2022
So I have been lucky enough to travel around a lot this decade so I am hoping to share some information and nice pics as a way of maybe inspiring people to check out some places you may not know about. I'm also hoping it might give a kind of template for people to post about places here. I think too often on this forum people post photos of places randomly without context or even where a place is so it be good to raise the standard.
The first place I will start off with is Parícutin volcano in central Mexico. I have seen some sites say this is the youngest volcano in the world which I am not sure about but the backstory is interesting. It literally appeared out of nowhere in a farmers field starting In 1943 and kept going for 9 years therefore becoming the first volcano ever that scientists/volcanologists could track the whole life cycle. It rises to 424 metres, imagine seeing a 400 metre volcano rise over 9 years!!
Of course this had a major effect on the surrounding area as 2 towns Parícutin and San Juan Parangaricutiro has to be totally and permanently evacuated. The lava rolled through and almost fully enveloped the town. This meant it was left as a spooky remnant of what was there which fortunately to me is very photogenic. It's so impressive that CNN listed it has 1 of the 7 wonders of the natural world - http://edition.cnn.com/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/9711/natural.wonders/
So as a tourist how do you get there? Well you have to go to city of Uruapan which is around 350 km west of Mexico City. Here is a map giving some sense of scale with Mexico City and Uruapan in blue and the volcano itself in red
If you are coming from Mexico City there are some direct buses but you can also stop off at Morelia which is a nice place to spend 2-3 days as well.
From Urupuan it's possible to arrange this as a day-trip on your own using local transport which is exactly what I did. You can do tours as well of course.
From Urupuan you need to get a bus to Angahuan village. I did this in late 2015 and at that point it cost 65 pesos which was around $4 although the peso has weakened quite a bit since then. If you ask around people will be able to tell you what bus to get (even if you don't speak Spanish because I certainly didn't) Once you get to Angahuan you walk into the village and find a guide. Don't worry they will find you. You don't technically need a guide but as someone who gets guides as little as possible get a guide. I got one and no chance in hell I would have found the route we took on my own. You can rent a horse or walk. I just walked so I paid 400 pesos for my one. I think a horse is around 600-700 pesos.
From there it's around 60-90 minutes until the bottom of the volcano. The terrain is flat until this point but as it's lava that dried up it's very rocky and jaggedy. DO NOT WEAR SANDALS. You would want to wear fairly good tough boots or wear runners you have no issues destroying.
From there it's about an hour or so to walk up the volcano. I have done a fair amount of hiking up fairly high mountains so I found this fairly comfortable but you certainly find yourself breathing fairly deep and in some sections it's a little bit steep.The views at the top are really nice. You can see some other steaming volcanoes
Here is a link to a Photosphere I took from the top (Of you click on symbol on top right the full photosphere will open)
https://goo.gl/photos/NJRKx2QaYxcJ6nYVA
You can also go down to the crater itself if you want. It's about 15-20 minutes and involves a little scrambling but nothing hard.
Here is another photosphere I took in the crater itself
https://goo.gl/photos/Y39xvcyRLisENsMN6
You'll notice some smoke coming up and while the volcano is listed as extinct it still has that sulfurous rotten egg smell and it definitely feels warmer so even 60 years on it's still cooling down.
From there is 1 of the funnest parts, going down. The slope down is very steep but the material is fine so you can basically stick your heel in and "ski" down. (If you wearing cheap shoes and they haven't been worn down already this will complete the job)
From there you walk back to Angahuan village but along the way you visit what for me was the highlight of the whole day. The ruins of the church at San Juan Parangaricutiro .
As I said earlier the town above was evacuated almost overnight and the lava flowed right through but not to the top. This left the remains of this. It is sooo spooky
I really recommend this photosphere as gives you good idea of how it looks inside.
https://goo.gl/photos/xCDpXzAbg2oNRpaA7
From there it's back to village and you can just repeat the same journey back to Uruapan or Morelia.
If you find yourself in Mexico and not on a super tight schedule I really recommend visiting here
