spreading my wings

Friday July 30th,

Big day!! It is finally guaranteed nice weather so we drove Mark to work and finally headed to Bernal to climb la Pena! Amazing ness, we did not get lost and we managed to find parking. In front of us lay a challenge to scale the monolith!! We embarked on our momentous journey at 8:45am with, oh no, the bathrooms were not opened yet. Oh well, we’ll probably dehydrate anyways as we are only carrying 2 bottles of water. Heather was excited and began the climb in a hurry, only to realize in about 15 -20 minutes, that the altitude makes a difference in your breathing. We started at about 7200’ above sea level climbing to 8000 feet. Frequent rests to absorb the vista was the ticket. It didn’t take too long to adjust, maybe ¾ of the way up. The scenery was breathtaking, literally, oh no wait, that was the heighth. The path was rocky, no, bouldery and narrow but fun. When we reached the top, of where you can go without rock climbing gear, it was awesome! 275 degree panoramic views that were absolutely awesome. Heather decided to boulder up another 30-40 feet alone and had a grand time. I stayed back to take pictures of her. We made it don in record time. What took us 2 hours to go up, took about ½ hour to go down. We were almost running. We were feeling awesome, was it the magnetic force of the laPena or the fact we could breathe easily?
It was now time to move the car and embark on our shopping journey. Bernal is known for wool and bread. What an awesome combination. We nicknamed it the sweet town. The bread is light and lace with a sweetened cream cheese mixture with sugar sprinkled on top served warm out front of the bakery. Free tasties! They also cooked these flatter breads on a griddle out front. We tasted and bought them both! The scarves and wraps are beautiful. And the loomed rugs are amazing. I want them for our house but want Mark’s opinion on them and need the sizes. Heather found a couple wraps and bought jewelry from the artist himself. She found a Queretaro opal necklace and another one that was kind of green. He had done some silver wire work to mount the stone. We took the trolley ride to see the sights of the Puebla de Bernal. There was a hotel that looked like a little town with an astounding view of la Pena. We took the trolley so we could end up at the weavers, but ours ended at the church. Later in the day we saw a tour group go into the weavers area and just joined them at t eh back of the line. The looms are very old and worn and they are so fast at their work. There were piles of rugs, blankets, woven artwork and sweaters everywhere. The town is also known for the Gordita wars between the women in town. We thought we’d be brave and go to one of the trashy looking gordita stand to try the fare. We got to where Mark had had one in the past, started to walk in and chickened out. We were scared of the afteraffects to our stomachs and headed to the hotel restaurant that we had spied earlier. The place we ate at had a gorgeous view of the monolith and the food was awesome. Heather had chicken Mole and I had, be jealous here Ed, Chile Rellanos. We voted mine the best. Being the sweet town, it was filled with meat, I think , and mangoes and spices and the sauce on top was Mexican cream with cinnamon, some sweetness and then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds..Oh my was that tastey!! We were very successful and went on our way back to pick up Mark form work. No Problems!
We changed into nicer clothes at Makino and went to Hotel Diamonte to have a cocktail, some chilied peanuts and a view of Queretaro. Well somehow we ordered our Margharits wrong and ended up with tequila, and lime juice on the rocks. Better luck next time. But it was a pretty view and great conversation.