I wasn't on the road for very long before I came to the defining intersection that most drivers taking that turn would be headed for my destination. I just remember a eucalyptus tree there as big as an average apple tree back home. I got a ride from two fellas that gave me some brightly colored wafers (my breakfast), really I wasn't sure at first if it was food or a stiff card/paper product for arts+crafts. Food should not be that neon red!
Cuidad Hildago
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| I'll have one of these glazed ceramic sinks someday. |
Through small towns in the hot sun we whizzed by, and they dropped me off right in the town square of Cuidad Hildago. I was now there two days ahead of schedule that had already been amended from my original plans. I emailed my couchsurfer contact there to notify him of my whereabouts and to check his availability, and set about finding accommodation for the night. He was very helpful and did some scouting around to offer some inexpensive options, which I found easily by showing the written address to people on the street. Nice neat room to leave my packs in, and I returned to town unencumbered to explore and rendezvous with my couchsurfer to join his family for dinner.
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| Park at city center. Briefly quiet pictured here, but well used. |
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| Cross has obsidian disc, sacred symbol of the native god. |
The streets are narrow and were crowded that afternoon, cluttered with shops full of crap we can find at the Richmond night market, some designer brands of clothing I don´t need. Found no postcards though. Plenty of street food stalls in the main square, and slender black birds with an intricate vocalizing. For some reason the air/atmosphere reminds me of Florida. Still a city, but doesn't really smell dirty, just exotic and summery. I met up with my couchsurfing guide and he introduced me to Mexican "pasta", which is their ice cream. The original flavour is softly spiced with cinnamon+vanilla, subtle and fragrant. Fantastic, and I will endeavour to find some in Vancouver if I can.
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| Roadside tortilla buffet for lunch. |
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| Big bunny, small pyramid! |
With my couchsurfer's family at his parents home, we had take-out burritos and tacos from the best place in town. We ate quite late and the burrito was large, that was the most I'd eaten in a while. He couldn't host me as him+his wife+three children all live in a one-bedroom home while their new (and spacious) home is being built, but his parents offered to let me stay with them for a few days. His sister drove me around to see some limestone caves and an
archaeological site in San Felipe, featuring a pyramid with a great view
of the town below, mostly pontsettia nurseries. I was told San Felipe
is the top producer of pontsettias.
We returned to his parent's house and I got the chance to help make homemade quesadillas - vegetarian, for a meatless Friday in Lent; pumpkin blossoms, diced prickly pear cactus, and those mushrooms again.
The next morning I was dropped off at Los Azufres, an area of hot springs and geysers. I went geocaching along here looking for somewhere to leave my Monarch migration-themed trackable, but no cache was large enough for it. I skipped soaking in the hot springs. They were piped into campground pools or spa facilities and intended for the patrons, which was fine but I simply chose not. Along the forest creek I did notice an outflow with some steam rising from it I might've soaked my feet in, but didn't investigate further as many creeks I saw were polluted or otherwise questionable. I had a nice hike in the forest.
The next day was my couchsurfers' daughter's 4th birthday party in the dry pine forests near their relatives' home in the country. I do not post photos of other people (especially children) here without their expressed permission, so I will just describe that it was an easy laid-back time with dogs running around and little girls in their princess outfits flitting among the adults, serving tripe and a whole previously cooked lamb to be hacked up for our tortillas, a huge homemade birthday cake, and not one but two pinatas.
I spoke with what people I could, and as it came to light that I wanted to someday see a sea turtle egg-laying beach, someone advised me that the sea turtles are still laying in February and if I hurry I might be in time to catch them! Well then! I had one week left to race to the west coast beaches and back to Mexico City for my flight back to Canada, I hadn't planned on even seeing the beaches during this trip, but I didn't want to put it off until returning to Mexico "maybe someday..", and spend the rest of my trip there spinning my wheels playing it safe till I leave, wondering what could've been. At least I have to try. Thus I leave tomorrow.
But for that afternoon I was just quietly content and grateful to be included into someone's family. It's a brief interlude in the semi-alertness I carry often while traveling; transportation becomes schedules, meals are alternating between base necessity or a luxury, and opportunities become appointments carved in stone so as not to be missed. Most require planning and an ever-vigilant eye on how to optimize one's resources. It's exhausting but worth it.
The next morning, with some leftover quesadillas and lamb tacos in tow, I caught a bus to Morelia (102 Mxn).
Morelia
The quick and direct bus dropped me off on the eastern edge of town, where I knew there to be a geocache in an ecological reserve in the middle of the industrial district. I figured this would be as close as I can get to drop it off near the butterfly reserves, and it followed the same sort of nature theme, so still seemed appropriate. The sun was already hot above, I slugged along the perimeter of the park before finding the entrance, wound my way through trails and forged my own through tall grass just following that stupid GPS arrow. Almost finished my day's worth of water in one sitting. No other people around, no wildlife in sight. And no geocaching day would be complete without crashing through thorn bushes - today would be hawthorn, or a reasonable facsimile indigenous to Mexico and worthy of ecological protection. Found the cache after almost giving up, it was _almost_ too small to accommodate my trackable but I crammed it in anyway. It is done.
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| What a nice cathedral! |
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| Bunny amidst the ferocity of passionate mural in the Justice Building! |
Left the park, and a long hot walk smelling of hot garages, rubber tires, exhaust and oil into the old town, which I was recommended was a very pretty town. It is the state capital, main transportation hub for long-distance buses, and a university town. It was founded by Spanish nobility and religious orders, and the landmark buildings (and newer ones built to continue the style) are made of peachy-pink limestone. I flopped out in a shady park to recover an hour or so. Didn't find any more postcards, and the post office was closed. Into the evening I passed by Teatro Ocampo, and poked my head in to see if I could get some photos of the interior for a faraway fella studying theater. As luck would have it I was in time to catch the second half of a festival performance of a solo Spanish-style guitar backed by the orchestra. What a lovely treat I stumbled into!
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| Bricks were from a church decommisioned to make way for the construction of the main highway. |
The show was until 10:30pm and I figured on catching the earliest bus out of Morelia heading south to the coast, so there was no point in getting a bed for so briefly, I chose to simply wander the town till morning. The university students kept the city center abuzz till midnight or so, then the bars closed and I wandered back to where the bus had dropped me off. This part of town was dark and the street dogs were actually a bit
intimidating, even the little yippie ones, and I thought of the rabies
vaccine I'd declined before coming here.
I thought that was the bus station, as I'd seen several buses there when I first came... Oops. I spent a few hours in a greasy spoon diner, indulged in a single beer (my first since arriving in Mexico) because a fella back home had said "Have a beer for me!", though I wasn't really into it. As even that shop closed at 3am, the manager informed me then that the bus stop was for drop-off only, and to get a bus to the coast I needed to get to the main bus depot, of course on the opposite side of town.
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| Cruel cathedral is taunting me... |
So back into town again, and carry on through, and ask whoever is still on the street at that hour for directions to the bus depot. And of course the roads toward the edges are angled and/or curved into a ring road, which despite my best efforts at requesting the ticket center where one can purchase tickets for buses that leave the city, I'd be directed around to the center of town. Upon my third pass of the city center I was really starting to hate seeing that same damned cathedral. Further irritation were these "combi" shuttle vans that BEEP sharply as they pass me by, as if offering their services, yet not slowing enough to inquire as to their route or destination or price or even climb aboard. I'm sure there's a trick to flagging them down, but I haven't figured it out beyond perhaps hurling myself directly into their path and hoping they don't run me over completely. The locals seemed shocked that I would choose to _walk_ to the bus depot, which would've taken me a fraction of the time it did if I weren't retreading the same ground constantly.
With ebbing patience I finally made a breakthrough with hotel concierge that gave me a crude map and marked the crucial X on the "central camionera". A tired grouchy walk up there, walked in through the bus exit with some guard trying to tell me otherwise - sorry pal, I gave up caring hours ago, find me the ticket counter now. Purchased a seat for 370 Mxn to leave town finally after 10am-ish.
So long, pretty Morelia, it's been a slice...
