Nevado de Toluca is an extinct volcano and, according to our guide book, at 15,090 feet is the fifth tallest mountain in Mexico. You can drive to near the rim of the crater, at 13,700, and then hike up and over the rim to two lakes – La Luna (the moon) and El Sol (the Sun).
We got an early start on the 6 hour drive to Toluca. At the entry gates to the park, we saw a sign that seemed to indicate that dogs were not allowed…now what. It was mid afternoon, and we were done with driving for the day. So we decided to attempt to sneak Piper into the park. With a “Piper, lie down, stay” and a inventive use of our reflective windscreen cover, we were through the booth and on the road up to the crater, no one the wiser for our dog’s presence.
As we drove the 12 km or so, dusty, rough road to the crater, we started to see more and more oncoming traffic. We were surprised at how many people were visiting the volcano given that it was a week day. The further we drove, the more cars we saw, until we came around a curve and started to see cars parked along the side of the road, sometimes on both sides, making it almost impossible for us to proceed if we met an oncoming car. So, we played “Mexican stand-off”, eventually making our way to close enough to the top to find a flat spot to camp for the night.
Before long the day visitors had all left and we had the volcano almost to ourselves. We put the furnace on, got into bed, and were looking forward to a quiet night in the cool air.
I was dreaming that I was competing in a high altitude endurance race, and I was winning. My heart was pounding and it was hard to get my breath, but man was I looking fit! I woke up in the camper, my heart still pounding, having to work a bit for each breath and with a mild headache. Ah, crap…the beginnings of altitude sickness (I recognized the symptoms from our time in Nepal in 2012). No surprise…we had gone from an elevation of about 5,300 feet at the lake to 13,700 feet in about 6 hours without any attempt to acclimatize. If we had hiked when we had arrived and then slept at a lower elevation we probably would have been fine, but spending the night there….I could picture our guide Homnath from Nepal shaking his head…what were we thinking!
Derek got some Diamox pills for me. I took them, and tried to go back to sleep. A few hours later Derek, who had been battling a head cold, was starting to feel the affects, so he got up and took some Diamox as well. We woke in the morning, both feeling off, drank some tea, took some more Diamox and decided to give the hike a go and see how it went.
The hike was short, but we could feel the elevation with every step. We got to the rim and looked down on the lakes. “So, what do you think, do you want to hike down to the lake?” “And back up again?” We looked at each other, decided that neither of us felt up to it and so we hiked up along the rim a bit further to get some different views of the lakes below.
The view from where we camped.
Morning clouds in the valley below us.
The smaller lago de luna in the crater.
Lago del sol.
After our hike we drove back down the mountain, this time with much less traffic, the Mexico city crowd likely still on their way out. With Mexico City having a population of about 21 millions people, we have learned that any tourist attraction close to Mexico City is likely to be crowded, weekday or not.
Oh, and the “no dogs allowed”…we saw people walking their dogs along the road, we saw people hiking up the volcano with their dogs….so we are not sure what the sign at the gate was referring to. But, we had Piper practice the “lie down, stay” under the sun screen as we exited the park gates…you never know when having a stealth doggy might come in handy.