Ceboruco- Hiking up a Volcano

Yet another very delayed retelling of a February weekend adventure. This time, the Alamedas and Castillos (and Wendy, obviously) were off to Ceboruco, a volcano a few hours outside of Tepic. (Warning, I took an overabundance of photos with obnoxious arm positions that day, eg the classic CLAIM pose).

To start the day off with a hearty breakfast we ate at Borrego's, a ranchero type restaurant on the side of the highway heading to Guadalajara. It consisted mainly of carne asada, tortillas, quesadillas, queso panela, all your typical filling and scrumptious Mexican country breakfast components.

Yumm. As you can see, I couldn't even wait to take a photo before taking the first bite

In order to get to Ceboruco, you have to go through a small town called Jala. You then drive up the incline of the volcano for about an hour to reach the top of the road. However, the Alamedas had brought their quad, and so about 15 minutes up the path to the volcano, they unloaded the quad and their son Diego and I set off (in a much more diverting way than the car, if you ask me!).

About three-quarters up the hill, we stopped at a little campsite with fumaroles. Basically, it was a hill with stones emitting large amounts of hot steam. Iliana put a little snack into a cranny in the rock to heat it up, while the rest of us took the requisite epic photographs with the steaming hill as the backdrop. It was a pretty sweet camping spot, I wouldn't mind staying there. You wouldn't even have to bring an oven! A few pieces of hot pudding cake and hundreds of photos later, we continued on up the hill.

This was very, very hot on our bums

Am I attempting a dancer's pose while holding
 my puddiing cake? Why yes, I am indeed.

At the top we took family photos on the lava rocks, and then set off on foot to climb into the volcano's crater. We walked through forests, across fields and down a hill before finally coming to the official crater of the volcano. Then because Johannes and I felt the urge to climb up the other side and watch the sun set across Nayarit (it was a pretty sweet view), up we went! This climb was a little bit more treacherous, and we ended up grabbing onto the least aggressive cacti and trees for balance. But when we got to the top the view was absolutely worth it- gorgeous!

Not sure why, but I felt the need to climb to the top of the rock pile. Man I miss hiking :)

View of the crater from the top

The descent was even more iffy (more so for Johannes who bravely brought his camera along and therefore only had one hand to grab things). As the sun was setting we made our way back to the car as quickly as we could. No one had thought to bring a flashlight so the last stretch was a bit of an
adventure!




Down the volcano we went, through Jala, and then to a small town called Ixtlan del Rio. Which, (according to Pepe) has the best ice cream in the world. Unfortunately, as we arrived at 9 pm, the ice cream shop was closed. So we settled instead for fried chicken dishes at this roadside stall, which also apparently had quite the reputation in the state of Nayarit. It was a little transportable shack, but it had been there since 1920! I'm not sure we had worked hard enough to deserve the fried chicken enchiladas and spicy pepper and chicken soup we consumed, but in any case it was a delicious end to the trip.

Yet another fantastic day, thanks to our awesome host families who have taken it upon themselves to start showing us the wonders surrounding our little city. I have to say, for the first bit of exchange I was pretty disappointed because I'd expected to travel more, to see more of Mexico. But finally I'm being shown various locations, and each one amazes me and makes me fall more in love with this country.


Stay cool as a cucumber,

Wendy