Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2016

Morelia, Michoacan

We traveled by local bus and taxi from Angangueo  to Morelia (a four hour trip) and stayed right in the heart of the city in another old colonial house  that had been converted to a hotel. It was much warmer - elevation 6400 feet. The local market. Lots of guitars in this town! Siesta time :) Saturday night in the city Papa Francisco had come and gone, but there was evidence of his visit everywhere. Morelia is a large city that feels more European  Spanish than Mexican.  It's full of colonial buildings and apparently any new construction has to match the existing architecture. It's very nice with lots of parks, sidewalk cafes, and public art. And it's very "trendy". The only downside was the air pollution which  seems to plague many large Mexican cities. Lots of pretty little streets A view of the surrounding mountains and air pollution in the background. This is a walking/biking path in the

Angangueo and Mariposas

The Butterfly Trip By Jim Started in Zihautenejo, Mexico,   where we got on a plane for New Orleans.   We stepped off the plane at the Louis Armstrong airport.   Our intent was to renew our Mexican tourist visas by leaving Mexico, and returning.    But, a sign said:   “There are two kinds of time in New Orleans:   The time to eat, and the time in between.”   Well, we started to eat, and we didn’t get back on that plane.    The in-between time we spent listening to New Orleans Jazz:   traditional, heavy-on-the-horns, New Orleans Jazz; trombones, trumpets, cornets, clarinets, bass fiddles.   Old white-haired black dudes in suits and ties playing their tight music in over-crowded clubs.   And street music of all varieties….. everywhere in the squares and on   street corners of the French Quarter, the younger, looser musicians, were laying it out. On an evening stroll down Bourbon Street, Chrissy noted simply, “This is a well-named street.” A few days later, we got back on the p

Michoacan: Patzcuaro, Santa Clara de Cobre, and Tzintzuntzan

Papa Francisco (Pope Francis) changed our plans. There was "no room at the inn" in Morelia where Papa was speaking the day after we were planning  to arrive. So we went to Patzcuaro first(with day  trips to Santa Clara de Cobre and Tzintzuntzan). Traveling around the state of Michoacan We were the only guests in the hotels where  we stayed (it was during the week) and  we only saw a handful of other "gringos"  on the entire trip. Most Mexican tourists travel in the summer, holidays, and weekends. Most of the hotels in the smaller towns are  old colonial homes that haven't changed much  structurally. They all have VERY high ceilings,  central courtyards, and balconies.  Bathrooms have been added to the bedrooms  and the electricity and plumbing have been upgraded. On the downside there usually  isn't heat and the lighting is bad  (you need a headlamp if you want to read). They have lots of blankets, though! W