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I arrived in Durango early in the morning and went to stay with Frida and Jorge, arriving in time to have breakfast before they headed off to work and i had to be out of the flat! Durango´s a lovely city to wander around in and enjoy the cute little parks and plazas, which is exactly what i did for the 2 days i was there. Frida only works till 3pm so both days i met her after work and she took me for a late lunch at some lovely cafes. Jorge is a vet and on the first afternoon he took me with him to a lovely Hacienda where he had to check up on some horses and then back to his surgery to see to some poorly dogs, it was all very interesting!
Next i headed to Zacatecas and had no replies from CS so had to stay in a hostel, that was a shock to the system, i had forgotten how noisy it can be! Zacatecas is a beautiful city with mines in the hills surrounding it. I went in the cable car over the city to a lovely lookout and the next day went under the city,
when i visited one of the mines! The evenings where pretty lively, one night i came across a huge brass band and the next night a traditional dance show. I also visited La Quemada, with Omar from Mexico city, he was my translator for the day! La Quemada has impressive ruins, but no-one really knows what they were for and the site was burned in a fire years ago. Its possible it was a military site or trade centre and it seems there were lots of human sacrifices!
Then on to Aguascalientes and a few nights with Flor. The main reason for stopping here was to visit the museum of the dead, with its fantastic folk art, but also the Feria de San Marco, a massive fair which lasts 3wks was on. The fair´s mainly about bull fighting, cock fighting and rodeos, the only bit i was interested in was the rodeos, but that wasn´t happening the weekend i was there! They also have a lots of stalls selling all sorts of things and beer in 1 litre cans! It wasn´t actually as interesting as i thought it might be, unless you wanted to drink huge quantities of beer, which
i didn´t!
I went to Guanjuato to stay with Barbara, an Austrian teaching German at the university. She had a lovely little flat and a crazy cat. I also met up with Emilie, a french girl i met in Creel, we were heading in the same direction so decided to hang out for a few days. Guanajuato's a lovely city, its more colourful than other cities i've visited and very compact, you reach places long before you think you should.We went to Diego Riviera's house, his artwork is excellent, he seems to master all styles, but his murals are the best. We also went to the museum of the mummies, not our best idea, but everyone says you've not been to Guanajuato unless you've seen the Mummies. What happened was they dug up a graveyard to make room for more graves, but instead of bones they found mummified bodies, something to do with the soil they were in. So these poor mummies are now on display for everyone to see, its very morbid, but the mexicans love it! Barbara took us for a few nights out in the city, to drink Mezcal in a proper Mexican Cantina, i say proper,
but they let women in so it can't be!
On our way to San Miguel de Allende we stopped of in Dolores Hidalgo for a few hours, to see the church were Hidalgo cried out to the nation and started the Mexican revolution. Dolores is also famous for its ice-cream, you can get flavours ranging from Beer, Mole (thats the salsa not the animal!) Tequila, Pork fat, and loads of different fruits, surprisingly avocado was one of the nicer ones!
In San Miguel de Allende we met Phylis from Hong Kong and the 3 of us visited the hots springs near the city. It was great, 3 pools and a long tunnel, getting hotter the further in you go in, until you reach a man-made cave, with water gushing in, it was a great way to spend the afternoon. Being a vegetarian in Mexico, you eat mostly cheese, so after our relaxing afternoon, we headed to the market and bought a big bag of veggies and a bottle of wine, it was so basic, but so delicious! We had a wander around the plaza in the evening and there were 2 engagement parties happening, lots of dancing and singing for
anyone to join in.
We had a quick overnight stop in San Luis Potosi, it was a beautiful city but not much to see after you'd had a wander around for a few hours, but it was a convenient stop over on the way to Real de Catorce.
The drive to Real was gorgeous, heading into the Sierra Madre occidental and to get to the town we had to change to a smaller bus that fit through the 3k tunnel! You really felt away from it all here, the town was an abandoned mining town which is coming back to life, mostly thanks to tourism, although we didn't see any other tourists! On our first morning we went horse riding to El Quemado a sacred Huichol site on a mountain, where the shamans take Peyote. Our horses were really slow, which suited me fine and the scenery was amazing. I have to say i was happy to get back to town, the saddles aren't particularly comfortable! In the afternoon we went to see the old cock fighting arena, which was pretty impressive and then the 4k walk to pueblo fantasmo, the ghost town. not that there are ghosts, its just
Durango
At the Hacienda called that because its abandoned and collapsing. It was a hot climb up hill, but worth it. We didn't get to go out into the desert and see peyote flowers, you need to go on horses and our legs couldn't handle it again!
Me and Emilie were supposed to part ways here but decided to carry on together, its nice having some company, so she'll still be around in the next part!
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