Day 10&11: Camping

It's been busy and tiring week and it's not over yet. But I've finally sat down to write about my weekend.

Thanks to my house mate Renee my weekend's plans changed completely. She was going with some friends to the Hot air Balloon festival out of town and when she figured they were gonna cap out there, it took me only 10seconds to say yes to her invite.

And so I've packed my backpack in about 3 minutes and was off for an adventure.

Of course, we were not the only people going to the festival; so it took us 3 hours to get there and we weren't actually moving all the time.

Although we did move, unfortunately, on our feet when we had to reach the top of the volcano. Yes, the festival took place inside an old volcano. Sounds amazing, but it was not that great when we had to climb the mountain for an our with our backpacks, tents and water supply on our backs. And the road was 30-45 degree angle. Girls got smart - when we got tired, we walked backwards, which really helped. Still, that walk was not the happiest I've had.

A road and a path lead to a glorious mystery

And you can probably imagine our surprise when we got up the volcano and saw car parking full of cars, who belong to people, who know a "secret" road up.

Nevertheless, the view was worth the tiredness.

We camped inside the crater. It might not look very big, but believe me, it's about 50-60 meters deep. There were lots of tents, fireplaces, smoke (cos it's not that smart to have a fireplace inside a big bowl) and, of course, some balloons. There were mostly lanterns and only two hot air balloons, which were not operated by very skilled people. But nevertheless, the food court was great (at least in the evening) and we did have some good time.

Honestly, the festival wasn't that great. It wasn't well organised, because it was more of a mass camping and food place than a lantern and balloon festivity. Although there was one stage with music.

At some points of that night I did regret going there. But I did miss the cold (Mexico is such a stable-weather city) and I did get it - it was around 2-5 degrees Celsius that night and I was really happy I took my snowboarding jacket to Mexico. Drinking tea or coffee wasn't an option to get warm, because the toilets were the place where you only go once. I mean, I'm OK with extruding the tea into a hole in the ground topped with a wooden apple box, but the "door" was a curtain. And I had to pay. So as I said - the less drinking the better.

Looks like volcano woke up. But then I remembered I am in the crater, so it can't be.

But at end of it all, I'm glad I went. I mean, how may people can say that they've been camping in the volcano in Mexico? Now I can.

It's over and we've heading down hill