7 Nature & Parks in Tlaxcala That You Shouldn't Miss

Reviewed By farmar1 - Coventry, United Kingdom

This was a last minute thing which I did with a friend who had found a local guide (we had to pay him the tickets there and back, and food). We took a bus to the ADO station early morning. Then another to Huamantla from where we took a taxi to the entrance of the park (it was sunday and with colectivos not working as usual, we had to take the cab to save time). The experience was very good although it is tough going up. At 4000m height it is quite high, even though the climb starts from around 2000m. I climbed Kilimanjaro the year before, for 7 days and so I though this would be easy (without any training) to do in 1 day....wrong. It is tough, v tough. There are 2 routes you can take (from where I started, from near Huamantla). A direct one (very steep), and a winding one(less steep but still tough). This through the first part which is a forest terrain. The two paths meet at the end of the forest, where the rocky terrain starts. And when I mean rocky, I mean sandy rocky. In 7 days climbing Kilimanjaro I never experienced this. It feels that you are taking 2 steps up and one down all the time. In the end we did not make it up to the top of the mountain (due to time constraints as last colectivo back is at 4 and it takes around 1.5-2 hrs to climb down) but just the first peak, which is 400m lower. From there to the top is another 45 mins climb on the ridge and then you also have to clamber to go to the top. Reminded me of Snowdonia but 10 times more difficult and big. However, as I was making the last steps to the first peak, huffing an puffing, the tiredness and aching went away when the view came out over the top...WOW. You have Puebla on one side and Tlaxcala on the other, with the Popocatepetl and Izzacchihuatl mountains in between. On the other side, the snow-capped volcano added to the amazing view. All in all an amazing experience.