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Last night I got an unexpected visit in Xico. Betty and Miguel arrived at my parents place and took me by surprise. Betty’s family is from there and they came to spend the holidays with them.

Today we (Gina, Güero and I) went to La Pitaya, a community in Xalapa’s suburbs. Cova told us that there was a small climbing crag near the river.

We arrived to the end of the road and walked through an incredibly beautiful hill that resembled some swiss alps’ landscape. It was completely covered with a big carpet of grass, trees, some small cabins and (of course) a lot of cows. After walking to the top of the hill, we divised the crag in the middle of a small valley. We walked to its base and spotted 2 fully-equipped sport climbing routes and a crack that followed to the top of the wall, it seemed like a trad route.

I decided to give a try to one of the bolted routes (it seemed like a 5.10 from the ground). Since I haven’t trained for almost 3 weeks (due to my fall while bouldering) and before that I had climbing inactivity for another 10 days, I wanted to test my ankle’s recovering from that painful strain. Fortunately everything went fine .

The route was a bit challenging but very enjoyable. The limestone was very adherent and the holds comfortably enough to pull over small crimps. The route ended having an aproximate difficulty of 5.10+ and for me it was a great return to climbing. Güero seconded the route and agreed at its grade.

A few minutes later, 2 climbers from Xalapa arrived. We introduced ourselves and asked them about the place and other climbing zones in Veracruz. One of them was the actual developer of the zone and he gave us some beta on another potential places for opening routes, including Cerro de los Metates.

By 5 p.m. we started to feel hungry and decided to go for lunch. The landscape was so beutiful and the day so extremely delightful that we couldn’t help but enjoy every bit of it. That’s what life in the mountains is all about, isn’t it? Well, at least in the “mexican alps”…