Getting to Morelia

 November 13-14, 2023 Morelia

Michele and I planned to take separate flights on separate airlines and arrive at different times in Morelia so I flew solo. My day started with a rise and shine (#$&#!) at 2:30 am. Spokane to Denver then a 3 hour layover. Denver to Houston then…. but wait….when I got off the plane in Houston, there was Michele waiting for me.  Whaaaa…? I was beyond surprised. She was supposed to already be in Morelia. It seems that her flight into Seattle was delayed which caused her to miss all her other connections. So, Alaska rerouted her through Houston and on to my flight to Morelia. For some strange reason, I was upgraded to 1st class on that flight. Yay! At the airport in Morelia it was the usual thing to get through customs. We found an ATM whereupon I got a few pesos BUT the machine ate my debit card…or maybe I didn’t retrieve it? Or whatever. It’s a good thing I have backups to my backups so it’s an inconvenience, only. Not a tragedy. We took an Uber to our place of repose. It was my first attempt at speaking Spanish this trip. The Uber driver was a young man who seemed to understand me. 

We are staying at a house that rents rooms through Booking.com. It’s called El Laberinto Hospedaje en Casa. One must go through a labyrinth of sorts to get to the room. The door into the labyrinth is only 18 inches wide so we had to turn sideways to get through the door. Here’s Michele and I squeezing through. 

Through the door, there is a hall, (Michele is walking toward the little door)… then a turn, then some stairs to the second level…

then another turn and a long hallway to the room. The stairs are at the end of this hall.

Our bags? Ana Laura had to shove our bags through a window onto the stairs at the first turn for us to pick up on our way through the labrynth. 

November 14, 2023

Tuesday started off with finding a place for breakfast. We ask Analaura where to go and she gave us good directions. Along the way , we talked to two old guys with their dogs and asked them to verify the directions. I used my excellent Spanish (?). Michele did too. We found a lovely and large market and wandered.

We didn’t find a breakfast place at the market so between Google and asking directions, we made it to a place with good coffee (!!) and breakfast. Michele had « divorced eggs. »

After breakfast, we were ready to start our adventures.  We went to a convent and church— one and the same.

As we wandered through the streets we came across a march, a kind of protest. I don’t know exactly what they were protesting but the sign they carried seemed to call people to a revolution.

 

I noticed that they marched in 2 lines. Most of the men were on one side of the street and the women were on the other side. They marched far apart so it looked like a larger crowd than you’d think. Police monitored the onlookers along the way. We saw other protesters throughout the day as we wandered.

Near the cathedral we saw interesting art of various genres. First there were interesting murals. Take a

look….

       

We also saw some interesting classical art. It was like since people don’t go to classical art museums, they brought the museum to the people.

We wandered awhile and saw a few random sites in Morelia.

             

Later in the afternoon, Terry, joined us. She is Michele.s friend from Canada who snowbirds in San Miguel de Allende. In Canada, she lives about 30 minutes from High River, near Calgary, where my father was born.

We found a place for drinks in a place where the bartender was the only one there…along with the blaring music. We had to insist that he turn the music off so we could hear well enough to order drinks. We had

the happy hour special with beers and mezcal, Terry asked him about the mezcal and he pulled a generic bottle from behind the bar. Hooch, perhaps?? Terry mentioned that she hoped we didn’t go blind from drinking it. Later on, this young bartender brought us the real bottle of metzcal which had the cutest little mask hanging from its neck. 

He gave me the cute little wooden mask..

Cheers….Salut.

         After drinks, we went to a restaurant featuring food from Oaxaca and Michoacán. 

I had stone soup with fish. I mean it was literally cooked with a hot stone inside. The shrimp had been tossed in live so I had to spend a lot of time pulling off their little heads and crunchy tails. It was mighty savory once I got going on it. The first photo is the soup with additives— avocado, onion, lime, cilantro….

The second photo is the stone. (It was dark inside so the photos didn’t turn out too well.)

The next day, after a long leisurely breakfast, the three of us took an Uber to Patzcuaro. It took almost an hour. When we got there, Google steered us wrong and we had a bit of a time finding our B&B but we finally checked in. 

I’d better stop now. I’ve only gotten through the first 2 days. Writing this on my iPad mini without a real keyboard is taking forever and of course, we are going, going, going. Stay tuned for our time in Patzcuaro. It’s a very fascinating and typical colonial Mexican town.