La Pena de Bernal
15-March-2016
The 3rd largest monolith on the planet is a rock known as La Pena de Bernal.
If you wonder what a monolith is, or what the bigger ones are, those answers are not here
A geological feature consisting of a single stone or rock.
The rock of Gibraltar , Corcovado in Brazil.
Ok, I lied. Again.
To some Mexican people it is a place to come as a pilgrimage to their faith.
For us it was less that than a big rock sticking up out of the ground.
Our first trek was up the side like the other pilgrims.
That took a couple of hours and left us ready for beer and grilled meats.
Nummy num num Nummy! Love those grilled meats.
Stayed the night and decided (that is Carol decided) we would hike around the circumference of the rock. After all, there was a trail marked on map. It must be ok.
Off we set in a clockwise circular motion. Rub it! Time will tell that counter clockwise might have been a better play. We trekked down one arroyo,then another, making progress but knowing a climb was ahead at some point. We slipped through a few cattle fences then started up the hill. Soon it was just cattle trails , mesquite and cactus, albieit as Carol pointed out, quite a biodiversity of things that could stick you. Cattle hide is indeed thicker than Bob's hide.
We got pushed up a ravine and soon there were no more cattle trails. I couldn't help but think of the shed snakeskin we had seen earlier. Up we went, with lots of rests and finallycrossed over the ridge.
Shortly thereafter we found a trail
4 hours after we started we hit the first beer shack .
We were tired and had a few cuts and tears in our wardrobe.
But we had beer and popcorn. Happiness is such a relative thing.
Some nature stuff from around the place
La Pena de Bernal
Apparently this rock is a darling of the rock climbing set. There exist over a hundred known climbs to the summit so climbers come here to get lots of practice. Bob is the guy in the picture with the yellow hat. Lying gets so much easier with practice.
Biznaga for everybody!
Ms Sciency leads the team over the wall
Blogger at work. Note glass of mescal.
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