Mt. Malinche, Puebla, Mexico
Puebla is situated in between several volcanoes. A few of them are closed off to visitors, but Mt. Malinche is an inactive volcano that's pretty easily accessible to visitors. It's not very high, but it still offers some incredible views. I persuaded a few of my friends to come out on an adventure there with me.
My good friend, Beny, was kind enough to act as our driver. We started out pretty early at 7:30 in the morning and it took roughly an hour of driving to arrive there.
There are two main routes to get to the summit. One route goes straight up and one winds around. We accidentally ended up taking the windy route. It ended up being better for us though because it took longer but it was much less steep.
We walked very leisurely for the first hour or so. We took lots and lots of snack breaks. We were all pretty silly so it was fun.
We met a man on our way up who was training for the marathon. He told us that it was only 30 minutes to the top from where we were. We ended up setting a timer to check his accuracy and let me tell you, it was not 30 minutes to the top.
A little further on, we met up with a hiking group. They told us that we had taken the longer route. We chatted with them for a while and ended up teaming up.
They were a fun group and excellent motivation.
Beny and my good friend, Kaitlyn were both pretty tired by this point so we decided to split up. Beny and Kaitlyn made camp and took a nap while Lauren and I continued on.
At this point, the trail got a little more difficult. It involved climbing up a lot of rocks and stumbling around the sand.
It was challenging but a lot of fun.
Finally we reached the smaller peak. The views were absolutely incredible. We felt exhausted but satisfied.
We took a little break here before going back down to rejoin our friends. The way back down was lots of fun. Because it was mostly sand, we basically ran down.
At this point, we were getting closer to nightfall so it was time to head back. We joked around a lot on our way down. By this point, we were almost delirious with exhaustion.
At the bottom of the mountain, we had a delicious dinner at the restaurant before driving back home. As we drove home, we sang along to songs on the radio and I watched the stars.
All in all, we really bonded over this trip and I made some great memories with my new pals.
