Parícutin

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The Parícutin volcano popped out of the ground at a farmer’s feet just 75 years ago. Photos document the entire thing, from just burbling out of the ground, to a 1,400 foot cone nine years later. We’ve visited here a couple of times in the past, have thought about hiking up the volcano, but always end up hanging around in the lava field instead, visiting the old church that was the lone, partial, survivor of the nearby town.

The drive winds through the village of Angahuan to get to the parking lot where we leave for the hike down to the lava field. Dirt, horses—a virtually 100% authentic Purépecha town.

Just below the church in a clearing is our favorite part of coming here—tacos, quesadillas, and cold beer.

This visit we caved in and got horses to take us back up the hill. We negotiated a price with the man standing around there, hopped on our horses, and then began to trot off when four young boys came out of nowhere and replaced the man. The boys’ jobs were really just to lead the horses to the top and ride them back down afterwards, but nothing can make you feel like more of a privileged gringo than sitting majestically atop your steed as a ten-year-old walks alongside your horse. I feel that way even though I realize these families make their living off of Mexican tourists, not us few gringos that come along. It’s just my Norte Americano gringo guilt rearing its ugly head.

There’s a park back at the top of the hill where the kids quickly gravitated to the most dangerous activity they could find. Not content to sit on the swing, they would rather run full speed off of the hill just hanging on to the ropes.

And back out of town, another interesting and fun day in the books.

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9 Comments on “Parícutin”

  1. Thanks for all the posts recently! Lots of great pictures.

    Is there a reason why your site is so slow? Hitting the main page can take 20 seconds!

    1. I just ran a speed test using 3 different companies and got top 70-80% in all of them. I’m sure there is plenty I could do to make it even better, but optimizing web speed isn’t very high on my list of expertise.

      1. Oh well. I’m coming in from Sacramento, California on Comcast, and the site really is slow. Don’t know why! Thanks for checking.

  2. I’m old, and one of my favorite vacation memories is when my dad took a toy bow and arrow and shot a rope up into a very tall pine tree to make us a swing. Your kid’s memories like these are going to stay with them forever. Especially the dangerous ones.

    1. No. It’s bare. You can see it in the first picture, and again through the trees as we are hiking down to the lava field.

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