Joel and Alison's Excellent Adventures Part 2

Mexico Volcanoes January – February 2026

Today was the official start of the trip and after a great breakfast buffet, we loaded onto the van to head to the the same park and meet our local tour guide, Arnoldo. I think he is in his 80’s but didn’t miss a beat as we powered through the museum. He obviously loves what he does! A wealth of information! The museum that we toured was the Museum of Anthropology. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico with the largest collection of Mexican art. We were lucky to get in early as we avoided most of the crowds.

Free-standing fountain and roof – purported to be constructed to withstand any earthquake.
Arnoldo
Exhibit showcasing the Temple of the Sun – a pyramid that we will visit at the end of the trip.
Arnoldo pointing to Orizaba – our final scheduled climb of the trip.
Artist’s rendition of the tomb of Pakal the Great
Actual contents found in the tomb.

Team shot (above) standing in front of the original Aztec calendar. Left to Right – Ben, Arnoldo, Kym, Jason, Jim, Me, and Jonah. Our climbing guide, Arielle had been on this tour many times so she opted for a run in the park while we were on the tour.

This museum was so massive that it would have probably taken weeks to actually give it any justice. We regrouped and headed for the La Malantizi resort, where we would spend a couple nights in preparation for our first climb. On the way, we stopped for lunch and another tour.

A few more days drying in the sun and this Carne Asada could have easily been carried on the climbs as beef jerky!
Cute restaurant and colorful vendors in the square.

After lunch, we climbed up the hill and toured another church and saw the bullfighting ring where supposedly a famous opera was performed – Carmen? For the life of me, I couldn’t find any reference to this on the internet, no matter how hard I searched. Arielle had told us early on that Arnoldo may, on occasion, add some narrative that may not be 100% accurate – perhaps this was some of it!

We made our way up to 10,000′ to the former Olympic Training facility which has been turned into a sort of destination resort. We got to say in one of the cabanas which was fun.

One of the little cabins that we stayed in – boys in one girls in the other!
This is the dining area where we ate lunches and dinner.
Although there are signs everywhere that pets are not allowed, there were a ton of dogs hanging around. They were not skinny so obviously someone was feeding them.
View from the track area with our first summit, La Malinche in the distance. Always fun to see different views of the mountain to appreciate how high they actually are! La Malanche is at 14, 636′ – higher that Mt Whitney and Mt Rainier!

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