On to Patz

Our plan was to take a bus from Barra de Navidad, Jalisco to Patzcuaro, Michoacan. We found there wasn’t one so we were just going to go to Manzanilla and hop on a bus to Patz. Then just to Colima, the just to Zomora, 11 hours later we spent the night in Uruapan, and got a bus to Patz. the next day. It was actually really fun, we had a lovely day of changing landscapes and different flavored cities.

Here is a video of our day in a nutshell, there were actually a few city buses and cabs too. Hopefully you can get a sense of the change in climate and landscape.

Before heading to Patz, we spent the morning wandering around Uruapan’s beautiful Parque Nacional. Our hotel was very near the entrance. The Park was a public works type project in the 1920s and is a maze of paths through a semi tropical forests and waterfalls, rivers and fountains. It was glorious to be immersed in the green greeness of it all and the sound of rushing water.

We went straight from there to the bus station, so we saw very little of the city. It had a very good feel though, and I am looking forward to going back. I will be spending some days there soon, talking to teachers and observing in schools.

The trip to Patz took about 2 hours because we took a local. A direct would have only been 1 hour. We road through many small towns, picking up people anywhere along the way.

Michoacan has very strong, visible indigenous roots. It is also one of the more progressive states in Mexico, so you see more people reading the La Jornada the lefty newspaper, more posters about current issues, there are generally more strikes and protests going on than in Guanajuato, the most conservative state in Mexico. People seem to have more hope and assurance that their actions make a difference.

We met up with some old friends of D and L’s at the library. (They lived here for about a year, 14 years ago.) Everyone was so happy to see eachother and meet Mikko, Matthew and me.

The library from outside.

This is the inside of the library - I thought I had pictures of the friends, but that must have been someone else.

This is the Plaza Chica, from the library - our hotel was over on the right.
One fellow was a teacher, so I interviewed him and the next day went to his class to speak English to his students. He teaches English in a public secondary school (like middle school.) The kids wee very sweet and asked me lots of cute questions: Do you like meat? How do you spell your mother’s name? What is your email?

I had to pretend I didn’t speak any Spanish, which was hard because I like to speak Spanish, and feel kind of proud that I can. In fact the interview was great and meeting all of D and L’s friends. We had spoken so little Spanish for the past few days that I had that fear of losing it - but then I found that I could just slip right into it again, which is so reassuring and makes me feel that I have achieved a certain level. Still so far to go though - poco a poco.

Being in the school was a wonderful experience and got me excited about the observations I will be doing after spring break.

I went to the hospital that day too. My stupid ol’ tendonitis came back, (I got it for the first time about three weeks ago.) I had to go to a doctor, because there is only one kind of antiinflamitory I can take because of being on the blood thinner - such a hassle. But the doctor was very thorough and not only gave me the prescription but gave me exercises to do, unlike the doctor in Guanajuato. I thought it was cheep going to him - 200 pesos ($20) but the doctor in Patz was only 80 pesos ($8)!!

The hospital is the door on the right.

We took some lovely walks, did some shopping, some visiting and just lollygagging and then were off to Morelia for our last two days.

Mikko with the mom of a friend that we visited.

In the combi on our way to the bus to Morelia.

I Heart Morelia

We just took a quick 3 day trip to Michoacan. 3 nights in Morelia, with one day wandering the streets of Patzcuaro.

Michoacan is the state just to the south of Guanajuato state. The countryside is much greener than Guanajuato, which has its own high, dry beauty. Michoacan is as high as Guanajuato, I believe, but instead of being dry and craggy Michoacan is green and rolling. It feels lush and volcanic.

Morelia is the capital of Michoacan and the city we came very close to moving to, before we decided on Guanajuato.

It is quite big, with a population of over 600,000. I just love it there and cannot put my finger on exactly why. It feels quite urban, which I like, but it also has too much traffic and terrible fumes. Not everyone says buenos dias on the street like they do here in Guanajuato, but every interaction I had there felt really genuine. And the city just feels good to me.

This is a gazpacho. It is one of the most delicious things in the world. It is chopped up fruit - pineapple, papaya, mango, jicama, cucumber with orange juice, lime juice, chili and cheese! Oh my god it’s good. It is a specialty of Michaocan.

There is also a fair amount of green. The city sits in a bowl surrounded by green rolling mountains. (Where Guanjauto sits in a deep basin, Morelia sits in something more like a pasta bowl. ) So at the end of every vista you see green. There are also quite afew parks and tree lined boulevards with huge old trees growing.

We arrived Friday night and wandered the streets.

It was a beautiful night.

The next morning we found a market to have breakfast in.

The whole upstairs was lined with little one room restaurants. I love the way they look like dollhouse kitchens.

We found the one that had the most breakfasty menu - despite that, I had meatballs.

We spent the day roaming the streets and markets. Some of Mikko’s photography:

We loved those walk signals! The running figure is actually quite accurate because the traffic could be a little crazy and unpredictable.

They have cute dogs on roofs there too.

That night we went out for Matthew’s birthday dinner. There is a place that we love called Augustine’s that is a block-long arcade, with arches and columns and lined with separate little restaurants. (Much like the upstairs of the market.) Each one serves almost the exact same thing and has a TV going, often on the same channel. I find the whole choosing process extremely difficult. I’m so stinken’ codependent, I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings… I think I will do a separate post about difficult choices later.

This is Augustines from across the street:

Anyhoo - as we walked up, a number of different women form different restaurants started telling us to come in. We chose the first one we came to. We had brought our own wine and champaign, and had really good, chicken, sopes, pozole - yum.

These are the ladies that served and cooked our food.

Mikko always has a book with him to protect him from boring grownup conversations.

After dinner we wandered into el Centro, where there is a beautiful cathedral that gets lit up every Saturday with fireworks:

It turns out it was a fine year for me to be stuck in the cardiac recovery unit on the 4th of July. We have seen so many fireworks since we have been here.

We saw some pretty balloons too:

There is a street where all the Mariachi guys hang out, hoping to get hired. It is a few blocks off the zocolo. In Guanajuato and San Miguel they all hang out in the zocolo. We were wondering if there is an ordinance in Morelia or something.

They need their bad coffee from the Oxxo too.