La Malinche

On the last Sunday of 2018 I did an amazing mountaineering tour with my friends from Puebla Fabi, Checo, Diego and Anka. We climbed the mountain Malinche, an inactive volcano with a height of approximately 4,440 meters and thus the sixth highest mountain in Mexico.

We started early in the morning with a two-hour drive from Puebla to spend the whole day in the National Park "La Malinche". For the first few hours we spent the ascent in the forest, before we had the choice between a sandy slope or a rockier one with more vegetation. Weather conditions were perfect this day, we brought more than enough lunch and we were all very happy to spend the day out in the nature. For me it was the first time climbing a mountain of more than 3,000 m. I didn't have a problem with climbing this mountain, but I got a headache after we had reached the summit which didn't stop until we got back home in the evening. So it was also the first time I felt mountain sickness.

From the peak of the Malinche we had wonderful views. We could see the Citlaltépetl / Pico de Orizaba, with 5,636 m the highest mountain in Mexico. It's a currently dormant volcano and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico. Furthermore we could see the volcanoes Popocatépetl (Popo, the Smoking Mountain) and Iztaccíhuatl (Izta, White Woman / Sleeping Woman) which overlook the Valley of Mexico. There exist various myths explaining their existence. Especially in the winter the Popo often smokes and so it did just at the moment we reached the top of the Malinche.