May 30. 250 miles, $17 in toll roads!
$17 is steep, but it was completely worth it. At the turn off for the Toll road, we were the only "car" exiting from the overflow of Oaxaca traffic. We had the road to ourselves with a few buses. Unfortunately, it was not continuous divided highway, which is a nice break from oncoming traffic. It started out agricultural land and moved into mountains and great views. Dry desert and deep canyons.
There are two hotels in Ciudad Serdan. We continued on closer to the volcano to Tlachichula (9,000 feet), which has 3 hotels. The road is paved the whole way to town and beyond. We stayed at the mountaineers hotel, which seemed pricey at 120p each for a plain room, shared bath across the parking lot. But dinner was good and a good price and the family is nice. And they have cows to play with. Sunday is market day. And there is good bread here and internet. You can see the volcano from town. It was in clouds when we arrived in the rain, but cleared up later and wow, its great.
May 31, Volcan Orizaba
We grabbed breakfast in the market. Tinga for steve, shredded chicken in salsa in a big grilled taco. Big grilled bean & cheese taco yummers with killer salsa for me. There is a road that goes up to 14,000 feet, where there is a hut and a great view of the mountains. It takes about 1.5 hours to get up to the top of the road, and 1 hour to get down. 15 miles of dirt, Not steep, some ruts but mostly smooth pine forest and giant Lupine. We got to the base camp road at 9:20 and the clouds moved in at 9:45, fast. And covered it all. it was a great temp, dry and brisk. Not too windy. Wodnerful high altitude sun.
Reluctantly, we headed out towards mex city
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