Mexico - Guanajuato

Tuesday August 7
We packed up everything in our expensive hotel room and Ken took it out to the van. We had brought most our gear into the room to repack and generally reorganize. I felt bad leaving Guanajuato as it is so colorful, arty and unique. We really enjoyed our time there. I took a few last pictures and we were off to Dolores Hidalgo, again.

Once we arrived in Dolores Hidalgo we found some ice cream, which was handmade, locally. It had flavours such as mole. I actually ate at a street vendor which I did not do often. I found a vendor selling barbequed corn with lime and salt on it. Very delicious!











Somewhere at a ceramics studio I got really sick again (I am suspicious that it was from last nights supper). We bought food to cook ourselves at a grocery store outside San Miguel. I am really scared to eat here as I am getting sick far too often lately. By the way you often have to pay to go to public type restrooms here. The fee is usually two pesos, sometimes three in the finer establishments. There could be a turnstile with a person collecting the fee or a basket for you to put your money into. If a person collects the money they usually have squares of toilet paper counted out to pass on to you as you give them the pesos. Since we are on the topic of bathrooms, I will let you in on another unique occurance regarding them here in Mexico. In most bathrooms you can not flush your used toilet paper, you throw it into little waste baskets beside the toilet... reason: small pipes plug up with the paper. Don't think you will get away with throwing your paper in because you could end up with water all over your sandals. Get the picture?

We arrived at Tepotzotlan, Mexico, and at, of all places, Pepe's Hotel Posada. It was pouring rain when we arrived and the Hotel/RV Park owner gave us a special deal on a hotel room of 150 pesos which is approximately a $15.00 hotel room. Scarey!!! Actually it was clean and comfortable, just quite tacky in the line of furnishings. The grounds were immaculately groomed and there was a big, tall gated fence around the whole place, complete with two big dogs (Lola and Jackie).







Monday August 6
Our breakfast was delicious and included red or green sauce poured over tortilla chips with cheese sprinkled overtop. The juice is not fresh squeezed which normally I would protest about. Here, however, fresh squeezed juice could make tourists sick, not sure why. We spent all morning gearing up to go to Mexico city and our trek home. I have been working on catching up on this blog and our accompanying RV journal/log. Ken phoned my Dad back in Saskatchewan about which routes in the States he would recommend. This really relieved some of Ken's anxiety about the trip up to Saskatchewan to see the relatives. We sat out by the pool for a while then (after a few drinks) decided to get cleaned up and take a taxi into Guanajuato for supper. Ken feels like he has some symptoms of altitude sickness which could include tiredness, shortness of breath, side ache or digestive upset.





Sunday August 5
This was the first time all summer that we awoke to an alarm clock (not as early as a rooster crowing). Even though 7:30 am seemed early to us we still did not make it down to breakfast until almost 10:00 am. We took the hotel shuttle bus into Guanajuato. Then we found the Museum where Diego Rivera lived/grew up. His family must have been fairly well off. The first floor of the museum was decorated with period furniture from the late 1800's. The other floors had his art gracing the walls - water colors, oil painting (cubist and otherwise), lithographs, etc. We ate lunch at Jardin De la Union amongst huge ficus benjiminas, a fountain, statue and flowers.


Next we went to the Don Quixote Museum. Art of many mediums dedicated to and about Don Quixote and his loyal pal Sanchez was in this museum. Great art work in both museums!














We ate supper at a little Mediterranean Restaurant way up a set of stairs with great views and food.






















I took many photos out the open windows and then when the other customers had left the restaurant...












I went snap happy in the well appointed room.











We arrived back at our hotel room tired and touristed out. We down loaded our pictures and decided to stay in Guanajuato another day.






Saturday August 4
We decided we needed a better, cleaner place stay. I had been very sick in the night from eating something or drinking something (we never really pegged down what exactly). I had been careful of eating and drinking but obviously not selective enough. There is an upset that travelers experience from the change in location which causes the flora in your intestines to not be happy. I live about 63 feet above sea level, Guanajuato is six thousand, six hundred and forty-nine feet above sea level, maybe that had some bearing on my sickness. Ken was quite fine.




We got to spend some time talking to our friendly campground neighbors who actually live in Mexico, in a little place on the Pacific Ocean called Bahia Kino. They are Americans living in Mexico. They did have a wonderful view from their campsite, with the arches it was quite beautiful.








We spent much of the day finding a hotel room. Being the weekend this was not an easy task. We tried to stick to AAA listed hotels. Several we looked at downtown Guanajuato teetered on that fine line between funky and junky, even though their price tag was over one hundred American dollars. We looked for one hotel for a long time then realized it likely was no longer in existence. We succumb to the Holiday Inn Express (we usually don't like to stay in chains) and ended up really liking it. We finished off the day enjoying ourselves doing laundry and being in a clean hotel. Our room was on the main floor with a door into the courtyard and pool. Walking around the hotel we discovered a little chapel out behind it, that was very well appointed with a bravado, stained glass window, etc.


Friday August 3
We awoke and looked through the sunroof to see why this was a recommended camp spot. It overlooked the hills of Guanajuato, which included the colorful homes perched close together. The barking dogs had woke Ken up early. Their sounds echoed throughout the hillside. We met the two other people staying in the trailer park, Len and Phyllis. Once we were on our way into town we saw three burros packed up with firewood. They looked happy and well cared for. Ken forced me into going to the dentist to get my crown put back on. This was really a source of anxiety for me, especially being in a different country.

We walked along a strip with many dentist's offices and just randomly picked one. We had thoughts of leaving if the cleanth factor was not there. This particular dentist office was clean and the dentist spoke English much better than we speak Spanish. Best of all he looked like Diego Rivera, you don't often get that in a dentist. We decided to phone Nanaimo and talk to Dr. Senini our regular dentist to get the low down on what we should expect to have done. The Mexican dentist wore gloves and a mask for me (he wasn't for other patients that we could see) and immediately relieved my anxiety when he started working. I believe he did a good job. One unusual thing was he had his desk right in the office and he dealt with the bill payment.

I walked out of there feeling relieved, wanting to tourist it up in Guanajuato.






















We walked around a bit and got out of the heat of the day by going to the Regional Museum of Guanajuato.













We saw the Hall of Heroes (independence revolution of 1810 from the Spanish) which was very moving, pre-columbian stamps and a history of independence, etc. We were not allowed to use a flash but could take pictures after paying for a ticket for our camera to tour the museum.















1 comment:

Rochelle Cashdan said...

Google took me to your blog when I typed in Guanajuato altitude. I live in Gto but the last time I have returned from near sea level in the US definitely felt tired. Anyway, I enjoyed reading about your time here. My experience with Dr. Valdepena 13 years ago was different. I'm glad if he's cleaned up (no pun intended) his act. Liked seeing Guanajuato through your eyes. Let me know if you come back Rochelle rcashdan at yahoo dot com.