We didn't have class last Thurday, so some friends & I decided to go hiking in Nevado de Toluca. At 4,600 m (15,390 ft), the Nevado de Toluca is one of Mexico's highest volcano. It offers one of the best intermediate hike in Mexico.
We thought that having a free day during the week was the perfect occasion, as the place is apparently crowded during the weekend.
We left CDMX at around 6:30 -yes, that was early- but since the drive is quite long and the sun sets early, it kinda was mandatory in order to have penty of sunlight for the hike.
When we arrived at the parking lot, we had breakfast at some local restaurant (I got sick because of the Tlacoyo I ate there so I highly discourage you to do the same!). Since we felt all energized and motivated, we decided to do the whole Nevado the Toluca hike (17K), but for those who are a bit lazy, it is possible to drive close to the top, park your car and only do a 2K hike to the lakes.
The Coatepec Harinas (35K) sounded quite nice as well, but since it's very snowy up there, you need to have a special equipment. Maybe next time !
What I really liked about this hike is that the landscape changed a lot along the way. First, we could see a lot of trees and we were under their shade. It was beautiful !
Then, after 5K, we left the path within the trees and had a great view of the area. I loved the contrast between the sky and the ground!
A bit further away, we started to spot some snow.
After 15K we reached the second parking and had a little break. Unfortunately, the sun had dissapeared and temperatures lowered drastically. We were close to the top (almost 4000m high) but we had to walk/climb the hardest part of the hike.
The photo below doesn't really show it, but the mountain was REALLY steep. Because of the altitude, going up became quite hard and I was loosing my breath after each steps!
Finally, we reached the 2 crater lakes: Lago del Sol (the largest) and Lago de la Luna (the smallest but deepest one). A this point of the trip, we were very happy we wore warm clothes!
The view was amazing but what I liked the most was the silence. It was so powerful and relaxing. When living in Mexico, you don't get to listen to the sound of silence often so I enjoyed it A LOT ;)
There were plenty of flowers as well, called Rosa de las nieves. I found them funny because they look dead! But they fit perfectly in this cold landscape.
For the way back, we were actually way too tired to go all the way down by walking so we asked some of the people who were there if they could drive us back to our car! The road was really damaged so it took us around 30min to reach the parking. I admit I slept during the way back, that was a tough but great day!