Travel with Kevin and Ruth: We ended up at a beautiful overnight spot.

Thursday, April 2, 2026

We ended up at a beautiful overnight spot.

Our goal is always to arrive at our overnight spot by 2:00pm because that allows lots of daylight hours to fix any problem that might come up. So when we only have a two and a half hour drive ahead of us, we don't need to rush out in the morning!

And so we didn't hit the road until about 11:00am.

We had walked down to a big Bodega Aurrera (owned by Walmart) grocery store and picked up a few things before heading out.

They had whole chickens for around 65 pesos ($5 CAD, $3.60 USD) each!

We were taking the toll road towards Veracruz. The free road went through lots of small towns and was very curvy. It would have been four hours on the free roads, versus two and a half hours on the toll road.

Heading out of Puebla.

That raised section you see is a bike path. Puebla is very bicycle friendly.

Puebla has a lot of tall buildings.

This section was not very busy.

Scenery along the way.

This family was funny. They kept waving at us.

When we stopped at the toll booth, we passed them slowly and they asked where we were from.

Lots of agriculture.

Some kind of religious procession.

Mt. Orizaba... the highest point in Mexico.

Coming around the other side, there was a beautiful viewpoint.

I had found a hiking trail above the small city of Cd. Mendoza, and I could tell by the switchbacks that it was a steep drive up to the trailhead. But Igor was up for the challenge! The road rose 2,000' (621 meters) over 6.0 kms (3.5 miles). It was steep!

I was hoping there would be a decent spot to overnight, and when we got there it's actually located at a small village. I managed to find somewhere level, and then walked around to find some locals to ask if it was okay to park there. I spoke to two different people, and they both said it was a very quiet spot and that we would be fine. Really friendly.