Expedition #1 - visiting a volcano by horseback (it seemed like a good idea at the time!)
Don saw a poster at the Baden-Powell Institute advertising an all-day
expedition to visit Volcan Paricutin on horses - we signed up immediately. Arriving at the school at
8:00 on a Saturday morning, we boarded a van with four other Spanish
students and our guide, Manuel. We sped through town, visiting
reconstructed ruins of pyramids and a small village from 400-900AD.
Manuel emphasized the playing field, where teams of seven played
some sort of game with a 3kg ball made of wood. The winning team
was killed (along with their families) and entombed with the emperor of
their village - it was considered an honor to die for the emperor.
On site was the tomb where 32 skulls were found; they suspect
there are other tombs elsewhere.
Back in the van to drive to the tiny town Anahuac, where Manuel arranged for 9 horses for us.
The first hour or so was fun, but Sarah's stirrups were too long and
her saddle had hard leather strips in awkward places, Don's stirrups
were of different lengths, and Margaret's stirrups were too long also.
This made it hard to do anything but bounce up and down as the
horses trotted and cantered (and galluped). Helen's horse and
saddle were fine, which helped 24 hours later, but not 48 hours later
(see below). All the saddles had a wood frame, with a thin layer
of leather over it. It made for a hard ride.
The ride up to the volcano was gorgeous - through green fields, lava
fields, across fields of black sand. Flowering agaves were
exciting for the botanists to see. But the ride up was over 2
hours long and by the time we arrived at the volcano we were sore and
tired.
The volcano we were visiting started to rise out of a
farmer's corn field on a September day in 1943; it rose 410 m in the
first year and continued to grow until 1952. It engulfed two
neighboring towns, slowly - no one was injured or killed as they packed
up and left the area.
We rode our horses to the base of the volcano, dismounted in the rain
(on wobbly legs) and climbed the last bit on soft volcanic sand ("One
step forward, two steps back"), in the rain. We could feel the
altitude - it was harder than we expected it to be.
Of course, by the time we got to the top, it was shrouded in clouds.
But we could see the steam arising from the crater, smell the
sulfur, and feel the warmth of the steam and ground. By that
time, we were so cold that sitting on the wet warm ground felt good.
Walking down was a blast: the trail down was a straight
line down to the waiting horses. The slope was steep and, again,
made of fine sand, so we just ran and slid our way to the bottom.
By the time we reached the bottom, our shoes and the bottom 12"of
our pants were covered in wet fine sand (that has yet to come out of
them).
Remounting our horses was painful - the saddles rubbed in the same
places they had earlier! Among all of us, we made a pact not to go
faster than a walk, but the guides had different ideas and kept moving
the horses at a trot, at least.
We stopped to see the only remaining part of one of the towns that was engulfed: the church tower and altar.
Back on the horses one last time (it had been 5.5 hours in the saddle
already!). We arrived back at the van, sore and tired and wet and
cold - but, boy, it was a fun trip!!
We stopped in Patzcuaro for a delicious dinner of sopa de tarasca and
chicken mole and beer - a meal well-deserved. We rolled into
Morelia at 10:00 and by 10:15, we were in bed. The next day, Don
and the girls were REALLY sore (and Don and Sarah had open wounds on
their butts). Remarkably, Helen was fine. But the NEXT day
she caught up with everyone and we moaned alot as we moved through the
day. Now, exactly one week later, we are moving normally and
three out of the four of us would do it again (with better saddles next
time!).
(Read Sarah's account of the trip here.)
