Nevado de Toluca - Toluca Volcano

So we went to the Volcano, and WOW, is it impresive! We got so many great photos!! This place is beautiful! And high up there!! You really could tell the difference in the air when you breath, there is far less oxygen at 14,000 feet, and you run out of breath very quickly. And it was so immense, the pictures can't even capture the magnitude of this place. It reminds you how small we really are! The highest peak around the crater is at about 15,300 ft, and the crater floor is at about 13,800 feet (where we were at). There are 2 lagoons in the crater, Laguna del Sol and Laguna de la Luna, they are about 45 feet deep or so. We heard you can SCUBA dive in them, but we are not sure. If we did, we would need some serious cold water equipment, because the temp ranges from 35 to 44 degrees F. It was pretty chilly up there, but we were fortunate enough to have a sunny day.

Here is the view starting up the volcano. We are at about 8500 feet in the valley of Toluca. We have a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains everyday!


Here is the view of the volcano from across the valley about half way up. You can see the line across the mountain, that’s the one-lane dirt road. We are still about a half hour drive away from that point, and a few thousand feet down.


This is just a cool rock formation! There were lots!


Here we are on the precipice! You can see the mountain bikers ahead of us and the thousand foot drop down to those tiny little trees down there!! Most of the road won’t fit two cars at one time, one car has to pull over when they can and wait for the other to pass. This isn’t a high traffic area, so it wasn’t too difficult, but it was interesting, to say the least!


This is just a killer view of the valley below. We are above the clouds, and it is spectacular!


This is the view back across the valeey from where we just came from.


We are now inside the crater, and this is the view of the slope of the crater. It is a Where's Waldo game, can you find the people hiking up the crater? Trust me, they are there!


Race is practicing to be a toll operator as you will see.



A L T O !!!!


Trienta pesos por favor.


Muchas gracias! Pasen con permiso.


This was just an awesome shot of the crater with the reflection in the Laguna del Sol.

At long last, our boxes 'o stuff!!

For those of you who have been previously following the saga of the shipment of our personal goods from home to here, at long last, we have receive the boxes. Well, 7 of the 8, anyway! We shipped them at the end of August, and more than 2 months later we finally received authorization to obtain our things. It has been quite a struggle to obtain our items from Mexican customs, as many of you have heard, but we have finally prevailed. Well, mostly anyway, we didn't get everything, and what we did receive was obtained not without lots of sweat, blood, and tears.

Anyway, Race is happy that he has some of his cool toys! The Quad is a definitely favorite! As seen below, he is well on his way to being a stuntman. He is able to get on the Quad and press the button to go, but turning is still a struggle, we need a bit more practice in that area. And sometimes he inadvertently presses the button while he is standing next to it, and it takes off with him still holding on. We all find it quite comical, including him, phew!







Another favorite pastime is emptying the cupboard of all the pots and pans. He loves it! And sometimes he might even help you put all of them back, but that isn’t as fun. They make a lot of noise when they fall as you can see from the action shot, the pan hasn’t hit the ground yet.