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So, after leaving the beautiful Colima, I landed after a 6 hour bus journey that was meant to take 4 but there was loads of traffic because ALL of Guadalajara was going back home after the holidays on the costas... in Morelia! Possibly the most boring place I have ever been to. Although not quite.
Morelia is a really pretty city. No high rise stuff and concrete, oh no, it´s all beautiful pinky red stone and spanish stylee buildings and one way streets galore (which makes crossing over the road WAY easier, you only have to look for death in one direction). The cathedral is gorgeous, and the plazas have got loads of fountains and trees and many many benches. For some reason which I cannot comprehend, I didn´t actually take any photos of anywhere. But I have a leaflet if anyone Reallly wants to see what the place was like when I get back :P
So, after lugging my rucksack off the bus, buying a taxi ticket and standing in the HUGE queue, I managed to geg in on (wow, haven´t used that phrase in a long time) a taxi heading to the centro with another girl. After having the whole ´where are you from´ chat with the taxi driver (as soon as I said ´soy de Inglaterra´he shouted ´Hooligans!!!!´at me. Thanks.), he took me to the Hostal Allende; really nice hostel with an ace courtyard and a fairly decent kitchen. The dorms only hold 4, but we have our own private bathroom with a fairly decent shower, but it was a really really clean room, if a bit dark, with bedsheets that were tucked in so tightly I had to wrestle with all the blankets to actually get into bed. And even then, I felt like I would suffocate.
But killer ropas de cama apart, very nice place indeed, and cheap too!
In the morning, after an ace lie in, I had some yumy bread and jam and mango juice (god save Oxxo), then went a-wandering, well, after spending a couple of hours online (it would have been a lot less, but the guy on the desk in the internet cafe had a dead good taste in music, rare in mexico; artic monkeys, strokes, killers etc. time just ran away..... ).
I trekked round looking for some cheap food for later, and went and visited some of the many things listed in the good old Lonely Planet. There was some sweet market thing, mercado de dulces, which was really cool, dead long and crammed full of wierdo sweets. Mexican sweets are not like any I have ever seen. They mainly are made of fruit, mango, guayaba, lime, coconut, pineapple, banana and apple occasionally, and they always taste really sickly. Oh, and the majority have a combination of salt, chili and lime with them. Mmmm. There were also loads of crafty things in the market. Morelia being the capital of the state of Michuocán (I think that´s how it´s spelt), all the different crafts from different regions around the state are on sale here. There´s a place called Parchuro (which I wanted to visit, but it´s quite a small town) that sells LOADS of musical instruments. They make mainly guitars, but also violins, basses etc. and I have quite a groovy picture of one of the guitars, but I´ve forgotted my camera lead, so watch this space.
Anyway, loads of crafty things, like, literally crammed into the back of all of the stalls. After that mercado, I went and had a look in the Cathedral, really pretty, I think it had some of the tallest bell tower things in the state or something, but I didn´t look round too much, and no photies cos there was a service going on at the time.
I then managed to find the other main market in town. This one was in an old federal building, or institute or something, but it was all of the really high quality crafts from around the state. Loads of posh tables with fruit carved into them and painted amazingly, and big urn things, and plates with tiny little golden patterns on them, and little scenarios of stories from the bible, or festivals etc. Upstairs, there was a little room for each town in the state famous for its ´artesanias´, again, absolutely chokker with stuff.
Lunch was some fairly dodgy pollo y papas con MUCHOS tortillas (they gave me about 10), in the arcos in one of the plazas. If I had seen the food before I ate it, I probably would have eaten somewhere a bit more expensive, but the woman kept saying ´pasale pasale pasale, sientate senorita´ so I kind of felt obliged to eat there, haha.
Wandered round a bit more, and then headed back to the hostel, where I met a german girl who had just arrived in my dorm, called Marta I think, and we headed out to feed her, and I had some posole (there was a gap of about 3hrs inbetween lunch and dinner btw, not just 5 mins!) which is like a soup, with corn and chicken in a clear broth type thing, and you add onion and oregano and dried chilli to taste, oh, and you eat it with tostadas, which are like flat, crispy tortillas, and some kind of sour cream.
I can´t actually remember what we did after that. I know I did something constructive, but for the life of me I don´t know what.
Anyway, after an early night (I was well tired) more bread and jam for brekkie the next day, and I walked a mile or so to the other end of the main street, where they had some statue that was robbed and then replaced of naked women holding a bowl of fruit. And there was a Massive aquaduct, 253 arches I think (I didn´t count, it was in the guide book) next to a bosque (a wood, but it was more like a park with a few trees). Having intended to go to some planiterium place an an orchid exhibition (yes, I know, but there was not much else going on there), I actually ended up spending about 3 hours walking round the bosque and sitting on the bench watching the ducks. It was a completely mindless day, but I defo needed it after last week. I walked back to the centre for lunch, and fully intended to sit at one of the cafes by the mercado de dulces and the jardín de rosas, but when I went to look at the (fairly pricey) menu, there were about 5 waiters sitting right next to it, and yes, staring a LOT at the white girl. So I gave that place a miss, and went to a panderia instead. The bread in Mexico is absolutely top. You can get croissant type things for about 15p, and really nice sweet bread (not the german intestine thing or whatever it is), or pan dulces, for about 20p. Doughnuts and everything. So, I got some of that to lunch on, and, having seen numerous mexicans wandering round with a plastic bag full of orange stuff and spoon, I went hunting for whatever this culineray delight was. Turned out it was fruit, mango, peach, pinapple and some root type thing which I can never remember the name of, all chopped up into really tiny pieces, and covered in chili sauce and salt, and I think it was cheese, although it may have been really finely grated coconut - called gaspachos. I ate in the youth hostel, as pan dulce and fruit with chili is extremely messy to eat on a bench, and was entertained mucho by an american woman (who talked really loudly very late at night) and an american man who was staying at the hostel with his wife, but was blatently flirting with the solo woman. He made it seem as if he was the expert on every single place in mexico, but, apart from the fact that he mispronounced every place name and spoke appauling spanish to the lady on reception, I don´t think he had actually been to many places, as everywhere the loud woman suggested, he said, ´oh, I don´t know about that, but I know that ...... is good.´ It was pure comedy. And I tried Really hard not to laugh when I caught the eye of some traveller dude who was pretending to be asleep on the sofa but was actually watching the americans´ conversation in disbelief.
I met up with Marta again in the evening, and we headed out to the plaza. I thought we were going to eat, but there was a misunderstanding over the words dinner and lunch I think, but I, unlike Marta who had been in the country less than a week, had had my lunch at mexican time, about 4 o´clock, so I wasn´t hungry thank god. I had seen a stage with a big poster saying something about traditional dancing, so we headed over in that direction and caught the final hour and a half of a dance show. Órale, can those guys dance. They were bobbing up and down and kicking and skirt swishing and hat brandishing like nobody´s business. I felt exhausted watching them. They all wore traditional costumes (and had many rapido costume changes) from around the state, and I think also from some parts of the north of mexico, and the dancing was absoultely ace. Again, I forgot my camera, wish I had take more piccies, and the music (although recorded) sounded like the orchestra had taken about 5 pro plus apiece and drunk several cans of red bull. Quality times.
Marta and I then went looking for somewhere to sit and have a drink, but the nightlife here doesn´t really kick off till midnight, so in the one place that we did peer into, the guy actually switched the lights on for us (ha!) and as soon as the guys in the back heard customer noise, they all flocked over to us, and started saying ´pasale ustedes, pasale ustedes´ and really freaking us out, so I (as Marta understood very little spanish and spoke even less) babbled something about how we were just looking and we would come back later, and we practically had to run out of there whilst the waiters were saying, ´just one drink, we would like to get to know you better´ crikey.
So we went for a coffee instead...
Got up earlyish in the morning, sorted out Marta´s room charge for her, and asked how much we should pay for a taxi. It turned out there was a muchacha from france who had booked a taxi to the bus station, so we shared with her, only 10 pesos each that way. I think she was living in el DF (mexico city) working for a language school or something, but she was adament about the price of the taxi being $30 when the driver tried to rip us off an extra ten. Bought my half price student bus ticket (they really should do that system in Britain) and said goodbye to Marta.
It turned out that I had bought an ETN bus company ticket, really posh bus, like, uber first class, only 3 seats in a row and food and stuff. The French lady was also on my bus. Anyway, I was enjoying some film about playing poker in Las Vegas, when the bus was stopped and some police guy got on. All the police who don´t direct traffic and aren´t there for tourists in mexico wear heavy duty overalls and army boot thins and bullet proof vests and look really, really scary. I thought nothing of it, as the guy was just questioning all the men on the bus, and doing body searches and stuff, but then then the police guy asked me where I was from. I replied, and then he asked for my passport. Which was locked in our cabana in camohmila. Oops. So, I (very, very timidly and politely) said that I didn´t have it on me, but I showed my student ID. The guy then started questioning me in front of everyone on the bus, where was I staying, why was I in mexico, how long, where was I coming from, where was I travelling to etc. asking the woman next to me if she knew me etc. It was slightly scary. But for some reason I managed to hold my Spanish together fairly well, and use all the polite forms and stuff. He asked me to get off the bus, and the bus driver went with me over to the police truck thing, and there were more, ´where are your papers´ type questions, and also, the french lady was being questioned loads, and she had to get her rucksack out and they looked through it. Oh, the guy looked through my bag on the bus too. It was quite funny though, cos it was full of old bus tickets and crumbs and half a packet of biscuits and loads of stolen napkins for when there´s no loo paper.
Eventually, they said ´Gracias senorita, que vayas bien´and let me get back on the bus. Everyone was staring at me. Well, that´s not saying much, as they stared at me when I got up to go the loo earlier too. Phew. Better take my passport next time I´m on the highway.
And after a skanky sweaty metro trip and a bus back to Tepoztlán, I finally arrived home to the camp!
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