We decided to rest up a bit today and just head over to a market to explore the Coyoacán Mercado experience. We took an Uber for $6USD and as we exited on the Saturday, there was an art market set up in the adjacent park. We wandered through colorful paintings, creative string art, 3D sculptures, and general creativity before heading in to the market.
The Mexican mercado is basically a very large building encompassing a city block that has hundreds of vendors selling everything you can think of, including food. We found a Starbucks city mug for half the price of what we’d have paid at the coffee shop and Kathy found a shot glass she’ll use for painting as well as a nice packet of small tipped brushes for her painting. We ate at a Mexican/Asian fusion place called Hibachi Lova on stool seats at a counter about 8 feet long. It was delicious.
We ended up walking back to the AirBnB, which took about an hour. We stopped at this big store called Liverpool, which turned out to be a high-end department store similar to what Dillards or Macy’s once were in the US. We found some official Mexico Football shirts and decided to come back to get one.
Chili relleno, anyone?
We got back to the pups and I took them for a long walk and then we took a siesta nap. It was Valentine’s day and we walked to the Italian restaurant on the corner, had a nice meal and enjoyed the local musician and singer that were posted at the restaurant for the night. The gentleman played soprano and alto saxophone and the lady sang a variety of songs, including Shania Twain’s I feel like a woman.
The puppies got another long walk in the local park before bed. It was a Saturday night and there was a movie playing in the park for the locals. The previous week and the following week they have live music playing in the park, but unfortunately we missed that this time around.
We headed out on Friday the 13th to visit the museum of Anthropology and began the day on the metro bus. The plan was to take line 1 to a junction and then take Line 7 to the museum. Apparently there was a traffic, or bus problem, or something, and it dumped us off several stops before the end. Everyone got off the bus and we cut across the city where we saw a fountain of Fuente de Cibeles, a greek goddess, which is a replica of a fountain in Madrid. We continued on the tree-lined streets filled with cafe’s and street vendors and came across an old aqueduct that I am sure is a fountain during the summer months.
Fuente de Cibeles fountain in CMDX.
Kathy spotted a familiar logo of the company I worked for on one of the high rises so we took some time to take a few photos, walk to the building, and pose for some selfies to send back to the folks back home. The texts to the team was fun and I realize I miss working with those good people.
Since we were only a few blocks from the museum, we continued on and diverted through the park to walk amongst the trees. As we approached the museum we saw some more of the Aztec rope dancers taking a break between their performances. The museum line outside was about 50 meters long and moved quickly where we found another line 3x as long. Kathy wandered off to the gift shop and restrooms and I waited in line to purchase tickets, which only took about 30 minutes. And then we got to enter…
The Museo Nacional de Antropología is considered to be one of the world’s best museum in anthropology and for the entrance price of $12 USD, it is a real value. It is set up as a giant U-shaped building with exhibits covering recent discoveries in Mexico City, the history of human evolution and migration, detailed descriptions of the peoples in the last 10,000 years in the Americas, and additional religious and cultural displays of festivals and traditions. The first exhibit on the left was the recent dig (1977) of a room found in Mexico City called Tlillancalco, the place of the black house. In a nutshell, they were building in an area and came across some artifacts that expanded to a full-fledged dig. Here is the link for pictures and a description if you are interested.
Ever since I visited Greece and Thessaloniki ancient cities fascinate me. Cities are settled for a number of reasons, and those reasons generally transcend time; seaports, convergences of rivers or roads on trade routes, etc. And cities are build upon themselves when the ruins of one are paved over for the regeneration of new. In this case, Mexico city is an ancient city, now named Cuidad de Mexico, but was conquered by the Spanish in 1521 when it was known as Tenochtitlan that was founded in 1325 by the Aztecs in what was a swampy area in Lake Texcoco, which at the time was a sparsely populated area of villages controlled by the Tepanec people of Azcapotzalco to the west and the Colhuacán to the South. The Mexica (later known as Aztecs) were looking for a home and based on a prophecy of an Eagle landing on a cactus and this place was where they saw it. An island in an inland salten sea settled by a people looking for a homeland. This sounds a bit familiar. Well, you can research yourself with the links, but they basically created raised areas in the swamp to settle and raise crops and ultimately built Tenochtitlan that the Spanish conquered in 1521.
Aztec city of Tenochtitlan
We wandered through the first couple of sections that covered Human Evolution and migrations of people where we know now there were two major migrations 20,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago where people crossed the Bearing land mass and worked their way down to what is now Mexico, Central America, and South America where they flourished in the ideal climate. We wandered through more a more recent display that showed the differences of the regions of Mexico, Central America, and South America and how humans built their houses, tamed the land, and traded throughout the region up to the present day. It was simply overwhelming, beautiful, inspiring, fun, educational, and exhausting. We had not eaten since breakfast and it was going on 3:45 so we decided to head out and get something to eat. And then we found the museum restaurant.
The restaurant is called Sala Gastronómica, and has a menu for each of the 5 regions of Mexico. We had some freshly made guacamole and some grilled shrimp tacos from the Baja region. Yum. We practices some of our terrible spanish with the waiters and then packed up to head home. The museum closed at 5 anyway and we had left the pups at 10 and we still had a bus ride home. We decided to come back because we had only seen 30% of the museum.
The bus ride back was crowded as it was rush hour. We made it from metro 7 to metro 1 and the thing was just too crowded so we ended up walking back to the AirBnB, which took us about 45 minutes. Overall, a fantastic day in CDMX.
We walked to the local bus stop and caught the bus to the University area. Roman, our guide from the day before had told us a lot about Juan O’Gordan and his art and architecture and mentioned the library at the university. We decided to go take a look as it is the largest mural of its type in the world. The bus was crowded and interesting as it was a street bus, not a modern subway or bus line, and it was crowded. But by the time we got to the last stop, at the university, we were the only two left.
The first thing we saw was the Olympic stadium, which was used in the 1968 olympics. It has a 3D mural of one of Diego Rivera’s creations on the front of it, and we did our best to get a good look.
We walked to the pedestian area, which took us under the main avenues into the university. This place reminded me of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It is build very plainly in a series of cascading fields surrounded by elevated industrial buildings, similar to the designs Juan O’Gordon used. We found the library, as it was one of the tallest and the mural is impressive. It covers all four sides, each with a central theme: South, history of Spanish and Mexico; West, University emblem and different disciplines; North the regions prehistoric past; and East, the contemporary world. Here is some more information.
We walked around the University for about an hour and enjoyed seeing the young students enjoying college life. We even saw a small market near the library where you could buy popcorn, drinks, trinkets, books, and even green leafy study materials; which we thought were illegal in Mexico, but were openly displayed and sold. Interesting.
We walked to the bus and headed back to the AirBnB, stopping for dinner at a sushi place across from the park that I have been walking the pups. They play 80’s-2000’s videos on screens at your table. Almost a Karaoke theme, without the singing. Peaceful and easy day in CDMX. Beautiful 75 degree weather.
Kathy has been waiting for this day for quite some time. We scheduled a guided tour of the Frida Kahlo museum and this was one of the items on her bucket list. She has long admired Frida as an artist and is interested in her tenacity and her story of a painful life. I had tried to get tickets, but the thing sells out and I was grateful to get a tour that included Diego Rivera and Frida’s studio house, Casa Azul, and Casa Roja through another tour group.
We met our awesome tour guide, Roman, at 10:30 at the studiohouse in the San Angel region of CDMX. The house stands in contrast to the other properties in the area in that it was the first functional constructivist building in Latin America. These buildings are build with an industrial purpose-driven design and remove ornamentation that is typical with traditional architecture. The buildings are plain, but extremely functional, and apparently were the scandal of the neighborhood. The scale model below is my version of a drone shot.
A scale model of the property showing the purposeful designs.
The houses were done in two parts, first with the architect purchasing two tennis courts from the adjacent hotel, and the red house in the foreground was designed and build by Juan O’Gordon. The design uses simple columns to support the house with the ground floor primarily for living space, kitchen, with a large open shaded patio. The second floor contained a bathroom and several bedrooms and a large area with floor to ceiling windows. The roof was tiled and sloped to allow for water collection to the cisterns below the house. You can read it all in the link above.
The second house build was Diego’s studio, and he loved working there. It was purposefully built for him and his second floor studio is a fantastic working space that lets tons of light in, but never direct sunlight. His studio was adorned with artifacts he loved as well as his paints, etc. He was very traditional and used natural pigments for his paints, which came from plants and minerals from far and wide.
Diego’s studio was tall and open and adorned with Mexican and indigenous collections.
Frida’s house was small, and very functional, with a tiny kitchen and a small living and work space. Their home was connected by a walkway on the third floor, which interestingly Friday had to climb a precarious staircase from her 2nd floor living space to the third floor roof. (You can see that in the model on the blue house with a thin railing). For someone with such handicaps, that must have been a chore. She only lived in the house for 5 years and much preferred Casa Azul.
We spent about 2 hours touring the property. I am always impressed with architecture and the ways to use space. Of course the area is set up as a museum now, so the gardens have been cleared and the area is maintained as an open space for visitors. After a bit of research I found some older pictures of the properties before they were restored and made into the museums of today. If you are interested, here is the link.
Roman ordered a Uber and we headed to a cafe for a quick bite to eat and some water. Then we walked to the next museum, Casa Azul. The history of this house in the Coyoácan (coyotes) was the place of birth and death of Frida. The house was built in 1904, she was born in 1907, and over time her father, who was a distinguished photographer in the region, mortgaged and lost the house only for Diego to purchase it as a wedding gift and put it in Frida’s name. It was expanded over the years with a final extension build and designed by Juan O’Gordon for Frida. I can go on an on about how beautiful the studio and gardens were, but we really enjoyed the tour and the visit. Here is a picture of just one little area in the garden.
Frida’s studio, bedrooms, and covered patio area with the fountain. So beautiful
We spent a couple of hours in Casa Azul and then headed through Coyoácan to Casa Roja, which we did not really know anything about. Apparently when her father essentially lost Casa Azul, Friday purchased Casa Roja for her parents and sister and had it redone. She lived in that home for a bit of time during her life. Casa Roja is a very interesting space in that it has the colonial courtyard and the rooms are connected internally through doors, not hallways, and each open to the communal patio. It has been changed to accommodate the museum (patio walkway walled in), but is an interesting building. It actually has a basement as well, which is common in Coyoácan due to the volcanic rock in the area. I love the colonial hacienda style home with the indoor-outdoor designed living space. I created something like it in Coolidge with the back yard; at least as close as I could with the track home/HOA styles we have in the US.
Casa Roja courtyard
It was a long, beautiful day, and Roman was the perfect guide. He provided such great background, including people and history of the mid 20th century that gave context to what we were seeing. A beautiful day.
We decided to head in to CDMX Zócalo (main square) to check out the scenery. The first challenge was to get a ticket for the subway. We managed to ask a nice gentleman the process at the counter, and he showed is the card we needed. We purchased the card for $15 pesos and added $185 pesos to the card, as we can share the card between us as long as we swipe it twice. Each ride on the subway is $5 pesos and the busses are $6, which is about $0.30 USD.
The subway was pretty easy along with the map guidance for transit. It is really easy now compared to when I was just a pup starting out, purchasing a paper map and trying to figure out where we were and how to get there. Just as my parent’s generation managed to get telephones and communication lines and satellites to space, our generation has created computers, GPS, and smart phones that make things so much easier in some ways. Even traveling in a foreign country, you can get instant translation services, a big step upward from a phrase book. It makes leaning a language easier in some ways, but in other ways a lot harder. I remember reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where Douglas Adams created the babel fish tool, a small fish that you could put in your ear that would translate for you any language in the universe. It is quickly coming to that. But I digress.
The subway was really interesting and easy to use. We had to take the stairs and escalator down about 150 feet below the surface to board Line 7, which is the deepest of the subway lines here. Notice the wheels? There are tracks to keep the cars aligned, but the cars ride on rubber wheels making it smoother and quieter than other subways.
We transferred to the next line, then to the last, and along the way we found a neat archaeological site that was unearthed when the subway was being built. One of the most interesting things I find in the travels I have done, is that cities are built upon the ruins of themselves and that any work below the surface will unearth tons of history. This place is of course no different, since was an ancient aztec city Tenochtitlan that was founded in the 1300’s when it was an island in the middle of an inland lake (similar to the Great Salt Lake). (Here’s an interesting video). BTW, when we got back to the AirBnB, we did some research on CDMX. There is a lot beneath it that you don’t realize. (Another video).
One of the ancient buildings unearthed when building the subway in CDMX.
We exited the subway and quickly found the Zòcalo, a massive space that used to be the center of the Aztec city and has been transformed over time. The huge cathedral actually uses much of the old stone from the Aztec buildings as part of its construction. I had to go in, of course, and this place was massive. It was different than other cathedrals in that instead of a huge open space with towering ceilings, the center was taken up by an inner building that housed a massive organ. A catholic mass was going on when we visited and we silently watched the bishop bless the sacraments and distribute communion; a neat experience.
We headed back outside and marveled at the crooked buildings and cracks in the stone. Later we researched more, as I had read the city was sinking, but needed more information. It turns out this is exactly the case. We missed the street with the really old crooked buildings, but may head back later in the week. We turned left from the cathedral and headed into the shopping district. Turning right would have taken us to the two temples and active archaeological site at the heart of the ancient Tenochtitlan. We found a nice place for lunch and then explored a bit more on the pedestrian walkways and local churches. One church was really pretty, and exactly next door was an old convent. We went in to the convent, and there was an even bigger church behind the original. It had some massive paintings hanging on the walls and a really crooked door at the west entrance.
We headed back to the subway to get home, and transferred to the bus route after several stops (not sure why we had to to do that, as it cost us an extra $12 pesos (75 cents). Tomorrow we are on a planned tour of the Frida Kahlo museums and houses. We are excited to see those. We also saw they have a double decker bus tour of the city, so we may go back to check that out as it is one of the get-on-get-off types that would allow more expansive exploration.
We arranged a ride to the AirBnB to leave at 10am. Google said the ride would take 90 minutes. It took 45, so we were there by 11 with the AirBnB available at 3pm. Arturo responded quickly and got us in by 12; awesome. We hung out at a local taco joint with a beer and some interesting tacos. They were a mixture of beef, sausage, and chicharrones. Kathy usually likes chicharrones, but so far in Mexico, they are not a preferred taste for us. The pups got some of Kathy’s leftovers. I just used more hot sauce.
We got settled in to the apartment and got a load of laundry started and then headed over to the local grocery store, which turned out to be a Walmart express. There are TONS of Walmarts here and not a lot of local groceries, although we did find a Soreana later in the day. The apartment is right across the street from a bullfighting ring. It turns out it is the largest bullfighting ring in the world, seating over 42,000 people (and one bull). Well, apparently the 500+ year tradition is banned now due to a 2025 Mexico City law that bans bullfighting. Apparently now, bullfights are more along the lines of dancing with red cape and a cute bull running around the ring. At least carne asada is still available in the area with a cervesa.
We walked to a Petco in the evening to see about some dog treats and maybe a new harness for Zuzu. We headed into an Office Depot and got some oil paints, brushes, and other supplies for Kathy so she can paint. Surprisingly not very many stores or restaurants were open in the area.
We woke up Monday and I found a nice park to walk the dogs. We settled them down and then headed to the larger Walmart Supercenter to see about some vitamins and supplements for Kathy. It was about a 30 minute walk through the city, so we got a chance to look around a bit. The city is quieter than I had imagined. There is traffic, but not a lot of sirens and road noise. I had looked at going to some museums or sites, but all of them are closed on Monday.
Later in the day I decided to take a walk to a huge park to get some exercise in. It was about 2.5 miles and I headed off. I had to reroute due to some protest and blocked roads, but the interesting thing about parks here is they have huge walls and bars and gates. And it turned out they are open Tuesday through Sundays from 0500-2300. So I looked at it through the big bars. LOL. Cities.
There are really no really interesting buildings that I have found. We are in the city area called Benito Juarez, which is named for the famous orphan, then military officer, then politician that became president of Mexico from 1858 to 1872. He was the first indigenous person to be democratically elected president. The area supposedly has upscale shopping and is home to the Mexico World Trade center. Benito Juarez makes for an interesting sign, though.
Short post today. We left early for us today at 10:00am because the drive was supposed to take us 4 hours, which generally in Mexico time is 50%+ more. However, we ended up arriving at the campsite right at 3:45 hours, which surprised me. We chose the route that was not supposed to cost us any tolls, but ended up paying right at $200 pesos. It was welcomed because the road got pretty rough in the last 10 miles before we turned to the Autopista. The Autopista was smooth and averaged about 100kph. We are camping for one night and then storing our vehicle at Pepe’s RV park for the duration of our stay in CDMX. We will come back here and stay one more night and then see about visiting Graham and Luisa.
On our way out of San Miguel de Allende I got a bit sloppy and messed up after draining the tanks. I left the tank cover on the the-down bracket and it is likely in the campground on the cobblestone. Several weeks ago I was traveling on an autopista and when I got to al tool booth, one of the ladies told me I had something hanging out. The little door to the sewer drain hose storage had come open and I was dragging the hose on the road. Unfortunately for me the end and about half was destroyed. I have two hoses, but finding RV parts in Mexico is not as easy and it is in the USA. Well, funny thing. A guy stopped by at Pepe’s and tried to sell me an awning or anything else I needed. I don’t need an awning now, but I asked him about the cap and the hose. He came back 20 minutes later with a hose and a cover, for $22 USD. I gave him $400 pesos, which is about $24. Holy cow. What a bonus. I should have asked him about a filter. God is good to us.
Tomorrow we pack up lightly, shut everything off on Howie, pack him away, and meet with a guy named Rubio to take us to CDMX to the AirBnB. Pepe’s will store our home for the week we are away. So excited. I am not a city mouse, but NY was fun with Kathy, and I know CDMX will be more fun with her. Love that woman.
I spent the last day in Guanajuato planning for our visit to Mexico City. I had logged in and looked at tickets and there were ones available to tour Casa Azul and the main museum for Diego Rivera the day we arrived in Guanajuato so I figured I would be fine. Two days later when I started planning, not a ticket could be found until Feb 24th. So I started to look at some other options since this is a definite stop for us on this trip. I found a site called Viator, which is apparently a Tripadvisor company, and found a couple of options. Tickets were more expensive than on the official site, but they included other items, like coffee and churro tastings, boat rides, etc. So I picked one that included the Casa Azul and the studio where Frida and Diego did their work. Several hours later it was cancelled due to no availalble tickets. So I tried again and it turned out with a different tour group, we got three tours, one of the house, one of the studio and another of the Casa Rojo. Score!!!.
While I was on the reservation process, I reserved an AirBnB for us in the city [Since Mexico City (Cuidad de Mexico or CDMX) is HUGE with over 20 million residents; driving legendary and is restricted (need a tourist pass); and parking is limited]. I went back to the Viator site and looked up painting classes since Kathy has wanted to take lessons for a long time. A class popped up and the instructor had great reviews. I figured we could get her a couple of classes. I thought it was in CMDX, but after checking the address, it was in San Miguel de Allende, 130 miles to the northwest. I was able to book her a two day class and that is how we ended up in San Miguel de Allende.
I found a great campground that doubles as a tennis club, and is in the middle of the city. Hanz, the owner confirmed he had space, so we navigated to his compound. I say compound because what we are finding in Mexico is that almost all properties in these old cities are built right on the sidewalk, but when doors are opened, there is a breezeway into an open inner courtyard. These were present in other cities, but here in San Miguel the streets are narrow and are wall to wall buildings, all with thick doors locking out the people in the street. As we walked along the streets, I could not stop looking through the shops and doors that revealed the inner beauty of the city.
Kathy took her class and simply loved it. I wish we had thought of this earlier and just planned a week or two in one spot so she could really immerse herself in learning how to paint. The instructor started her in oil painting and helped her to understand the layering that is involved in the oil paining process. After the first day Kathy had two paintings started with the base colors, and they are really impressive. She could not wait to get back the second day, and had almost as much fun. We will have to look for some more opportunities for her along the way.
The second day we decided to stop for some beverages and an early dinner so on the walk back from painting class we dipped in to this nice restaurant (tons of those in San Miguel) and asked for the roof top. Three floors up, climbing stairs inside a tree filled courtyard, we got to see a great view of the western city at sunset. Again, these cities hide their inner beauty. Here is an example of the courtyard of the second floor of the restaurant. Wouldn’t it be awesome to live in one of these places?
Kathy posing in the restaurant’s second floor, overlooking the inner courtyard.
I had the creme de alote soup and Kathy had some grilled shrimp tacos. I also had a Caipirinha, the official drink of Brazil, which is a drink similar to a margarita except it is made with muddled limes, raw sugar and a liquor made from sugar cane, called cachaca. I used to drink those a lot in Germany, and that drink had been imported by the Germans that holiday in Brazil. It was delicious.
We made our way back to the campground to let the pups out of Howie and to take them on a walk. We ran in to some fellow travelers, Steve and his wife, from Canada. They have been coming to Mexico every winter for the past 18 years and love the place. He mentioned his land rover was parked over to the side, and I jumped in to talk to him about it. Apparently he was tinkering with SketchUp (the google CAD program) and designed a living area for a Land Rover that was modeled after the VW Westfalia interior. I asked if I could take a look. My then Kathy had beelined away from the nerd talk as I followed Steve to the beauty.
It turns our Steve owns an engineering firm in Canada and was able to build it in his garage with a lot of help from his contractors. He said it took him 1.5 years on SketchUp designing, then found a 15 year old defender 130 truck in Germany that he could import (Canada allows 15 years old while USA requires 25). He drove the truck around for 2 years in Canada and then it took him 1.5 years to build the cabin. It is a work of art. he has 240 AH of Li batteries, a 1500W inverter, an induction cooktop, a portable toilet and even an indoor shower if needed. He said he updated his Defender to have 3 fuel tanks and has 2200KM of range (1300 miles). It has more living room in it than our camper, but it is a pop top and the bed comes out to take over the living area when deployed. It is smaller than Howie, but probably half the weight and skinny. Here is a link to the build. Needless to say, I am in love with that platform. Watch out FJ, you might be a candidate. LOL.
Anyway, we finished up our stay in San Miguel de Allende. It is definitely a place we want to come back to and would love to rent a place with one of those great courtyards. Now we are off to CDMX for a 10 night stay. Mexico is amazing and for all of you that are unsure of travel down here…. do it. You won’t regret it. Oh, and I connected with one of the Overlanding legends, Graham Bell of A2A Expedition, and he and his bride are living in Mexico a couple hours SE of here, so we are planning to meet up with them to say hello, hang out, and learn a bit more about travel. If you haven’t read his books, you should. They are witty, funny, and filled with the adventure I love.
This is going to be a pretty long blog post as we stayed in Guanajuato for 4 nights.
We stopped in Leon and tried to find a place to sell a water filter. The filer guys were awesome in helping, but they did not sell anything that would work on campers and suggested Home Depot. I really just want one of those RV hose adapters, as they will filter particles and most chlorine smells. We stopped at the Walmart that we were passing and got some more supplies. It always seems like $100 USD every time we stop for supplies. Oh well. We did hit up a Home Depot and they had a nice system for about $250 USD that would filter particles, chemicals, and bacteria/etc down to 0.2µ. It seems a bit tall for what I need. I may just have to do that for drinking and coffee water but for now I am just boiling the city water that we get at the campgrounds.
There was a Sam’s Club also in Leon so we stopped there to check it out. We only found a big bag of dog treats as most everything else does not fit in the camper. The dogs were happy though to get some Beggin Strips. We headed out of town and onwards toward Guanajuato. I have heard about this place from other Overlanders like Hourless Life, and definitely wanted to visit. There was one campground listed in the town and we checked to see if they had space, which they confirmed. The owner warned me to come in from the panaramica road and go down the wrong way on a one-way road. I tediously created a route to the location he indicated and headed that way.
As we were entering the town, there were a couple of guys that had touristico shirts on and flagged us down. They told me I could not fit through the tunnels and needed to go around. I showed them the route that I was given and they kept saying “no” and pointing to their paper map (which was not a map at all), and tried to tell me to go through to the right. Well after trying to fix the map, I lost my route and Kathy picked up and tried to help. She routed me to a location, I missed the turn, had to go through a round-about for a second time, and then started up to the center of the city, immediately through a tunnel.
The tunnel had 5m of clearance, almost twice what we needed. We continued up, trying to get to the panoramic road (which we kept seeing signs for, and at one point Kathy’s map told is to turn right down a road that probably was not 8′ wide. I balked. We looked at the maps again, trying to get them to cooperate, and I was becoming frustrated. We traced a route to the panaramic road and at the entrance, there was a police truck looking like it was blocking the entrance. I slowly drove by, and he did not even look up from his phone.
We worked our way on this road, but ended up on it in the wrong direction and were heading back to where we started. When we got back to the bottom, I figured I would just follow the bus as he was taller than we were. That worked until he pulled off and let his people off. At that point I told Kathy we were going to follow the blue line and deal with any issues that came up.
It worked for the most part, except the last 400m where we were going up a 2-way street that was only 1 lane wide and the wires hanging over the street were barely taller than Howie. I did hit a few as we drove up the road, but fortunately there were parallel to the direction of travel and nothing caught. At one point, there were two parked cars, one on each side, the grade was going on 15% (don’t know for sure but it was steep), and I switched to 4WD-Hi to ensure all 4 wheels were managing the weight. I think as we passed the cars, I had about 2 inches of space between the camper and the cars. At the top it got better as the turn was about 135 degrees in the wrong direction. Roy, the campground owner, met us (probably because he heard the commotion on the road coming up) and guided us in backwards down in to the campground. I got out, wiped my sweaty palms, and almost hugged Roy for helping.
Howie parked at the Morrell RV park in Guanajuato.
We decided to rest up and make some dinner in the camper as it was already almost dark and the 3.5 hour drive to Guanajuato took about 8 hours to get us there. The city is beautiful in a lot of ways. It is not as polished as German, Italy, or Spain, but it has a lot of really neat colors. We met a young Canadian couple that was also in a truck camper. They also felt that this mode of transport is the best compromise to a motorhome or a van. The couple are still working while traveling and are making their way to Oaxaca before heading back north. At the campground, there is a constant chorus of dogs barking that echo on all sides until the early morning hours. The weather is about 75 degrees in the daytime and gets down to the low 40’s at night at the 6500′ altitude. We slept well and were ready to roll the next day. We planned to stay 3 nights here to explore the town in the day and the night.
A view from our campsite in Guanajuato.
The next day I took the pups for a walk up the hill. Roy had mentioned a mine that was about a 15 minute walk up the road, which was perfect. The pups definitely enjoyed it until I decided to go look at the church up at the top of the hill as it was a hike for them as well. It was Sunday at this point so church was getting ready to start. Outside the little courtyard a couple of tables had been set up and there were families selling some hot drinks and snacks for the people heading in.
One of the many churches in Guanajuato.
The pups and I headed back and met up with Kathy, where they got their treats and went in to the camper for their usual day-long nap. Kathy and I hiked down the hill into town. The mapped route took us into the tunnels that Guanajuato is famous for. The city originally set up the tunnels to route the waters of the river under the town but over time they have been altered to become roads. It is really neat to see the somewhat random car disappearing or appearing from these roads to merge into the streets of the town.
There are tons of VW Bugs in Mexico and this nice one was protected in the garden by this ferocious beast.
We had lunch at a really nice little cafe that gave us the option of an inside patio or inside the restaurant. We decided on the interior garden area and had some great camerone tacos and I had BBQ pollo, which turned out to be some sort of Molé sauce. It was delicious, nonetheless. We knew Guanajuato was the birthplace of Diego Rivera, a famous Mexican artist and husband of Frida Kahlo, and we quickly mapped out the museum to take a tour. It was a small sample of his art over the years and is pretty impressive the different styles that he painted, drew, or colored over the years. The tour was only $60 pesos for the two of us.
We wandered the streets and tunnels for a couple of hours after lunch and then caught an uber to take us back to camp. It was only about 1.5 miles, but this city is build over several canyons and streets can be closer to the pitch of stairs than regular roads. Plus it was only $90 pesos for the trip, so $6 USD.
The next day we took the pups on another long walk up to the mine area so Kathy could check out the area. Then we decided to stay in the campground, take a ciesta, and head into the city at night to enjoy all of the lights and evening atmosphere. I found a great restaurant called Casa Valadez that had 5 star ratings, so we Uber’d (to the French-Canadians it is Yoo-ber) to the general location. It turns out this restaurant has a famous Mexican chef Karen Valadez, who has competed in Iron Chef Mexico. We were serenaded by mariachis in the park (through the windows) and treated to some great food. I had the enchilada de pollo covered with the 5 types of Molé they make in the region while Kathy had a great Pasta Alfredo. We finished with her famous dessert, a corn cake surrounded by vanilla and cheese sauce with a habernero kick. Delicious. It was not too bad at $65 for the meals and two drinks.
We walked around the town in different areas and marveled at the lights and colors. We eventually found a town sticker that we can put on Howie in our travels back. This time we were only 0.8 miles from the camp so we walked home. The last 400meters is brutal. We love this town and hope to come back some day.
The last day we were here we just rested at the camp. We has planned to head toward Mexico City, but the tickets to the museum we were planning to see were all sold out, so I finally got a set from a tour group for the 11th. In the extra days, I found a surprise thing for Kathy that she will love, so we are heading to a town called San Miguel de Allende for three nights. We will drive to Mexico City early on Saturday hoping to get to a campground north of the city. Then we will Uber to the city for an AirBnB we have reserved for 8 nights, so we can explore Mexico City. We will be leaving howie at the campground storage so we don’t have to worry about driving and parking in a city of 20+ million people.
We had some errands to run in Guadalajara; getting cash, filling the diesel, etc, and then started working our way towards Guanajuato. We routed the GPS down the libre (free) route rather than traveling on the toll roads and the route was supposed to take about 4.5 hours for 186 miles. Well, after driving for 5 hours I decided to stop at a camp along the way in Lago de Moreno. The traffic getting out of Guadalajara was fun to say the least, and then along the route we hit a bunch of walkers and bikers, and the 4 lane highway slows to a crawl. We thought it might be migrants, but those trains have seemed to have slowed this past year. Kathy got on Google and found out it is an annual religious pilgramage.
The pilgrimage to San Juan de los Lagos occurs in the weeks before Feburary 2, which people begin to walk or ride towards. The holiday is Candelaria, which is when Jesus was presented to the temple by Mary and Joseph. In Mexico it is the holiday when all Jesus infants and Christmas decorations are taken down and officially ends the Christmas season. Kathy and I were wondering why the decorations here were up throughout the month of January (definitely not HOA approved, LOL).
Well it turns out the town of San Juan de la Lago will see about 2 million pilgrims in the small town. Along the route we were driving from there to Leon, we saw tons of water points, tent cities, roadside food tables, supply trucks, and vendor stands. It was quite a site to see. Here is a link to a better description, instead of me regurgitating it. Anyway, but the time we were supposed to get to Guanajuato, it would have been way past dark, so we routed to a campground in Lago del Moreno called Kikapu.
Parque Aquatico Kikapu is a waterpark in the warmer seasons. It is really quite impressive to see with multiple pools, play areas, picnic areas, beaches, an event center, cabanas, and even a lake that is stocked for fishing. The campground is not too impressive, but it had power (supposedly), water and a black-water dump. There was another camper in the grounds, but they stayed inside so we did not get to chat with them. Maggie and Zuzu loved the grounds as they got to run through the grass throughout the park. The only issue we found was the skunk that was wandering around the truck after dark.
The next day we got all packed up and attempted to empty the black and grey tanks. Unfortunately the drain was plugged and I had to move the drain hose to another location, which of course caused a little bit of a stinky mess. This is the second time we have experienced this in Mexico and it took a bit to get the tanks cleaned out, but we did it. We have a couple of stops along the route today before getting to Guanajuato, and we were off by 11am. Not too many photos today.
