Over the Mountains

Over the weekend Alejandro and I took an excursion to the state of Puebla which is located about two hours from Mexico City on the other side of the range of mountains which include the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, the second and third highest peaks in the country.  Both of those peaks have elevations of over 17,000 feet.  The toll road connecting Mexico City with Puebla was built in 1962 is one of the oldest superhighways in the nation.  I have traveled that road countless times; the first time being nearly fifty years ago when I came to Mexico to study at the University of the Americas in Cholula outside of the city of Puebla.

Of course the road trip begins with getting out of the city, which is always difficult especially on weekends.  We experienced a number of spots where the traffic was slow.

The air quality was not good that day, and it was obvious that our drive was not going to afford us any good views of the volcanoes, at least not from the Mexico City side of the mountains.

In this photo you can see the aerial cable cars that have been recently built as a form of public transport in the Mexico City district of Ixtapalapa.

As we reached the eastern fringes of the metropolitan area we could finally see ahead of us the mountains that we would cross.

 We reached the toll booth and we were now on the "Autopista México-Puebla".

We were finally out of the metropolitan area.  However the air quality was still not very good, and the volcano Iztaccíhuatl was only a vague outline.

It was a relatively quick journey through the pine forests and up and over the mountains.

We crossed the mountains, and were in the state of Puebla.  However, the air was smoggy on this side too.  The state capital, the city of Puebla, now has a population of over three million people and is an important industrial hub, so it also has its share of air pollution.  We were not going to have a good view of the volcanoes from this side either.

 

Our sightseeing destination for the day was a short distance from the highway well before reaching the state capital, the city of Puebla.