Potrero Chico Day 3 – 27 Dec 2015

This was our second day climbing. Adam C, Julie, Adam and I wanted to get an early start  in hopes of beating the sudden flood of climbers due to the nature of the peak season.

 

I was up first at 07:00 and headed the to La Posada kitchen to get breakfast and coffee started. It was a perfect time to claim the best communal propane cook tops. I soft boiled 8 eggs for the 4 of us and poured a couple cups of instant Coffee with a tablespoon of leche condensada. I love this stuff…

Adam arrived first and I asked him to see if Andrea and Adam C had left yet or if they were still in their tents. Then I asked him to wake our friend Mike up because he expressed a desire to join us today.

Mike wasn’t ready to come with us but Adam C and Andrea soon joined me for breakfast and the four of us ate our eggs and drank our coffees and headed off to the Mota Wall to meet our French friends Julie, Pat and Eva. By now it was 08:30 and the family already were finished their first climb and we donned our harnesses.

This was another easy day, intended to get us use to the style of climbing and the texture of the limestone. We spent the morning climbing 5.8-5.10d and Andrea was my partner. We had an awesome time on some really fun climbs and for the first time I really enjoyed climbing in a larger group. I think it’s because we all kind of are separate climbing units but we all just happen to be in the same area at the same time.

We decided to call it a day because Adam C’s friend, Matt, just arrived in Hidalgo and needed a ride up. Adam and I wanted to check out hidalgo so we caught a ride from Andrea and Adam c. We spent a couple hours looking for things in town and realized it was Sunday – so being a highly Catholic region everyone was preoccupied with church.

We actually discovered the cheapest place to buy giant bottles of beer for 27pesos for 40oz and some awesome places to buy cowboy botas- a place in which we will return at the end of our trip. We started the 45 min walk back up to La Posada and ended up catching a ride from some climbers also heading up the hill.

Adam C and Andrea had decided to leave the campsite because the night before there were huge crowds of rowdy people trashing the campsites until wee hours of the morn. Drunk campers peeing just outside their tents and screaming. They headed up to the chalet located in the canyon on the side of the mountain of Potrero Chico, where we were all planning to stay later in the week anyways with the French family but just decided that it was time to leave La Posada.

A couple hours later Andrea stopped by our tent and asked if we wanted to also leave La Posada and head up to the chalet early. They twisted our rubber arm and we began to pack.  Since Matt had just gotten into town I told Adam and Andrea to come back after they climbed because it was already 2pm.

Adam and I sat and waited for our friends to return and in the meantime we ran into our day 1 friends Emma, mike and Mark and decided to join them for a beer at the tienda just outside of La Posada.

This is where the craziness began. Tonight was the night of Caballogata meaning hundreds of locals were traveling from many regions to party in the canyon of La Potrero Chico. This meant many horses. Many alcholics and many many craziness.

By this time it was starting to get windy and cold so I donned my fashionable down sleeping bag . I was dubbed “earthworm

Jim ” for the rest of the evening.

While we laughed and chatted with our friends and drank cheap beers we kept a constant watch out for Adam and Andrea.

At one point Mark started singing some Mexican Sports anthems with some guys here for the Caballogata. (A horse festival that happens every other weekend during this time of year.)

And shortly after that a white truck full of young ladies hollered at us to get in their truck and drive into the canyon. Emma and I stayed behind because of all our gear and the boys with hesitation all jumped into this truck. So …. Emma and I hung out together and waited for our men to return. About and hour later the boys walked back down and were incredibly drunk. Apparently they found some gay bar and danced with men and drank several shots of Mescale.

At this point the group unanimously decided they wanted to help us hike our gear up 35 minutes to the chalet so that we could continue our nightime adventure in search of the magical “Faceburgers.” Burgers that are the size of ones face.

We didn’t end up making it in time for the Faceburgers because it was getting too late. Instead we wandered to one of the other campsites Homeros and ate delicious food and sang songs of glory!

All in all I’d say it was as successful night. I mean if you were resembled a giant caterpillar and sang songs of glory with locals riding horses while drinking $2 1L beers, wouldn’t you call it a success? Can’t wait for tomorrow.