8:30 pm
we're all settled in for the night!
we left the OO at about 8 am today, after saying goodbye to calvin and leanne and the other folks there visiting. we headed for pachuca - about 500 km, which is a long day in mexico, however there are good toll roads (which cost us about $75 CAD) between here and there, so we thought it was a reasonable goal.
the first part of the day was pretty standard, lots of driving, beautiful mountain views, etc. we reached pachuca around 2 pm and decided to find a place to get sushi! this was the first really americanized town we'd been in lately, so we figured how hard could it be? it ended up being harder than we'd expected, of course... gina took us to one place, which turned out to be closed, but joy of joys, there was a starbucks across the street!! i figured if sushi wasn't on the table, a nice frappuccino certainly should be. however, they didn't have soymilk :( we've been to a few starbucks in mexico, and this has never been a problem before, but it was today (my life is so hard, eh?). anyway, gina told us there was another sushi place, so we decided to try for it. it was only 2 km away, but we know by now that in a mexican city, that can be quite a distance. on the way, we happened upon a fistfight. i guess two guys had had a fender bender, and they figured that was the best way to deal with it. they went at it for a good few minutes before a bunch of other guys got out of their cars and split them up. they were all over the street and punching each other on the hood of one car and everything. crazy. this is the first actual violence we've seen in mexico, and really it was the kind of thing you could see anywhere.
we finally made it to the sushi place, where, of course, they had nothing vegetarian. i asked the guy to just make us some avocado maki, and he seemed SO confused? sin carne? sin queso? why would we want that? he came back a couple of times just to be sure - he even made me write it down... i was so hungry at that point that i was getting a little annoyed with him, but eventually we got our maki, which then cost a whopping $130 pesos (about $11 CAD for 2 avocado rolls! blasphemy!). anyway, at least we had eaten!
we headed out of town. we read in the church's camping book about a hotel that allows overlanders to camp in the parking lot, and we figure even if we're not in the camper anymore, it's nice to support businesses who support our community! so we drove about 20 km on a super twisty mountain highway to find the place, only to find it closed :( it's sad, it would have been beautiful. it looked like this giant old colonial compound, with big rock walls and beautiful grounds.
we'd seen a sign for cabanas a ways back on the highway, so we figured we'd investigate that possibility. we found the road, and even the place, but nobody was around - it seemed like you needed reservations in advance. the little dirt road that led to it went on past, so we thought we'd do some exploring. it was this crazy little dirt road that wound up into the mountains, and it was exceptionally beautiful. we drove the defiant up up up into the hills, past all sorts of little farms and homesteads, it was really breathtaking. we also found what would have been a totally sweet camping spot if we still had a camper. it was on a bit of a lookout up this dirt road, and it would only be big enough for one truck, but it had an amazing view. anyway, i got the GPS coordinates which i'll include in the camping places post.
we drove back down the mountain, it was starting to get dark... there was a little town right near where we were, so we figured we'd try to find a hotel there. we drove the cobbled main street, but there were no hotels. right near the end, though, there was a sign that advertised a hotel/spa, 2 km! yay! we thought it was a bit weird that it was 2 km down a dirt road, but hey, MEXICO! so off we went. the road wound along a little stream, with old stonework bridges every few hundred meters. the road got worse and worse - washouts, scree, etc. however, at one point, i spotted a cave entrance, so we stopped the truck to explore. it was really neat, though we didn't go very far (the truck was blocking the single lane road, and i thought that if i was a bandito it would totally have been my lair). it went straight back as far as our lights could penetrate - just about doorway sized, back into the mountain! anyway, we got back on the road, and followed and followed it. when we were finally fetting ready to give up and find a place to turn around, the road emptied out onto pavement, and BAM, we were back in town. still no hotel, though!
we decided maybe it would be best to head back to pachuca to find a hotel, as, according to our map, there wasn't much in the opposite direction. just a few kilometers outside town, we came upon an adorable place. it was $850 pesos ($75 CAD) for the night, which is on the expensive side, however it's just DARLING. it looks like it might once have been a little mountain town, that was all bought as a hotel. the rooms are basically half log cabins - top and bottom, and each one is adorable and unique. there is beautiful landscaping, and a cobbled road with driveways for each place. amazing. weird, though, is that it's FULL of federales. there have got to be 8 federale pickup trucks here, and we've seen maybe 20 cops. they all just seem to be hanging around, but we're assuming they're just resting up for a midnight raid on the bandito cave.
we just had a nice dinner, and mike is trying to light the fireplace in our room. they give you no kindling, but a water bottle full of diesel to start the fire. MEXICO!!
tomorrow, we're headed for tampico, about another 500 km... however i don't see any toll roads on the map, which means it may be a longer, slower day. we shall see.
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