screwdrivers and chameleons

Please, have a seat, get something to drink, and get comfortable. This is going to be a long post 🙂

Day 21: We try, without much success, to wake up early. After a round of showers, breakfast, and the usual stuff left at the end, we finally leave at 8.00AM (or something like that…). The trip is a long one, starting from Xalapa and arriving in Morelia (Michuacan), something in the order of 600+ km. We decide to skip Mexico City (which is HELL) and take the Arco Norte, which is longer but definitely faster. It takes us 8 hours to get there, one full tank and a lot of money in toll roads 🙂
When we finally get there, the girl who’s going to host us is busy, so we take a stroll in the city, visit the usual places (the zocalo, cathedral, etc. etc.) and end up in the “Colegio de San Nicolás de Hidalgo”, which was hosting a contest for the best “Ofrenda”, which is the tradition altar full of food and drinks for the spirit of the dead, which is supposed to came back and visit it on that day. Very colorful, with a lot of scholars dressed up and painted in the classic skull theme. The age was around 14-19, and I felt so old… 😛
Anyway, after that we spent some more time around, tasted the local coffee, had a walk in the center and finally met our host Karina. Finding her house was a bit of a problem, because Google Maps sent us in a road with no exit 🙂 Well, we got around it, and ended up in a house of 10 people, mostly students. Most of them were not at home (being a national holiday), so we managed to get space for 5 people. Try to do that in Europe, if you can…
Our host was very friendly, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting in front of a beer.

Day 22: We tried (again, without much success), to get up early in the morning. Next stop: Pátzcuaro! Beautiful small city, close to the lake with the same name, it’s the place to be during the Dias de Muertos. Tons of local food, artisan and local products. We hanged around for a while, did some shopping at the local market (like 3 different kinds of chili), and then moved in the direction of the lake. From there, we took a boat to the island of Janitzio. Tiny island, sitting in the middle of the lake, it’s mostly famous for its fishermans (using a “mariposa”/butterfly net) and the celebrations of 1/2 November. We had a great evening, with local music and dance shows, only interrupted by a comida which was a bit too heavy, even for my tastes… 😉
The thing that broke the magic was the visit to the Pantheon, were all the locals are decorating the graves and spending the night with their dead relatives. The place was crowded, full of drunk tourists, and in general a big disappointment. The general impression, at least for us, was of a cultural sell-out in the name of the greatest god of all, Money. Sad but true 🙁
We got out of the island at around 2AM, and ended up sleeping in the WV Beetle and in a tent, just close to the boats.

Day 23: after a hard night (for the ones sleeping in the car, me included) we managed to get up and running, visit a couple of pueblos in the neighborhood, and go back to Morelia. There, after a fantastic coffee in a very cool cafe, we got a free theater show in the main square of the city, “Don Juan Tenorio”. Not bad, not bad at all 🙂
We spent the night in the same house, but our host was gone, and her friend helped up instead. Thank you 😉

Day 24: This time, we almost managed to get in time! 🙂 (I was the late one…)
We went straight to the eastern part of Michoacan, up in the mountains (3300m!) to visit the Sierra Chincua sanctuary, were the Mariposa Monarca goes to meet and get pregnant… Of course, being the lucky people we are, we were a bit early, and only managed to see a bunch of butterflies. Never the less, the place is impressive, and the guide explained us the story of the place, the life cycle of the butterflies and a thousand others interesting details. Worth every minute!
From there, we decided to head back home. Unfortunately, we also decided to take the shortest path and go via Mexico City. Bad, bad idea… 🙁 We lost a lot of time trying to get through it , managed to find our way, got lost, got back on track 🙂 Then we reached Puebla, got lost again, and finally got on the right way. We arrived at destination around 2AM 😉

Day 25: This was another family day 😉 This time, we got woken up by Dora and Javi’s father, which prepared a fantastic breakfast of Tamales and Tortillas with carne. It then got better with a visit to the grandmother, which served us another big round of Tamales, and ended even better with another round from the aunt, plus coffee with sweet bread. We were kind of exploding after that… 😛

And now, Dora and Antonio are back to Veracruz. I’m writing this post in my last few hours in Xalapa, and I can’t say THANK YOU enough to Dora, Javier, Antonio and Deyis for their hospitality. I spent two weeks with them, and I can say that I never met people like them before. I will always remember them for everything they did, and of course they are always welcome in any future place I’m going to live. Be my guests 🙂

Tomorrow I’m going to Puebla, I need to work on some things and prepare a talk for the hackmitin, the Mexican version the HackMeeting. Wish me good luck!