Merry Christmas

Hola everyone!

This is how my dad, Louis-Guy, Manu and I spent our Christmas Eve: We drove to a nearby volcanoe, just outside of Toluca (80km west of Mexico City). It's called Nevado de Toluca. It's Mexico's fourth highest volcanoe, with it's highest peak at 4,680 m. In the Nahuatl language it's called: "Xinantécatl", meaning "Naked Man". There is a dirt road that goes nearly to the top. Then you have to hike up 30 mins to the ridge. From the ridge you can see the 2 crater lakes: The Moon Lake, and the Sun Lake. They are at about 4,200 m. The view is beautiful. Oxygen was limited, especially for my dad who had just flown in from Montreal the day before, an altitude of around 30 m above sea level! So a jump from 30m to 4000m is quite drastic in a period of 48 hours. I was told that it takes a human body about 6 months to fully acclimatize to Mexico City's elevation of 2400m. Dad went back to the car because it was cold and out of breath. Manu and I decided to hike down to the two crater lakes. It was an 1.5 hour hike. There were cows below and it started to snow, actually it was more like hail than snow flakes. By the time we reached the car, we were very cold and tired. Arrived at around 6pm, napped, and prepared our Christmas dinner: Vegetarian tourtiere, Strawberry shortcake and wine. It was delicious.