Bernal

As I mentioned in my last post, the weekend after Independence Day was a long one. We debated going somewhere, but decided to stay home and do a couple of day trips. Bernal is only about an hour away from us. The biggest (literally) attraction is the Pena de Bernal. It is the third largest monolith (single massive rock) in the world (after Gibraltar in the Mediterranean and Sugar Loaf in Brazil). The theory is that it is magma from a volcano that solidified and was left standing after the volcano itself eroded over time. Who knows? Either way, it's pretty amazing looking. The boys liked the volcano story, so that's what we went with!


I wasn't quite sure how the whole Bernal thing worked, so we ended up parking pretty far away and walking quite a distance to even get to the bottom of the rock. I felt bad because we were with a new family to Queretaro, but we got to chat and get to know each other on our hike up the hill to the rock. With three little kids, we knew wouldn't make it up all the way (not to the top, but as far as you can climb without equipment), but we thought we could do a good portion. Wrong! It is very rugged and a rough climb, too hard with Lydia especially. Eventually we'll do it, but now is not the time.

This is just a mountain covered in clouds.

It's a rare site around here, so I thought I'd get a picture.


Ethan tired out from too much partying two nights ago

The cathedral in Bernal and some beautiful

flowers on the building in front of it.

Some more of the flowers up close...we actually

have them at our house as well.

Pena de Bernal

Me in front of the big rock.

James wanted to make sure he got a picture of me before

I complained, again, about how I'm never in any pictures!

The three kiddos in front of Bernal

and the fountains

Ethan and Ben sliding down a rock at the base
(you can see Nolan climbing up in the background)

Lydia about to make the trek up Bernal....she only

got a few steps further before I had to carry her.

We didn't make it much further.

It started raining while we were in Bernal and

when we turned around, it looked like this.

Looking towards Centro as we ate our lunch in Bernal