Cruising ~ The Cat’s
Meow Style ~ June & July, 2008
Cruising Inland,
Mexico ~ Part 1
Mid-June found us leaving
The Cat’s Meow behind in the new marina in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle while we
drove the van, with both of the kitties, for explorations inland. Since we were
land-cruising with two cats, Robin had made reservations at three pet-friendly
places to stay a week at a time. The fourth and last place was in a house where
friend MJ (formerly of Sol Mate) was house-sitting, and it was also cat-friendly.
We had been talking about doing this land travel for a number of years. It felt
really good to actually be doing it!
Our first destination was
Colima – a medium sized city, not very far inland from Manzanillo. We stayed in
the Suites Galvan, a good location for walking into el centro (center of the
town), and in a neighborhood with a few stores, restaurants, etc. The “suites”
were actually an apartment building, with a small pool and tropical vegetation
all around, kept very clean and neat, off-street parking, and with a guard
24/7. Not fancy, fairly typical Mexican fare for building, with AC, and overall
just fine. We walked into el centro, checked out the three museums around the
main square, had some tasty food, and relaxed the first day.
An evening
concert in one of Colima’s plazas Detail
of a mural by Chavez
Other days, we drove into
the countryside and up a mountainside to view a still active volcano. We could
see steam rising from the volcano – and the clouds at the top parted just for
us to see all clearly. Then we spent some time wandering about the pueblo of
Comala. Robin sampled the local “ponche” (a sweet drink made with natural stuff
+ alcohol) while we ate botanas (appetizers),watched the mariachis get ready to
play, and enjoyed the locals.
One day we went to the two
sites of ancient ruins, which included an underground tomb. Another day we
drove quite a ways up a VERY long, desolate mountain road and finally found a
very small village, where we met some very nice people who were willing to take
us to the very well hidden cave that had been used by some of the meso
Americans, thousands of years ago. That was an adventure!! And then there was
the 80 year old woman whom we found walking along the road, by herself, on our
way back from the cave! We offered her a ride, and had a pleasant chat while we
took her to her village, where she hopped out and scurried up the hill to her
house.
Some of the ancient ruins at the La Camana site Note the (real) human bones this dog is guarding Exploring a really well-hidden cave
The second place we stayed
was in a very old village, Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. Here, we had
lodging in an “eco-hotel”, up the hill from the village and overlooking the
lake. This was a suite – a sweet suite at that! Very nice and well-appointed
buildings decorated beautifully with local crafts. Patzcuaro sits above 6000
feet in elevation, so the temperatures were a bit brisk for us. Even the people
working at the hotel wore jackets. It rained a LOT while we were in this area,
and it was not very warm during the daytime and downright chilly at night. The
weird thing was: we were the only guests in the entire hotel! It seems that
they were not officially open until the next week, and there was a “skeleton
crew” working, but we were treated like king & queen the entire week.
We had this entire hotel to ourselves! The view of the lake from our suite
The first afternoon in
Patzcuaro, we happened upon the Baile de los Viejos/Dance of the Old Ones in
the main square. This is a local area dance, performed at special occasions and
of course for the tourists. Tourists from Mexico City and from Guadalajara come
to Patzcuaro to get out of the heat, and there were a few other North
Americans, but we did not see many.
Los Viejos dancing in a main plaza….and Robin’s “Viejo”
Here is a video clip (about
30 seconds) of some of the dancing Los Viejos did in the plaza:
One (rainy) day we drove
around the lake. Every few miles there is a pueblo that specializes in a
certain type of craft, such as lacquered wood designs, weaving with a
straw-type of material, copper items, woodcarving, etc. This makes for a very interesting area. In
many of the pueblos, one can see the local people working in their shops or
wearing the dress that is specific to their pueblo. Patzcuaro and the
neighboring villages are all painted exactly the same way: a brick-red on the
bottom portion of the buildings with white above that. Some of these buildings
dated from the 14th century. We saw some buildings still standing –
some not too well – made of adobe bricks.
A maestra of lacquer painting in
her shop
Woodcarving shop
Wonderful craftsmen, everywhere
The library
in Patzcuaro ~ quite beautiful
Typical street & buildings in Patzcuaro
One day we drove to the
larger city of Uruapan. The roads all along our trip were quite good – well
maintained, whether we were on the libre (free) roads or on the cuota (toll)
roads. This day, however, driving on one of the cuota roads, we decided we did
NOT enjoy this particular type of road. It was two-lanes, but each lane had
about a half of another lane to the side, and the trucks, busses, and cars
treated it like a three-lane highway. Scary!! We opted for driving on the
smaller, slower, libre roads.
Uruapan is the mother-lode
for avocados– there are more avocados grown here than anywhere else. Period.
Anyway, once in Uruapan and
after we found a parking lot, we walked around the city. There is a large park
that follows a river at one end of the city. This park is known for its
waterfalls and other water scenes. What a fine park! It was hard not to take
photos at every turn. Green was an understatement. We had a great time
wandering about, and we only saw about half of the park.
Then, we decided to try to
find the nearby volcano. Another drive thru great countryside, on a good road,
and we came to a very small village. Here, guides on horseback continually
offered to take us to the volcano – but we didn’t have that much time nor did
we especially want to ride the horses to the volcano. We kept going, in the
van, and eventually found a nice park and tourist area, with great views of the
volcano. This volcano is of interest due to its very young age: it erupted in
1943, and was active until the mid-sixties. It completely destroyed two
villages. You can see the steeple and part of the church sticking up out of the
lava flow in one of the villages, but that is all that is left.
Guide and his sons, with the volcano in the background An artistic rendition of the
volcano’s explosions
This trip took us four
weeks, and we saw a lot, did a lot. Here, we are breaking the story and photos
into two parts, because there are so many photos, plus a few video clips, to
download. Of course, we hope you enjoy each and every one of them! Please
go on to see the second half of our inland trip, since we kept Cruising ~
The Cat’s Meow Style…….