A Failed Experiment in Camping

Last weekend I learned that an adventurous spirit isn’t always enough to overcome a lack of preparation. And while Saturday night was certainly one of those “makes a good story” moments, I’m still genuinely scarred by the events that unfolded.

[This story is 1,100 words long. Enjoy].

When Laura proposed a camping trip, I suggested Parque Nacional El Chico, a huge “eco” reserve (albeit littered with chip bags and beer bottles) about 2-3 hours north of Mexico City and just outside the town of Pachuca. None of us knew much about the place, but it’s usually enough to have the general concept down and ask as you go.

After rallying the troops, including Matt, Paul and Enzué, we hopped aboard a “direct” bus (that made various stops) for less than five dollars apiece. Reaching Pachuca, we hopped on a “combi,” one of those ubiquitous 15-passenger vans produced sometime in the 1970s, heading towards the park. We didn’t know quite what to tell our driver, just that we wanted to camp for the night inside El Chico. My guidebooks and Google searches had all been a bit vague as to names and locations, so when the driver suggested the Las Ventanas campsite, it sounded as good as any.

He dropped us off inside a “reserve” complete with a half-empty pond, numerous Mexican weekenders and several wood stalls where women brought in Tupperware containers filled with tasty fillings for tacos, which they heated on large hot plates in the back. We hiked up a bit past the open field and into the woods, the enormously tall trees and thick scrub a promising shelter from tent robbers and the strong winds. The altitude at El Chico isn’t that much higher than in Mexico City, but the clouds were so low you could see them fly past and nearly scrape the ground.

We pitched our tents and explored the neighboring forest, but since we’d arrived around 5 p.m. and there was little to do, we mostly just waited for the sun to set so Sunday could come sooner. Things got cold and damp pretty fast, and it soon became evident that the thin flannel sheets Matt and I had brought in place of sleeping bags was a poor choice. It was an incredibly stupid, horrible, death-defying choice, we would learn a little later.

The leaves, sticks, logs and littered paper were all too damp to start a fire, so after the sun had mostly set, we stood around in a circle eating the food we’d brought: pre-toasted bread slices, plastic-wrapped slices of cheese and baked tortilla discs.

By 8:30 we’d tired of our amazingly bland feast and retired to our tents. I’d brought my yoga mat and we set down our raincoats and one of the blankets on the ground, but the earth was still tough and damp. Laying the far-too-breathable blanket on top of us, Matt and I began shivering in the spoon position, our nervous giggles turning into near-tears (ok, that was mostly just me). I slid my jeans back on over my sweatpants, put a second T-shirt on over my sweatshirt and eventually ended up with a pair of Matt’s boxers – clean – around my neck.

Around 10 p.m. I fell asleep and dreamt a cruel dream that I was back home in Mexico City wearing a tank top, the blaring sun shining down as I thanked the Lord that Saturday night was over. Then I woke up and found myself shaking and breathing hard in the fetal position with more than eight hours left until daylight. I couldn’t really fall asleep after that, and the rest of the night was a marathon of peeking my head out from under the blanket for air, switching sides for my frigid fetus form and occasionally shrieking out loud. Everything was dewy.

Even today, on a mild Monday morning, the sensation of being chilled is an unnerving, unsettling feeling that I’ll never be warm again.

By some miracle the sun finally rose, not that it heated anything up, but at least the night was over. Matt and I were the first up (and the only ones without sleeping bags) and we took a walk to get the blood moving into our frozen bodies. I gave Matt a pep talk so he wouldn’t start killing people in a blind rage. Everyone else got up a while later, and with tents packed and teeth unbrushed, we set off down the highway towards cooler things I’d heard about from some other campers.

Not more than ten minutes later we came across the entrance to El Chico, an under-construction visitor’s station there to greet us. “Ahh,” we sighed, “that’s why everything sucked. We weren’t in the park!” A combi took us into Mineral del Chico, a former mining pueblo that was still waking up when we rolled in around 10 a.m. I sipped what might’ve been the best hot chocolate of my life (because I was cold and because it had delicious spices) and a rice pudding “paste,” the region’s flaky pastry specialty. A nice pear vendor handed me two pieces of the fruit for free, laughing as Laura and I bit into the starchy pears because they were apparently meant for baking.

We spent an hour or so basking in the sunlight around Lake [name] and eating 5-peso bags of candy, surrounded by other campers who obviously knew better than we did. Paul bought a “fishing pole,” or an empty plastic Coke bottle wrapped in fishing wire and a bob. He didn’t catch anything in the paddleboat-polluted lake. We watched kite fliers and trampoline jumpers; we later set our packs inside a restaurant and for several hours climbed up to a ridge that overlooked the water. Our spirits and bodies were much warmer. I even sweat enough to remove two of four layers! The descent took no more than 30 minutes, primarily due to the constant decline that left us “forest surfing.”

Lunch was at the lakefront restaurant where we’d left our stuff. I ate a foil-baked trout that, we double-checked, was not from the lake but from a nearby fish hatchery. Matt ate his seventh huge taco for the weekend. Our return to Mexico City was a traffic-less sleepy haze and an unnecessarily long metro ride to my apartment. Once back in my room, I took a much-needed hot, hot shower and brushed my teeth for the first time in nearly two days. I dressed in pajamas suited for an Ohio winter, shut every window and snuggled deeply into my bed, crying a little inside with joy.