Happy Birthday Janet..Wednesday 28th January..

My lovely sister in law is now 60 ish and I want to wish her a great Birthday.  I sure enjoyed seeing you in Mexico and showing you around.

Hope you had a great day, lots of love to you.  Who is that strange man in the photo following you??

8.00 am and there is my guide for the day, Anastario, and my horse Bud!

There was some preliminary preparations made before I embarked on this 6 hour trip.  Won’t bore you with the details but they did include wearing my spandex reffing shorts, a good quantity of Vaseline and Johnson’s baby powder and a big towel!!!

Off we went with me hanging on for dear life.

Bud and I are at the end of this rope.

Mexico is the world’s leading producer of avocados and Uruapan is the avocado capitol of Mexico.  We passed by thousands of trees from a few feet high to over 35 feet high.

We continued our quest to the base of the volcano notice all the black lava dust. That is where we are heading, it looks pretty high to me!!

After about 2 hours we reached the base of the volcano and this is as far as the horses go so they get to rest but nothing for them to eat.

Up we go on foot, see the steam coming from the rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rock was hot to the touch and steam was coming over my hand.

Are we there yet??  I don’t think so..

These rocks are white from the steam.

We are almost at the cross.

Made it!!!!  I am now on the top rim of one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.  How many people can boast about that??

Looking down into the belly of the volcano.

It was definitely time for lunch and a drink. The 8th natural wonder of the world….Malt Loaf!!

This is an interesting photo the two peaks in the distance are two more volcanos outside the town of Colima, many miles away and actually I have driven past these volcanos on a previous trip years ago.

We then walked all the way around the rim.

Now at the very top.

I reckon the climb up took us about 45 minutes but little did I know that going down would  take less than 5 minutes.  This is the closest to volcano skiing I have ever done.  The ash is so soft we just slipped and skied our way down, it was like snowboarding without the board!!  FUN!!!

  This is the way we came down nearly 1400 feet.

Back onto the horses and the way down the mountain and then to find the church buried in the lava. The first sight… Just enjoy these following photos of the steeple and the altar.

The colours and designs are still very clear.

The steeple on the left was not destroyed by the lava in fact it was never finished when the church was built over 350 years ago.

 

What an incredible experience this was.

6 hours later we were back at the camp and here is the 9th natural wonder of the world!!

This truly was one of those days that goes right into the memory bank of very special events and I am so glad that I was able to be a witness to an incredible natural feat.

Said my goodbyes and got back through the village without any major hassles.

When the villagers evacuated their towns before being swallowed up by lava they moved 30 miles away and formed a new town called San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro.  I had heard about the special church in this town and figured I was up for another adventure and set out to find this town.

My brother would be proud of me followed the maps and found the town without one single wrong turn. The entrance to the town.

This 20th century church is very beautiful. The murals inside the church depicting the volcano.

Now I have in my travels been in some very unusual and interesting churches but never one like this before.

I followed these people into the church and now wait for it….

the tradition here is of dancing up the church’s centre aisle to approach the alter.  Two steps forward and one step back, they just glide up to the dance of their own drummer.  I followed these people up the aisle,  two steps forward one step back.  It was just like they were dancing along and it took a little while to make it to the altar. It was just out of this world!!!!

Would this incredible day never end?

Now back on the highway down to the west coast I came across La Tzararacua. This is a park with a huge waterfall.  My book tells me I have to climb down 557 steps to see the waterfall, this will be my first task in the morning.

Decided it is safe and quiet here to stay the night so after a bumpy two days Ramona can rest.

I still had one soccer ball left and found these little kids at the camp that looked like they could have some fun. So ends a day of great memories hope you enjoy this post as much as I did making it for you, blessings…