was our target, a city just to the east of the capital. We stopped at the Mega Soriana where I also hoped Layne would  find some toilet paper not made of rice paper (more rants as the stuff shreds in my hands) plus some milk for my tea. My job was to walk Rusty and weirdly he loves parking lots, so I leashed him and carrying a full trash bag went looking for a trash can. No luck -weird- but Rusty had fun and Layne was totally successful on all points.  

Just a few more damned potholes and we’d be spending the night high above the tree line.   I’d never driven above 11,000 feet. Was I acclimated for this? 

Butterflies At Altitude

I might as well get it out of the way. We saw no butterflies. It was absurd coming all this way on crappy roads, climbing high in the mountains…

…and we saw no monarchs. Layne was worried about my state of health at these altitudes and she wanted to get back down as soon as possible. I couldn’t argue with that and I was glad she agreed to drive over the high passes exploring the monarch habitats from the road. Next time we will spend more time acclimating at lower altitudes before coming up here. It’s funny as I’ve not felt this before and we drove mountain passes up to 11,000 feet in Colorado and Idaho last summer with no ill effects. The red line was our route, the yellow line I added for emphasis marking the state line between Michoacán and Mexico State. 

The villagers in El Rosario got a special treat that day: two Martians dropped in on them to share the splendidly refreshing morning at their market. They stared and stared in slack jawed silence as we three approached. I might as well have been Gary Cooper in High Noon had I been taller and thinner and armed and at the OK corral. As it was I felt like an intruder. Which was weird really as the monarchs and their annual migrations are a world famous phenomenon and you’d have thought gabachos (gringos in a newer derogatory term) would be a common sight. As it was I saw a nice lady selling coffee and pastries so I peeled off from the vegetable expedition ( wouldn’t you?) and got busy. I asked for a coffee and a concha. Her son forgot his own breakfast and gawked at me as though I had asked for the head of Marie Antoinette on a platter. “Do you speak Spanish?” I asked a not unreasonable question because sometimes Indio tribes  speak  only their own unintelligible language. He nodded slowly fearful of what was to come. Buenas dias I said. He remained tongue tied. His mother crossed herself. I then further confounded their morning by speaking double dutch to my dog who actually  understood me and obeyed. Had I levitated myself into the cloudless sky I could not have produced more astonishment. 

The photo is from an excellent page discussing the history of conchas but also the balance between corn and wheat in Mexican history. Surprisingly interesting. 
https://www.eater.com/2016/2/19/11054298/conchas-mexico-pastry

Under these trying circumstances my usual ploy of engaging in some light banter, asking about their kids and asking for a smile for the camera did not seem appropriate so we neither of us got any pictures of the market. I did manage to get a snap of the guy in the “built for the craft” (!) t-shirt who between using his three words of English on me was working with his wife to set up their restaurant stall for market day. I wish we had been there later in the day  to do a taste test. 

There it is, still standing after the alien invasion. 

Never mind the monarchs, this is very much rural Mexico as we ourselves discovered. 

With much regret and only a small headache I drove us past the butterfly parking lot on up the hill overlooking the valley. 

This was a winding mountain road I wanted to explore before we descended below 8,000 feet to the city of Toluca, several hours drive away. 

Actually I was glad Layne agreed to this deviation as she was quite surprised about me feeling so ill, and she insisted we get a wriggle on. The scenery was spectacular at ten thousand feet. 

This is the road from El Rosario to the delightfully named town of An-gang-gay-oh in the next valley. Luckily we took this little used road in the down  hill direction and you will see, I hope, how steep it was. Photos don’t do grades justice but trust me when I tell you it was steep! 

This weird strip road actually works quite well as long as you keep your wheels in the strips. 

Water tanks on roofs are universal in Mexico and it’s time I bought shares in Rotoplex. This yellow water tank is rather more fancy than the usual rotomolded plastic. 

New construction everywhere. Until your house is completed you pay no property taxes I’m told so you will often see crafty home owners with rebar out of the roof. 

Cows on the road. The protocol when you meet livestock is to be nice and not push. For retirees in a van that’s easy. 

The farmer plodded in the road to protect his animals which knew the way home and turned in at the fence. We waved, he smiled and we were on our way. 

The next time you have a crappy day in the office think about these fields, nearly vertical and neatly cultivated. At ten thousand feet. 

The road deteriorated into a Roman style cobblestone that would shake your fillings loose at anything more ambitious than walking speed. So I stuck Gannet2 into manual first gear and we bounced along.

What I would really like in my six speed Promaster is a crawler gear for those roads where I want slow speed and more power but as it is this is a delivery van conversion not designed for rough back roads necessarily. 

As it was I stopped from time to time to give the brakes a chance to cool. It was here I spotted a lone monarch. Layne wanted a picture; it was long gone. Here beginneth and endeth our monarch encounter! 

Here’s a close up of the Roman road that was making me crazy. Worse was to come as we got off the mountains but I didn’t know that yet. 

And this is where it got extremely steep. I was glad we were going downhill and the brakes were fine. 

Believe me if it isn’t clear in the pictures that this is steep. In the rain these cobbles would be like slime. I’ve met their ilk before in Mexico and it’s a slippery surface like ice when wet. 

Finally Angangueo and a few tiny alleys, one more stop to cool the brakes and we were in the main road  again. 

The Main Street had an Alpine air and I was out in mind of Switzerland. 

It’s not actually Switzerland of course. Mexico is its own inimitable world, firewood and smart phone arm in arm. 

I don’t know where Cassville is but I assume they traded these trailers onto the used market and they end up improbably in Angangueo.

Climbing up to the pass at the stateline with Mexico. 

I hope this odd tour of back country Michoacán explains a little why I like driving Mexico. Not a single foreign tagged vehicle did we see since we left the campground in Pátzcuaro and our journey across Michoacán has been all to ourselves, the good roads and the bad, the road food and the awful altitude sickness soon to get worse. 

Up next Mexico State, poverty, terrible roads and lots of dead cell phone areas. I ended up missing Michoacán.