Soul searching in Valle de Bravo

---

Day 0 (Wed): Getting away

Life threw a bunch of eggs at me recently and I had to snap out of it quick. I sought wwoof and workaway for the first time to give me a new purpose and to reset my life. It would be nice if V could come but we have a sick cat that needs to be hand fed 😞. It's really been a bad stretch. First, I looked into wwoofing in France. Wow airlines had $400 flight to Paris! Wouldn’t it be nice to finally get my hands on tourteau fromager? Just as I finally got a positive connection with a host, Wow was becoming impossible. This is the second time their price went up right in front of my eyes during the purchasing process. I'm crossing out Wow forever and gave up on France. But I couldn't let go of the thought of getting out of here. That's when I saw the "bad hombre" sale by Aeromexico. Really, no joke, they went there. "Yuge, bigly" sale! I linked up with Meson de Leyendas in Valle de Bravo, 3hrs west of Mexico City, and it was on!

The weather forecast in Valle de Bravo had been thunder during the entire time of my stay. Will my bad luck streak continue?

Day 1 (Thu): A long journey to The Bravo land

Delayed 11 pm flight arrived on time at 5:30 am. Sleep was sub par with the middle seat that wasn't reclining, ugh. Immigration went smooth, except being asked about my small luggage. Here is always the difficult part; figuring out how to get out of here. Info booth was closed still. Security guy sent me to the red bus and the red bus guy laid it down for me. A short ride took me to Hangares metro station. Destination: Autobus Norte. I followed direccion Partitlan. The next station was Partitlan and loads of people got on the train. I was squashed into a corner. Then the train started to go the way I came from, doh! People relentlessly kept getting on the train, full-on morning rush.

At 7:30 am, I made it to the station and the bus took off at 8. I had to go to Toluca, then buy another ticket to Valle de Bravo. The morning rush continued. For a good hour, the bus was in crazy traffic. Cars were constantly merging and the bus was driving in such tight space, yeek. The bus had a movie on loud so that kept me entertained. At 11 am, the bus finally reached Toluca. I thought I should be in Valle by then.

Finally!! Valle de Bravo at 1:30 pm!! Especially in this stretch, the bus driver was dropping people at whatever corner that was requested and picking up from random locations. It was going literally a snail pace. I thought I missed my stop while dosing off! The winding road leading down to the lake almost made me sick. It’s been too long on the bus. Valle de Bravo station wasn't where I expected but a kind person pointed me to the right direction and I reached Meson de Leyendas smoothly at 2 pm. My room wasn't ready so I was directed to their hotel restaurant. Perfect, I needed food. I almost stopped at many eateries on the way here. Since I'm not technically a guest here, I thought I was gonna fix something for myself but I had a menu and the full service! It's set up really pretty with the bird of paradise on the table and everything. I had delicious tortilla soup and cachito, their invention of a beef appetizer plate. The plate was pretty big tho! Lucas still held his position but I'm glad my tummy was empty. They were both so good! Beef cubes came on the bed of grilled cactus, yum! Yep, I cleared them both. It was raining pretty much throughout my late lunch.

Day 2 (Fri): From spa to ranch

Wow, after being useless all evening, napping, I still managed to sleep until my alarm went off at 6 am. It was still dark outside. I made an in-room coffee to kick start my day. I was ready to head out at 7 am and met with the staff in the kitchen, preparing for breakfast. I asked if they needed me to do anything. I'm sure they got it down without me but y'know. I hung out to make coffee and slowly ice started to break 😊. I raked leaves for an hour (big courtyard and lots of fallen leaves). Nothing else. I was ready to go out yet again if there wasn't anything to do...oh, how about this. A quick rearrangement of a cupboard that took like 30min. Ok, that's it, I'm off!

Cobblestone streets were full of people and cars at 10:30 am. I arrived at the market in no time. Town is very accessible on foot. I noticed a little side street leading to a pretty-looking plaza. Wow, it opened up to a park and a cathedral! Plaza de la Independencia! I didn't expect it to be this close. There was a tourist info cart where I got some pointers on where I can walk to. Mirador Cruz de Mision was just around the corner. It was still 11 am and it would be a nice quick detour. The narrow street became steep quickly. It was almost vertical at one point. I was impressed by all the cars going by, especially those pickups with people standing on the back. Mirador was a tiny little corner overlooking the lake. There was a group of workers taking a lunch break there. They were curious of my presence but they understood everything when I snapped some pics 😊. They even offered me tortilla, aww.

Back at the hotel at noon, things got interesting fast. Eliza was back and I went to meet her finally. She looked like she was up to here with work. The summary of a brief meeting with her was that I was to go to the ranch in 10min! Eh? I gathered my things and off we went! Her son, Edgar, drove through impossibly narrow cobblestone slopes along the lake to Tilostoc, a village ~20min from Valle. We went on some super bumpy rugged dirt road to reach Rancho El Reencuentro, an ecotourism hotel. Horses are roaming around with goats and dogs. I was introduced to the farm ladies and boom, she put me to work, transferring plants. I also pulled weeds. I worked from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm and Edgar picked me up to go eat. I was pretty depleted by then. He took me to Colorines, a town in the other direction from Valle. At the market eatery, he seemed to know everybody. We had comida corrida; mine was rice, beans, and chile relleno, yum!! Super homey. Too bad I didn't have my camera. He had to get 2kg of tortilla for the farm stay from the stall where the ladies were pressing them masa and toasting it one by one. A 2kg pile of tortilla was steaming :o. She gave us one each, piping hot! Put some salsa, sour cream and oh my!

The farm cottage was minimal. No plug, no wifi. It got dark before 7 pm, but I had to forego the light shortly. It invited bugs through big cracks on the clay wall. Forget it. Read on my iPhone and call it a day!

Day 3 (Sat): Change of pace

Slept super bien again! I got up ~6:30 am with the sunlight. Coffee would be perfect right now...kitchen was locked, doh! Gorgeous day. Sun was nice and warm. Noemi came up a little after 8 am to get breakfast ready for the hotel guests. I helped where I could, mostly squeezing tons of oranges, and we finally got to eat around 10 am. After that, I went along Noemi who took the guests through the ranch. The ranch has all kinds of animals roaming around. Horses, dogs, roosters, duckies, even peacocks! Rabbits, pig, and goats were in the cage. We were back at ~12:30. In a bit, I thought I'd go help in the garden where I saw the ladies working during the walk. But it was closed. Not quite getting the schedule around here.

Time to chill on the patio. I just sat on a lounge chair in front of my cottage and read a book, coffee in one hand, view of mountain and horses in front of me. Hard to connect this with the daily grind.

2:30 or 3 pm or so, I went to help the kitchen a bit and back to chilling. It's been a really nice day, despite forecasted thunder a few weeks ago, but it gets chilly when the sun goes down. Back to the kitchen at 7 pm to make pizza. Noemi started the firewood in the oven in the common room. Pizza will be baked here! In the kitchen, she made dough and tomato sauce from scratch. What a treat! It doesn't take much to make tomato sauce. Never buy that jar stuff! Good food and fun family affair 😊.

Day 4 (Sun): Reaching the breaking point

Slept later last night but Even later for Noemi who attended to the guests until midnight. She said she went to bed at 2 am after putting the little ones to bed. But the new day begins at 8 am again because a family was already looking for breakfast. Breakfast session continued until 10:30. Another lady from the farm came to help and she cleaned the kitchen to the core! We finally ate at 11-ish but Noemi was already in demand by one guest to another. Non-stop. Lunch will start in a few hours already.

Literally, around noon, Noemi was starting on lunch already. I stuck around until ~2:30 pm including our meal. More reading (aka chill) for the rest of the afternoon.

That was the end of a pleasant ranch stay. Things went tumbling down straight to the deep end. Edgar told me earlier that he'll take me back to Valle tonight. 6 pm rolled around. The last guests have long left and the kitchen was closed. What am I supposed to eat or drink? Sun went down fast and no light was left on. Excuse me, I'm still here!! It was only 7 pm. "Tonight" could still be on, right? I was getting a bit hungry. I walked down in pitch dark to Noemi's house to ask for a key to the kitchen. That's when Noemi said Edgar probably won't come until tomorrow. What? Really? Noooo!! It crossed my mind that this could be a possibility but I wasn't ok with it. I've read, read and read the friggin' book to death! And this loneliness and confinedness were making me endlessly nervous. Lost my appetite completely but I was nervous eating slices of bread. I brought everything from the shack to the common room where it's little more civilized. I'm gonna camp out here instead. Geesh, I didn't come here to be alone. I picked this gig because I'd be around people at the B&B. I guess 3 days of this is breaking me. I can't digest another word in the book anymore. I was so looking forward to not coming back next weekend and plan for Mexico City instead. But without wifi, I can't even make plans. It’s not like I can walk to the store or cafe or anything like that here either. All I could do was read, read, and read más! Wow, this soul-searching trip is becoming hard. I don't know if I'm searching it or breaking myself.

Now that it had been an entire hour of freaking out, I started to regain composure. The time in Valle will be a day shorter. Hopefully, I get to visit few places in mind. And hopefully, I can find a bed in Mexico City for this weekend. Grrr, I just want to fall asleep already and wake up in Valle already! In the meantime, back to reading.

Day 5 (Mon): The worst night ever

Hands down the worst night of my life. How is it that one day I stay in the common room, finally talked myself into enjoying the full moon, already crept out with loneliness, Kermit decides to join me? Arrrrg. In case you missed it, I am very very very very afraid of him ever since I can remember. Looks like there was a big crack under the double door, face palm. Despite my valiant effort to open the door and turn the lights on inside, which was super frightening, he decided to go further from the door. I had no choice but to quickly collect my stuff and run to the kitchen and put my head down on the table. It was just about midnight. I hope this place has no cracks like that...very worried. But I had to face yet another hurdle. The temperature dropped quickly. By 2 am, I could no longer even fake sleep in that frigidness. But there was just no way I was going to set my foot outside until the sunrise. I escaped the cold for a moment with hot water. This night couldn't have possibly been worse. I am so done here! Good news. Noemi's husband is going to Valle. Do I wanna go with him already? Heck ya! I don't know the receiving end but I don't care. The van left at 10:30 am and I was back in Valle at 11:30, yay! I was already fed by a hotel restaurant chef. So spoiled. Mollete filled up my tummy.

I head out to Mirador la Pena to take in my freedom! Lol. It took longer than I thought. This hill is no joke. And on cobblestone? Borderline dangerous! I had to go bang bang on a nice view on a nice day but glad I made it. After completing a few nicknack chores, I finally got to wash the ranch off like a bad dream…

Day 6 (Tue): Japanese home cooking in Mexico

Totally caught up on sleep, yass. Grabbed some pan dulce in the kitchen. I helped raking leaves. I mean there is a big garbage bag full every day! I spent the rest of the morning being available for whatever chore...like none of the computers in the office is printing. I successfully added a printer to the front desk computer yesterday and I was like an IT person. V laughed, lol. Being a non-IT that I am, it took me a while to figure out that the printer was off, and disconnected from the tower. Winning. Yet another computer wasn't printing. The owner's in her office. What is going on? This time was one of those big apple monitors that have the boards embedded in the back. Never touched them before or the OS. Failing.

At 1 pm, Eliza wanted to go with her to her home and cook Japanese food. I guess there was a rude volunteer before that the staff wanted me out of the kitchen, haha. At home, her friend Rosa was waiting for us. I didn't know what we were going to make. It'll be like an iron chef. She showed me her pantry and I was beyond impressed! Not only does she have Japanese rice and soy sauce, but also miso, hondashi, and mirin! I don't even have them in our kitchen, lol. I've never made rice in a pot. Thankfully, there was an instruction on the bag, phew. I don't know how it was gonna come out but I had no choice. Looking at the ingredients, I went with oyakodon and miso soup. She had a nice-looking mushroom that reminded me of maitake. I used that for the soup with eggplant. It's not like I made anything complicated but they all came out decent, including the rice!! It was very nice sharing Japanese cuisine in Mexico. A cultural exchange at best!!

By the time we were back at the hotel, it was 4 pm. There was still time to walk to Embarcadero. It's on the other side of the Parroquia and the walk there was nice. Cobblestone alley dropped quickly down to the lake. Sun was reflecting on the lake. Nice day again! I realized Santa Maria isn't too far and thought I'd check that off. It was a bit dodgy but it was on my list... I grabbed some fruits and pan at the market. I like the long crescent thing. Kinda reminds me of those emergency crackers in the earthquake kit in Japan, haha.

Day 7 (Wed): Encore on Japanese cooking

I didn't know what was going to happen today but I ended up having more to do. I helped with the leaves, then watering the plants. Watering the plants sound more simple than it was. I mean this place is like a jungle. 3 faucets to cover the ground and also upstairs.

Today, I was invited to the employee lunch that the hotel restaurant chef preps every day. Maybe I'm becoming more legit, haha. Eliza asked me for Japanese cooking encore for her husband, Enrique, today. I'm so very glad they liked it! Now that I know what she has, I can plan better this time 😊. I made rice in a pot again, which came out good again. Rice cooker what? She wanted to see me make miso soup again. Other than that, I made ginger yaki and nishime stew with dried shiitake. I should cook more of these at home, lol.

It was raining earlier but the weather picked up by 4 pm. I went for a walk to the Embarcadero again. I think I like this route the best so far in Valle. It's pretty overlooking the lakeshore from above.

Day 8 (Thu): Wrapping up and get ready to be on the move again

Slowest day ever. Raked leaves again but there was even less today. I just kinda lounged until employee lunch. Eliza has been telling me to visit el Santuario de Mariposa Monarca. I'd have to hire a taxi by the hour because the driver would have to wait for me and bring me back. The office manager, Alejandra, helped me to get a taxi, only to find out that the Monarchs haven't yet arrived. Boo. Where else can I go in Valle... la Peña again. Last time was a bit rushed so I'll take my time. It turned out to be a good call. I missed some nice views last time. A thick cloud was hovering but I still scored some nice pics.

In the evening, it suddenly donned on me that I need to do more homework for the Mexico City. So much research which paid off in the end 😊.

---

Photos

Taquitos
Employee lunch