Often I'm asked what I like to do for fun in my free time here in Monterrey? Answer: I like to run, read, cook, eat ice cream, go to movies, watch DVDs, and Monterrey is surrounded by mountains so I like to hike here. My roommate decided to organize a trip to Huasteca to hike. I've never been there so of course I was super excited. But then we started "hiking." You call this a hike? yeah right.
Behold our cave. Actually I think our cave wasnt visible from this photo angle and was actually a bit lower- not much though. Still a death climb if you ask me. This "hike" turned out to be more of a free face rock climb. At times I honestly was not sure if I was going to survive the climb because the rock was so slippery. I blamed my shoes until after we got home and I looked the place up on wikipedia and read about how it is known for being difficult to climb due to it's limestone surface which made me feel better about myself.
I insisted on taking a picture at the "first" cave. We had only been hiking for about 5 minutes when we came to it and everyone laughed at me because they said that this cave didn't really count. We had only just begun. They were right. Ask anyone who has ever been hiking with me and they'll tell you that I like to lead and that I'm very confident, fast, and daring. NOT on this day! It took us an hour to climb up to the big cave. As we started to climb back down, Hope and Ruby both commented on how interesting it was to see me scared and not ultra confident for the first time since they've met me. I had absolutely no traction with my feet and had to climb the entire way down on my hands and rear. I did the "crab walk" for our vertical decent because my shoes could not grip anything to save my life.
To the left is our only trail marker - someone else's grave marker i think? I was told that someone fell from this location and I believed it. There really were no trails. You just started climbing on your hands and knees upward until you found some caves.
To the right was our view looking back through most of the climb. There was a huge bike race going on that day. I've decided that mexicans love biking and lance armstrong more than americans. They are everywhere, especially in the mornings on the highways. All in all though, this was a beautiful and stunning location. The rock faces come shooting up out of the ground and sheets of rock are left perpendicular to the ground making for some awesome rock climbing but this is not what I would call HIKING. So don't believe anyone if they say this is a HIKE.
Behold our cave. Actually I think our cave wasnt visible from this photo angle and was actually a bit lower- not much though. Still a death climb if you ask me. This "hike" turned out to be more of a free face rock climb. At times I honestly was not sure if I was going to survive the climb because the rock was so slippery. I blamed my shoes until after we got home and I looked the place up on wikipedia and read about how it is known for being difficult to climb due to it's limestone surface which made me feel better about myself.
I insisted on taking a picture at the "first" cave. We had only been hiking for about 5 minutes when we came to it and everyone laughed at me because they said that this cave didn't really count. We had only just begun. They were right. Ask anyone who has ever been hiking with me and they'll tell you that I like to lead and that I'm very confident, fast, and daring. NOT on this day! It took us an hour to climb up to the big cave. As we started to climb back down, Hope and Ruby both commented on how interesting it was to see me scared and not ultra confident for the first time since they've met me. I had absolutely no traction with my feet and had to climb the entire way down on my hands and rear. I did the "crab walk" for our vertical decent because my shoes could not grip anything to save my life. 
To the left is our only trail marker - someone else's grave marker i think? I was told that someone fell from this location and I believed it. There really were no trails. You just started climbing on your hands and knees upward until you found some caves.
To the right was our view looking back through most of the climb. There was a huge bike race going on that day. I've decided that mexicans love biking and lance armstrong more than americans. They are everywhere, especially in the mornings on the highways. All in all though, this was a beautiful and stunning location. The rock faces come shooting up out of the ground and sheets of rock are left perpendicular to the ground making for some awesome rock climbing but this is not what I would call HIKING. So don't believe anyone if they say this is a HIKE. 
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