Wednesday was a travel day...bus from Mazamitla to Colima...bus from Colima to Tecoman, bus from Tecoman to Armaria, taxi from Armeria to our hotel in Cuyutlan....about 6 hours altogether. We rode through the mountains, into lush valleys, and back up into the mountains. Outside of Colima, we began to descend to the ocean, and caught sight of the active Colima volcano. Unfortunately, the top was hidden by clouds... We passed through miles of coco palm plantations, and arrived in this small, somewhat deserted beach town, Cuyutlan. Many of the buildings look abandoned or at least closed up. Our hotel reopened under new management only three weeks ago, and is trying hard...it is nearly full it seems, perhaps because there are few other options on the beach. This hotel is on the malecon (beach promenade) and beyond ... read more

Our lovely host at Quinta del Sol, Eleanor, drove us to Jocotepic today to catch the bus to Mazamitla. We only had a 10 minute wait along the highway for the bus to Mazamitla. We shared the bus stop with a nearly toothless old man who was delighted to speak with us...and the man running the tire stand next to the bus stop. The bus circled the far side of Lake Chapala and then turned south and started up the mountains. Oaks changed to pines...and the bus began to falter. We were going about 10 miles/hour. The driver pulled into a gas station, and dumped two big buckets of water into the radiator (I assume) and we made it into town. Mazamitla is promoted as the Switzerland of Mexico. It is also on the list of ... read more

An hour taxi ride took us over the mountains and down to Lake Chapala, and into another world... We saw very few non-Mexicans in Guadalajara (maybe 8 at the most) and here it seems like there only non-Mexicans! This is one of the larger ex-pat areas of Mexico.... We are staying at a beautiful hotel...an exquisite tropical paradise complete with swimming pool, elegant resident dog, and flowers everywhere...It's not quite twice what we paid for our hotel in Guadalajara....and is an expanded version of the lovely house we rented... there are only 4 rooms, and not all are occupied, so it's very peaceful. We had lunch on the lake front, at a place that advertised an all-you-can-eat buffet (which we resisted and had veggie quesadillas instead). The only other customers were groups of straw-hatted gringos, well ... read more

We had to move from our lovely Casa Colorin yesterday...they are normally booked out 3 months, so we were lucky to get any time there... We are now staying in small hotel about half way between the house and the central plaza...it's quiet and friendly, but very basic...we have a two room suite with a small patio...flat screen TV with cable (so we've seen a bit of the Olympics), and breakfast on weekday mornings... Today we walked to the center of the city and took a public bus to the village of Tonala, which has a giant craft market on Sundays... there were few interesting booths among the thousands we passed...most of the good stuff is too big or heavy to carry home: glass, pottery, wood... Many of the booths sold garish/cutsey stuff, but we found ... read more

We got a fairly good night's sleep (but we did change out the fleece sheet for a regular one this morning...! A bit too cozy..) and woke refreshed this morning. I went for run after coffee and saw a few other joggers, but they were all male... We had an omelet made from ingredients I picked up at the street market yesterday, along with fresh papaya and avocados...and then we walked about 3 miles to the old historic district, through streets lined with interesting one and two story buildings of all colors and kinds. We got to what we thought was the main cathedral and went inside to look and rest...as we read the guide book, nothing inside matched and we realized we were not where we thought we were....another 5-6 blocks to go! Once arrived ... read more