CIII. Subiendo Chupinaya

Going Up Chupinaya

From our rooftop Chupinaya is the peak top center.

We live near the center of Mexico in the village of Ajijic which stretches for several kilometers along the northwest shore of the country's largest lake—Lago de Chapala. In ten minutes you can stroll from Ajijic’s waterfront, or malecón, up any of a dozen streets to road’s end at the foothills of the Sierra de San Juan Cosalá, a short and narrow range whose highest peaks are scattered along an undulating ridge, parallel to and rising from the lake, and looking down on our village and several others strung out along its shore.

The rumpled topography of the range, now brilliant green in the rainy season, invites longing looks that ultimately seek out the highest spot—Chupinaya—which is about two miles from our house as the turkey vulture flies. At just under 8000 feet, it rises almost exactly 3000 feet from the elevation of our rooftop. Those mornings up there when I can get it together to do my “daily” exercises, it is a solid, familiar presence behind the nearer cerros that are partitioned by arroyos which at this time of year bring lots of water down to the lake.

Our first stop was at "The Saddle" where we were joined by a
half dozen vacas, or cows.

I hiked up to Chupinaya for the very first time last Friday, one of a party of eight. Except for the altitude gain it’s not at all a difficult trek. I think I was the oldest in our group although there were a guy and two gals just a year or two younger than me. Two Canadians, a German, Italian, and the rest were Americans from the west half of the country. Three women, five men.

Almost exactly a year ago I had ventured a climb to Chupinaya but had to give it up about two-thirds of the way to the top; my legs felt okay but my wind was shot. The pace was too quick for me. I encouraged Jim B, the incredible mensch who organizes these adventures, to schedule a hike to the summit at a more relaxed pace. He obliged—twice—but each time I had previously made other plans I didn’t want to change. Last week was my chance.

We've reached the ridge and are relaxing at "Three Crosses".
Jim, our leader, is at left.

It took us four and a half hours to reach the summit, two to return to our base at the coffee shop called “Donas Donuts” (the first word of which until recently I thought was the possessive of a woman’s name—‘Donna’s’—but instead simply means ‘donuts’ in Spanish, so “Donuts Donuts”), where the hiking group gathers every Tuesday and Friday morning to split roughly into thirds based on difficulty of the planned outing, and leave for las montañas. This informal group is composed almost exclusively of ex-pats, their visitors, and others putting their toe in to see what life here has to offer. Among us all, there’s a definite cachet to climbing the highest point on the ridge.

The picnic spot at the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe has
been a gathering spot for ages. A trail leads down the back
side of the ridge to another village, Las Trojes.

For people who like to walk and climb through more or less unsullied nature, this is a great place to live. You walk for a few minutes from the lakefront up to the end of one of the score of cobblestone streets that cross the highway at a perpendicular angle from the lake to the mountains and you’re there. You enter the outback by following a trail crisscrossing some arroyo, hike up to where it switchbacks to a ridge that winds its way to the crest. Jim B has this idea of a two-day jaunt following the skyline from San Antonio Tlayacapan to Jocotopec, about fifteen kilometers; we would camp overnight at the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, pictured left and below, located in an oak-shaded saddle before the final ascent. 

Pivoting from the previous shot, I took this
picture of the shrine itself.

The word Chupinaya can be translated as “stone to be worked”, perhaps referring to the shale near the peak which has incidentally been used to make a barbecue at the shrine. Mi amigo Dionicio is one of the leaders of the local indigenous community; he, Jim B and I have been talking about locating and annotating the traditional locales in these parts. I was visiting Dionicio a few days ago and he told me that a particular high point on the crest trail is known to the native people around here as “mesa del ocote", for the name of a tree popular for kindling that used to grow on that small, high plateau. In pre-hispanic times it had a different-meaning Nahuatl name that I wrote down but can’t remember right now. 

To those revisionists in the hiking group, however, that point is named in honor of a Canadian retiree who—not too long ago—was the first gringo to popularize hiking in these mountains. 

The view from the top was socked in when we arrived, but on the way down the clouds lifted enough to allow this shot about 500 feet below the peak. Our village center is located along the shoreline, at the left.