July « 2005 « www.arareko.net

So tired…

Saturday was a exhausting day, even though some things couldn’t be done… The morning was a normal “work” day, but by the evening things began to get intense.

Beto and I managed to completely burn our arm’s muscles by trying to link a strenuous boulder traverse at Chiluca. It was only 15 m long, but I’m sure the whole thing is harder as 5.12

After that, we were supposed to continue our new running trail towards Villa Alpina, but my uncle had a problem with his car at the México-Puebla highway so Beto had to run to aid him.

By the night, we arrived to Aunt Yola’s apartment to attend some “opening party”. As you can imagine, we were the guys putting disorder into the place. We drank a lot, talked about climbing, listened good music and as always, had lots of fun!

Today I woke up with some minor hangover and a thrashed body, the fruits of so much excitement…

Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?

I found at Mancha‘s blog a test made for geeks like us. I couldn’t resist to answer it and my result was:

Elrond

A stern yet benevolent organizer who often knows best, your wits are keenly fixed on aiding efforts you deem worthy.

“Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril to Mordor.”

Elrond is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. TheOneRing.net has a short biography.

Link: Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?

Watercolor Patagonia

My friend Jana made this watercolor paint from a picture that I took last year in Patagonia:

The place is the woods below Huemul Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina. On both sides of the paint you can see the painter’s essential tools: her pencils (to the left) and a mate gourd (to the right), just for relaxing… You can see my original picture here to compare. I suggest you to take a look into Jana’s gallery, she has a lot of paintings and they’re really good!

It’s great to know that my photographs inspire other people’s minds. Thanks a lot for the gift Jana!

Mud shoes

Beto and I went running to the trail near Güero’s place.

This time we started a bit more late than required, so night caught us up in the mountain. Running downhill over mud seemed like a pretty fun & dangerous proposal, but we didn’t had much choice…

Fortunately, after some scrambling in the woods we were able to get back into the main road, just to finish the adventure exhausted and with our shoes full of mud…

Wanted dead or alive

Unbelievable! I found my passport in this link that Mau sent me this morning. It seems like some government is watching us very closely…

If you see this beast don’t feed it and keep away! It’s armed and is dangerous!!

Xico = pueblo quieto?

If we had planned it before, perhaps we couldn’t have achieved it. We simply chose the worst day to return to the city…

Yesterday was Xico’s most crowded and crazy event, the Xiqueñada. The main street was closed and prepared for the well-known primitive fest of being chased by bulls (like in Spain and other places of México). I don’t see the point of it, but this post is not to talk about that…

This post is to protest about the car jam that we had to suffer for getting our arses out of the town in the late afternoon. 1 hour of traffic just to cover the 5 kilometers that separate Xico from Coatepec? It was like a “normal” day in México City! An event only worthy of Dante’s Hell! Fortunately, this is supposed to happen “only” in this day of the year… Pueblo quieto, huh?

Inside the clouds…

Sun, clouds, rain… sun, clouds, rain… This is the weather’s cycle here in Xico. We’ve been covered by clouds for multiple times these 2 days. Clouds come in, drop their water and disintegrate, just to leave the bright sun evaporate everything and get it back to the atmosphere. Sticky business…

Güero and I went for another trail run this morning. He took me to a very beautiful new trail inside the jungle, which reminded me of Agua Blanca‘s landscape. We ran about 16 km, mostly downhill and flat but with a hell of a view!

Street rugs

Xico’s festival is just getting better today. Since very early in the morning, most of the locals got together to draw about 1 km of carpets using colored sawdust. The main street of this small town looked really beautiful.

Despite the strong rain that fell this afternoon (which washed away most of the work), most of the people got together “again” to redraw it! Stubborn people…

Hills full of fireflies…

Another exhausting day. We had too much work at my father’s business, but everyone had their reward at the end of the day.

Güero and I went running to a different route than the usual (Xico-Tlalchi-Xico). This route takes a dirt road that begins from the west side of Xico and goes higher than the other one. It was around 9 p.m. and it had rained the whole afternoon, the road was totally wet. The sky was still cloudy but the almost full moon was clearly visible. The grassy hills surrounding us were crowded with cows and a great number of fireflies. It looked like some dream, a very beautiful night!

We ran 8 km uphill with it’s respective 8 km descent. It took us about 1 ½ hours to do the whole route. We returned to Xico, took a bath and had a delicious dinner. We’ll see what tomorrow brings to us…

6 months

This was a rough day. First, I woke up by 6 a.m. for climbing some laps at the university campus with Beto, then we bought our traditional mocha coffee at Coyoacán and headed back to my home for preparing the truck for today’s trip.

By 2:30 p.m., the truck was completely full of every thing that my father has asked me to take. My mother and I closed the house and headed to pick up Arturo at Av. Reforma. We seemed like some gipsy family on the road (too many things inside and outside the van! ).

It has been 6 months since the last time I was here. We’re in Xico visiting my father, Gina & Güero. We’re going to stay here the whole week to help them with the sales and with some database development for the new family business. Things are getting exciting around here…