NO PICTURES – CAMERA WAS LEFT ON A BUS!
12-25 Merry Christmas.
A beautiful blue sky greets this morning with cool temps: sweater weather until about 10 am then short sleeves. Off to find a place to eat on this holiday morning – crowds gone – street are almost empty at 9 am. tour a great place on the jardin union, very upscale and lovely with sofá music to go with our “café americanos”.
We took a long walk to the far end of town to visit the orginal reservoir and see how the upper crust lives. Old buildngs with tin roofs are huge, sporting lead glass windows, carved wooden doors, high ceilings and large yards. All in all a long wonderful and colorful walk to new surroundings.
The creches all now have their baby Jesúses – some dressed in traditional garb, some very fancy. The sun is hot and the crowds are starting to filter into city center …shops are open, arms loaded with packages, central market is doing a brisk business. Seems like any other business day!
Late in the afternoon we have been sittting on a small third floor balcony over looking the market square and main drag through town. We match the stream of people on both sides of the pavement--lots of buses and cabs. We time how long it takes people to catch a cab; watch the traffic police take a tip for illegal parking all the while blowing their multi-tuned traffic whistles and moving their arms. this whole scene is repeated nightly, but keeps us entertained.
Judee is on the mend and our things are packed, bike is ready and we are off the new environs tomorrow.
Tuesday [December 27?
Guanajuato to Celaya --gls]
We are back on the road again: yesterday frm Celaya to Salvatierra (40km). We bused from Guanajuato to Celaya. Had lunch at a road side stand, then took to the road. It was busy but had a pasable shoulder. We are riding constantly now in high valleys: 7,000 – 8,500 ft. We do long climbs from valley plateaus up to the nest valley. The peaks around us are ranking upword of 8,000 to 9,500 ft. The countryside is agricultural fields on the valley floors and grazing land on the mountainsides. The winter colors are shades of brown with sploches of green – seems like late fall – early November. there are periodic bunches of flowers at the roadside and the poinsetta plants ablaze along with the brilliant bouganvilla: knock your eyes out reds!
This morning the ceiling in our motel room had stopped leaking so we could make it into the john without getting a shower. The motel had recently been renovated – looked great but had a few plumbing problems!
It was cold this morning so I’ll get my gloves out, my hands were really painful on the handlebars. The ride today was one of the nicest and most beautiful so far. The road had no shoulder, but the traffic was lighter and polite. We climb up and up from valley over the mountain shoulder or pass and into the next valley. The road does not follow the central valley floor but rises on the high valley side. Views down the valley and across are expansive with mountain rops in the far background. We are traveling through multi mountain ranges on all sides.
A wonderful 71 km ride into town…market day…the narrow one way streets were absolutely lamed, vendors, cars, trucks. Alter winding through the maze we found Hotel Campo with a small, elegant room with a hot shower and hard bed (as usual).
Yesterday was a bodacious day! The most beautiful valleys, mountains – trees overhead, clean, clear air! The only traffic is vacationers going to see the butterflys. We chose to try to find a hotel in Ocampo – a location close the the road and El Rosario Sanctuary. We found a new place, costly($35), prettily decorated and paitned, loads of hot water and many blanket since the nights bring a light frost. I (Judee) had a terrible time understanding the hotel receptionist – she spoke very fate. She had a bit of an attitude (1st encountered in all of Mexico, that I can recall). She wouldn’t let us bring our bike in. She made us lock it to the little balcony outside our room.
Next morning we caught a shuttle from downtown to El Rosario to see the Monarch butterflies. This is the most interesting natural phenomenon, where hundreds of thousands of Monarchs winter here in the pine trees, actually weighing down the huge branches. At first glance it looked as though there was a massive infestation of parasitic plants hanging in the trees, but as the sun warmed these Huge 8 to 15’ masses, they began to flutter and appear orange. The warmer the day became, the more active the butterflies, lighting on buses, grasses and people. It was a mystical experience.
The journey to see them included the van journey (a Mexican bus experience) over the cobblestone road up, up to the parking lot. Then there was the walk up between all the hawkers of food and curios. Next we paid $3 each and proceded through a turn style where we were assigned a “guide”. The guide led us up, up, up numerous stairs, up dusty steep trails and finally to an area roped of to protectt the monarchs. Everyone sat quiet, just watching the morning unfold down the mountainside and into the deep forest, backlit with the rising sun! Cameras clicked all around us. Our guide went and sat with the other guides. If one could speak Spanish, some of the guides were giving a great deal of information. Thank goodness for our guidebooks, as there was nothing in English.
As we descended at about 10:30, hoards of butterfly seekers were mounting the million steps and steep paths. Many without guides. We never figured out how it was decided who got one! We tipped ours, had lunch at one of the many stalls, and took the same shuttle back down.
Here our store gets a bits sad …we went back to our room, packed and dressed ride to Zitacuaro and noticed we did not have the camera we were taking pictures with in the shuttle. Whit haste, we mounted the bike and headed back to town, found the shuttle but NO CAMERA! Our new $300 investment from Guadalahura didn{t last long! All our pictures of Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allend, and our favrite riding roads from Celaya into here are all gone!! No one’s fault but our own!
We picked up our sad faces and climbed out of the little valley and over the other side for a magnificent 6-10km downhill! The weather is cristal and warm in the mountain sun. We have been at about 7,000 feet for weeks now. it is dry and very cool (30-40’s) and cold at night. The area is Central Mexico, nearing Mexico City – during Christmas week. We are staying in hotels – have been for weeks since there have been no RV parks and it is cold. Hotels are fairly expensive in the area: $35 low end – althought tonight, in Zitacauro, we have one for $20 – dribbly hot water, but affable hostess makes thing better! We are feeling a little “thin”. Tired, kinda tired of the Mexican way of things (things not finished, trash everywhere, topes, topes, all restaurants closing at 5 pm – just we are finished riding, cleaning up, napping and ready for a little meal and a walk about a new town! Things really get going around 7 or 8pm. when we are ready to curl up around a good book in a warm bedroom! Hill we ever get on the Mexican time schedule?
To Mexico City
