Day 174. México, creo en ti

México, creo en ti, porque nací de tí,
como la flama es compendio del fuego y de la brasa,
porque me puse a meditar que existes,
en el sueño y materia que me forman,
y en el delirio de escalar montañas.

I spent a good time of the day cleaning my parents’ house of the junk that we three children had left behind in the course of our travels. Mercifully I found a stack of old photos and that gave me a perfect excuse to avoid cleaning duty. Among them were assorted photos that I took when I traveled throughout Mexico as a backpacker in my misguided youth.

I remember, for example, the stark beauty of northern Mexico, with its vast deserts, alpine mountain ranges, and eerie coasts. The Baja California Peninsula is one of the most desolate places I have ever been, but there are few views more exhilarating than that first look of the Mar de Cortes, with its incredibly blue waters lapping unto the harsh peninsular desert. I understand that Mexico is now investing a lot of money in enhancing or creating 18 “stops” along both coasts of the Gulf, to promote tourism, marinas for sailboats, and ports of call for big cruise ships. I think it is a good idea, both to share with others its beauty and to inject a shot of prosperity to the region.

Another unique area of northern Mexico is the Sierra Madre Occidental, an almost impenetrable volcanic mountain range that separates the western coastal region from the central altiplano. You may have heard of the famous train ride from Chihuahua to the Pacific, through El Cañon del Cobre. Alas, I have never taken this train ride, but once I took a rural bus from Parral to the heart of the Tarahumara region, in the heart of the Sierra, to visit the even more remote and impressive Cañon de la Sinforosa, which in extent and beauty sees eye to eye with the Grand Canyon. It was a beautiful but hellish trip, and I still wonder how that rickety bus managed the almost inexistent trail. Many years later I worked as a geologist in the Sierra Madre Occidental, prospecting for uranium for CFE (Mexico’s Power Company), and had the opportunity of discovering many other fabulous (and scary) scenic spots in this province, which is a treasure trove of natural resources for modern Mexico.

Moving farther east, but still in northern Mexico, I must make a stop in the Sierra Madre Oriental, Mexico’s eastern cordillera, and its power hub, the city of Monterrey. To start with the geology, the Sierra Madre Oriental is a folded mountain belt, dominated by Mesozoic carbonate sequences. When I was a geology student in UNAM, Mexico’s National University, we had the contract of doing quadrangle mapping for PEMEX, Mexico’s Petroleum Company. Nobody in PEMEX had much confidence on the work of a bunch of whippersnappers, but we proved that many eyes could find things that their own exploration teams could not. I remember, painfully, the many injuries inflicted by the sharp thorns of the desert plants in the calves of innocent geology students. Monterrey, la Ciudad de las Montañas, holds many dear memories for me and my family. We lived there when I was a little kid (3 to 7 years old), so I have very fuzzy early memories of running amok in the very arid hills that seemed to start at our backyard (more than once me and my brother were at the brink of dehydration!). I came back to Monterrey many years later, again as a student of geology, to stare in awe at the magnificent folds that form the Cañon de la Huasteca. Another memory belongs to my daughter Faby and her husband DJ, who spent together five happy years in Monterrey, where she completed her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. Finally, I will mention that my brother and his family have made their life in the nearby city of Monclova, and that my nephew Armando, his wife Monica, and their 9-month old son Armandito call Monterrey home. Isn’t he a darn cute baby?

Central Mexico is a land blessed by the good God, from its beautiful western coast (I will put my money on Puerto Vallarta over any other coastal resort in the world), through its beautiful central altiplano, to the spicy and lively eastern coast (Veracruz is still the most popular destination for national tourists). The altiplano is host to some of Mexico’s most beautiful cities including, from west to east, Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro, and Puebla, to say nothing of la Ciudad de los Palacios—our crazy but always interesting Mexico City. Central Mexico is a volcanic heartland, and it was here that I cut my teeth as a mountaineer and geologist climbing the beautiful volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, to name but the two most famous. The photo is from a 19th century painting by Mexico’s foremost landscape artist, José María Velasco, who found much inspiration in these volcanoes.


I could go on for pages dreaming about my early travels through Mexico, but I will close this entry with two final thoughts. First, southern Mexico is a world of its own, with impenetrable and misty jungles, ancient temples, rugged mountains, dreamy coasts, and fabulous people. Second, don’t take my word for it; come and see this wonderland by yourself!

Day 173. Home, Sweet Home

It has taken me forever to finish the last few entries in this diary. On one hand it is the effect of being in my childhood home, which is full of clutter and memories. On the other hand, everything is so familiar that it is hard to find the little quirks that make travel so interesting. For once life is easy, so I don’t have to struggle when I go to the store or the bank.

My parents, Ma y Papo as we have called them since childhood, live in a futuristic urbanization north of Mexico City called Ciudad Satélite. We moved here 48 years ago, when a new concept on planned communities was being promoted by a visionary land developer.

We started by renting one of the very few houses that had been built. Three years later they had the current house built, again one of the very few in our block, and for the last 45 years have seen the city go from the enclave of a few hardy pioneers who were willing to live in the sticks, to a booming fashionable neighborhood of young professional couples, the playground of juniors with fancy cars, and now almost a senior citizen community (property values have increased considerably, so no young couples can afford to buy a house in what is now one of the most desirable communities).

Living in Ciudad Satélite was quite an adventure, because there were very few bus lines, so the pioneer families were very isolated. I remember crossing through empty fields to go the park or the supermarket (but we had lots of beautiful parks and the first true supermarket in Mexico), and my mother had to make a long bus excursion to pick us up from school (my Dad drove us to school in Mexico City early in the morning all the way through Junior High School). We children adored our bicycles, and had hundreds of miles of track in the built—but almost empty—streets of the early city. Later, when I attended High School and University, I left home around 5:30 in the morning, to hitch a ride at the main highway and try to make it to my first class at 7:00 am. It is from this time that I developed the habit of waking early in the morning.

Alas, all has changed now. The city is fully built, and is a hub of commerce for the whole region. Traffic flow is excellent, due to the fabulous planning of the original developers, but the parking lots of the mega malls are packed with cars. Shopping is a beloved activity by residents and visitors, who in very Mexican fashion dress up to enjoy the window shopping experience. My mother cynically tells me that the biggest money makers are the pharmacies, who cater to the many requirements of an aging population (every Mexican is a born doctor, and generously dispenses advice about this or that wonder medicine for whatever ails you, and since Tia Rosita is much more trustworthy than that young whippersnapper of a doctor in the clinic, the consumption of medicines reaches stratospheric proportions).

And how to resist the food? We Mexicans have an inbred fear that we will starve to death, so we live with the constant preoccupation about what we will have to eat at the next meal. That means that my parents stocked up with my favorite foods and munchies (cactus, mushrooms, anchovies, oysters, lamb, pork, fruit, etc.), and that as soon as we finished breakfast we had to tackle the serious issue of what would there be for lunch, and immediately after lunch we had to start thinking about dinner. The highlight of this eating extravaganza was the rare finding of “huauzontles” in the supermarket. This is an edible weed, which looks like any old weed but ends in a thick cluster of small buds. I think it is harvested before the buds bloom. To prepare them you strip off the leaves, steam the stems and clusters for a few minutes with onion and spices, bundle several of the clusters around some cheese, and tie the bundle together with a length of very thin string. The bundles are rolled in flower, submerged in egg batter, and fried lightly. Finally, the bundles are cooked in a spiced tomato sauce for a few minutes, and voila! To eat them you cut the string with sharp scissors, peel off one of the sticks, and with your teeth strip off the buds in an elegant and flowing motion. De-le-cious!

Day 172. Airport stories

Rats! The flight from Honolulu was terribly delayed because of a mechanical malfunction. It was a movie like takeoff in which, at the last moment, the turbines were cutoff and the plane returned to the gate. Long wait and at the end they had to move all the passengers to a new plane. The result was that most people missed their connecting flights and I burnt out the precious hours I was planning to spend with my daughter. I did see Faby, for about one hour, before boarding the plane to Mexico City.




She surprised me with her very short hairdo, and she brought me up to date on the comings and goings of herself, DJ her husband, the three canines (Angelik, Girl, and Scarlett), and the three cats (Gato 1, Gato 2, and Gato 3). I am glad to report that everyone is doing well, but I have been forewarned that Girl, my Golden Lab, is a pig that wolves down the food from all three bowls, so I need to put her on a diet as soon as I get back.

The flight to Mexico City was uneventful (but I really don’t like flying with United, which treats passengers like cattle, in stark contrast with the royal treatment lavished by Malaysian or Philippines Airlines). The Mexico City airport is beautiful and enormous, but there are three exit doors, and one can never be certain which one will be assigned to your flight. In my case it didn’t matter, because nobody was expecting me, so I darted out of the crowd (have you noticed the infuriating custom of some people to stop precisely at the door to wave to their families?) and was ready to disappear when I heard someone calling my name. It was my Mom! She and my Dad had been waiting for nearly 5 hours at the airport, scanning all arriving flights from San Francisco, eager to welcome their wayward son. My Mom was at one of the arrival gates, my Dad at another, and the third one was left to God the Almighty. Both of them had eyes teary from the strain of scanning the faces of hundreds of passengers, but it was a joyful reunion nonetheless :)

Day 171. Back to Hilo and on the way to Mexico

An excellent idea to rent a cabin! It rained all night, and pretty hard, but I was as dry and warm as ein Kucheltier. I did linger at breakfast, not sure I wanted to spend the day driving under the rain, but my flight did not leave until 4 pm, and I felt guilty wasting half a day that could otherwise be devoted to seeing something new.

So I went down to Hilo, with the intention of finding the charm that so many tourists find in Hawaii. Fortunately the sun made its appearance, so I was treated to the brilliant green of the east coast, its rivers, and the occasional waterfall.



Hilo is a quaint town, and in the 1930’s was the in place to visit. And then it was hammered by a couple of tsunamis, which did much damage because of the funnel-shape of the bay, and the relatively flat profile of the shore. Since then tsunamis have been very much in the conscience of the city inhabitants, who give me the impression to be ready to pickup and go at a moment’s notice. They have a very nice, albeit small, Tsunami Museum, and the old town is still formed by rickety wood buildings of post-1975 vintage. But it is a quaint town, with lots of artsy people and beach bums, reminiscent in some ways of Key West or Isla Mujeres.



Finally the time came to take my commuter flight to Honolulu, and in about an hour I will be boarding the flight to San Francisco. I will have a 5 hour layover in San Francisco and then will continue forward to Mexico. I look forward to seeing Faby at the San Francisco airport, but have mixed feelings about this layover. Since I have come back to the Bay Area, does this mean that I have indeed completed my tour around the world?

Then again, Mexico is a beautiful country well worth writing about. I think I will keep this journal going until Day 180. It would be a pity to stop being so close to the goal I had set for myself.

Day 170. Kilauea Iki

Hmm, the day looks threatening. Maybe I should concentrate on nearby trails.

Fortunately there were a few very interesting things to look at near Park Headquarters. First and foremost is the Kilauea caldera itself. A caldera is a depression formed by the caving in of the roof of a magma reservoir. In other words, it is a huge hole in the ground, much larger than any crater. In the 1920’s the Kilauea caldera was flooded with magma, and literally looked like a cauldron from hell. But eruptions in the caldera are rare in comparison with eruptions along one of the two rift zones. I could thus consider myself lucky in that a vent opened at the side of the caldera early in the year, and although no magma has erupted, the vent is disgorging massive amounts of steam. Pretty cool!

At the far east side of the caldera is a large crater, Kilauea Iki, which saw a renewed phase of activity in 1959. In a matter of a few weeks a large volume of lava was erupted, and the old crater filled with yet another lava lake. The level of the lava lake rose and fell as the eruption proceeded, and at the end filled the 800-foot deep crater with nearly 400 ft of lava (leaving behind a neat “bathtub ring” that is nearly 50 ft high). The trail runs along the rim of the crater, passes near a cool lava tube (outside the crater), and finally descends into the now solidified lava lake. Weird to think that you are walking over what used to be a vast inferno as only Dante could have imagined.

No sooner had I returned to the car that the clouds burst into irregular showers. I hung around for an hour or so, and then went looking for drier climates toward the southeast. This time I followed the crest of one of the “pali”, and was gratifyingly rewarded by a rainbow over the lowlands.
Tomorrow I need to take the flight to San Francisco and then Mexico, so I think I will treat myself to a dry cabin, instead of braving the elements in my little tent (which so far has been wonderful and water tight).

Day 169 (Sunday July 27). The Puna Coast

Today I went to the southeast side of the island, on what is called the Puna Coast. On the distance I had some nice views of huge steam clouds at both Pu’u O’o (the vent along the side of Kilauea) and Kalapana (where the lava is entering the ocean).

The highlight of the day was going over the series of fault scarps, or pali, that are the crown scarps of gigantic slide blocks that have downdropped the southeastern flank of Kilauea volcano into the ocean. This sliding must have happened several thousands of years ago (maybe 25,000 years ago?), because the scarps are mantled or draped over by innumerable lava flows.

A repeat of such landsliding would be of great concern to all the inhabitants of the Pacific rim, because the sudden volume change in the ocean basin would almost certainly trigger a train of devastating tsunami waves. One could regard it as Hawaii’s revenge on all those tsunami waves that have battered it from the Aleutians, Japan, and Chile. Before crying doomsday, however, one should keep in mind that the southeast flank of Kilauea is being buttressed by a growing submarine volcano, Loihi, which currently is still 3,000 ft under sea level. Or could it be the added weight of Loihi that caused the massive landsliding to begin with?

I enjoyed myself enormously looking at the fault scarps, and for once thought that maybe Hawaiian geology is not as boring as I had first imagined.

Down in the plain formed by the lavas that spilled down over the pali is an interesting archaeologic site. For no reason that was obvious to me, this site has been selected by the native Hawaiians as a “family record”. Over generations some families have selected an area, and have carved in the rock small hollows where the umbilical cord of newborns is deposited (I imagine to be eaten by the birds). And since they were there, and probably found time heavy, over the years they added designs and graffiti that now amount to a nice set of petroglyphs.

I finished the day with a visit to the East Rift Zone of Kilauea. I may have mentioned that Hawaiian volcanoes have the shape of an enormous croissant, and that under their immense weight they slowly spread out, tearing themselves apart. These tears, or rift zones, follow the “horns” of the croissant, and it is along them that most eruptions take place. To take the analogy one step further, imagine that you pour warm honey on the horn of a croissant; the honey would flow down at right angles from the length of the croissant, along the steepest slope. This is exactly what lava flows do in Hawaiian volcanoes, so the vent is on the rift zone—like Pu’u O’o—but the lava flow finds the shortest and steepest way to the ocean—like in Kalapana.

Nobody can get to Pu’u O’o without authorization, but I was able to visit its older sister, Mauna Ulu, which fed extensive lava flows in the 1970’s. Despite the 40 years elapsed, the ground around Mauna Ulu is still a desert, the lava flows are barren of all vegetation, and Mauna Ulu itself is surrounded by steam vents. A great place to imagine oneself in a barren moonscape.

Day 168. Captain James Cook

A rest day seemed like a good idea, so instead of hiking around I took the car and headed to the west of the island, toward Kona. Big in my list was a visit to Kealakekua Bay, to touch historical base with another one of my heroes, Captain James Cook. Cook was the most distinguished sea explorer of the 18th century, and in his three voyages between 1760 and 1779 charted much of the South Atlantic, Australia, the Circum-Antarctic Ocean (but he never reached Antarctica), the South Pacific, and the west coast of North America. Unfortunately, on his third stop in Hawaii he offended the local inhabitants and was killed in Kealakekua Bay. This sad event is commemorated by a small monument in a practically inaccessible portion of the bay, and by the name of a non-descript community of vacation chalets, and I don’t think the locals give it a second thought. Pity.

Kona is supposed to be on the leeside or dry side of the island, but the rain came in torrents as I drove through it. It is not a particularly attractive area, and unless you happen to have a vacation rental there isn’t really much to do here.

On the way back I drove to South Point, dubbed “the southernmost point in the United States”. It is a pretty but wind-swept area of grasslands, dotted with rusting wind mills (leftovers of past attempts to harvest eolian energy).

I took a long walk along the coast, in search of the mythical green sand beach. I couldn’t find it, either because I didn’t walk far enough along the wave-battered cliffs or because wave erosion has carried it away, but I had a good time braving the elements.