San Miguel de Allende

After a wonderful stay in Guadalajara, we headed off to San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuato on Wednesday.  Thanks to my excellent navigational skills and Louie’s speedy mountain driving, we made it to San Miguel in only 8 hours, instead of the 4 hours that mapquest predicted J  It was a really lovely drive though, and we got lost in some really cute Mexican towns!!  Louie was a bit scared once, when two teenagers on a moped volunteered to lead us back to the highway, but we made it out safely. 

Once we finally arrived at our hotel (after one VERY STEEP and scary road), things started looking up.  The hotel is completely adorable with a huge courtyard for Maya to play in and a swimming pool, and our room is gigantic.  It is quite far up a hill, so we have a beautiful view of the city, but it is a very steep walk up here.  We have taken a cab almost every day, and one time, our cab driver even refused to take us all the way up the hill because he said his car wouldn’t make it! 

The view from about half way up the hill to our hotel!!

The courtyard at our hotel

 We’ve have a lovely time in the beautiful town of San Miguel de Allende.  We guided ourselves on a walking tour (my navigational skills are significantly better with a street map and on foot!)  Actually, I would like to take this moment to say that it is really difficult to navigate in a foreign country.  I only had printed mapquest directions and a giant highway map of the entire country of Mexico.  I would read the direction to Louie plenty in advance, then all of the sudden, the road would split three ways and Louie would shout “which way, which way???,” and I would have to make a split second decision based on the information that I had just read aloud to him 2 minutes earlier, which didn’t seem to make any sense given the intersection, and as expected, I was right about 1/3 of the time.  It really was confusing, but I think that we are going to do a lot better on the way home J

 Anyway, back to San Miguel.  We guided ourselves on a walking tour and saw 15 churches!  And Louie took 2 pictures of each one, one in color and one in black and white.  We’ll be sure to post them all on facebook J  We also made it to a toy museum and an old textile mill that was converted into art galleries and studios.  Louie was super excited about all the art in one place!  And of course, we ate at several fabulous restaurants.  One of our favorite things, however, was definitely the hot springs that we visited.  The water was so warm, and it was very beautiful.

One of the most beautiful churches.

Hot springs

 Today we are off to the city of Guanajuato, which I have heard is amazing.  And we drove through it on the way to San Miguel, so we know it is beautiful and we should know the way there!!  I really hope we don’t get lost!

Together Again

Guest Writer:  Louie :)

Well hello everyone.  I am honored to be guest blogger on Liz's very popular blog.  I have been asked to write about our trip up to this point. So here it goes.
     I arrived in PV on Saturday, after a night of no sleep. You see, I have heard nothing but warnings about kidnappings, shoot outs, and blood thirsty drug cartels. So my nerves had been a bit on the fritz leading up to my departure. However, thus far we have encountered nothing of the sort, although a small part of me was hoping for a wee car chase or two. But I digress.
After spending our first night in PV, we hit the road early on Sunday morning. I was really excited to hit the road mostly because the car we rented was manual transmission (I love manual transmission) and partly because I was expecting a Roadwarrior type senario on the highway. Roadwarrior has yet to happen, but driving is still a lot of fun.
The scenery was gorgeous as we drove up through the mountains. Thankfully we did not have to drive along cliffs as I had originally thought we would. We did stop briefly to take in a scenic overlook, which for some reason smelled like fish.


Fishy Overlook

Tequila Lunch

Our first stop was Tequila (The town, not the drink). When we got off of the highway along the road leading us up to the town, there were very large billboards shaped like tequila bottles, so we were certain we were headed in the right direction. The town made me think of Hershey, Pennsylvania as that where ever the could, they had agave plants: built into fences, handrails, etc.  The town was quite cool; however, should you ever decide to make a visit, try not to do it on a Sunday as most of the town is closed down. After having lunch and the obligatory margarita, we hit the road toward Guadalajara.

Mandatory Margarita

In under an hour we were in the city limits, at this point I really started wishing we had a gps, because among Liz's many and varied talents, navigation would not be counted among them. However we still made it to our lovely hostel.

Centro Historico

The very next day we went out to explore Centro Historico (our neighborhood). We saw many beautiful old buildings, including a Cathedral, The Government Palace, and theater.  The true highlight of the day was our visit to the Wax Museum and The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. The Wax museum was quite fun and somewhat educational; it was filled with famous Mexicans and Politicians, as well as a few American celebs. The Ripley's Museum was quite fun. I kept getting tricked by this little boy in front of us, he was laughing so hard he may have peed his pants....serves him right.

Michael Jackson

Don't Mess with Wax Superman!!

Lunch in Tlaquepaque

Today we hopped on the bus to a suburb named Tlaquepaque, which is the center of art for the Guadalajara area. The town was right out of a Mexican movie set. One thing I love about this part of Mexico is that where ever they can put a gazebo, they have one. Tlaquepaque had some of the coolest art galleries I have ever seen. I fell in love with the art galleries much more than my travelling partner who was done with them by about the 3rd one. We also had one of the most delicious/expensive meals to date here, but well worth it.

Tlaquepaque Town Center

Tomorrow we hit the road again to San Miguel. Keeping my fingers crossed for a car chase.

Almost Finished!!

I can't believe that I will be picking Louie up from the airport tomorrow afternoon, and we will begin our road trip adventure through Mexico!!  I am so excited; I'm glad that I had a lot to do today so that this day is going by fast!!!

On Wednesday, I had my last day of volunteering at the after school program.  We had a little party to celebrate International Children's Day (April 30), and like usual, my dad generously gave me some money to spend on the kids.  As a teacher, of course I bought them all two books to keep at home and also plenty of new books for the classroom.  And treats too!!  But as I predicted, the cupcakes were very popular, but not nearly as popular as the books!!  The kids were so excited to get to take home two books of their very own!

Cupcakes!!

Carefully selecting books

Such cuties!!

Thursday, I was feeling adventurous, and I still had one more new beach to check off my list, so I took a water taxi out to Yelapa.  I had heard a ton of great things about this beach, and it definitely lived up to my expectations.  First, the boat ride was super fun.  I had to text Louie immediately to tell him to start saving his money to buy us a boat!  We would be so popular :)

 The beach was very beautiful, but the real highlight of the trip was the little town of Yelapa.  There are no cars there, so the village only has sidewalks, no roads.  It was super cute.  I also took a little hike to see a really cute waterfall.  It was a really nice day, and I totally want to take my family there next time we visit.

I "heart" tours.

This title is not actually true.  I do not like tours.  And when I say tours, I mean very touristy, guided tours that you pay $50 or $100 for a day of "fun."  I almost always refuse to do them while traveling.  I would much rather explore myself and try to find more local places.  So I am not sure what gave me the idea to take a city tour of Puerto Vallarta today.  My mom recommended it, but I should have known not to listen to her because she LOVES tours!!  I also should have known that since I have been living in Puerto Vallarta since January, I probably have seen everything on the tour.  

Last week when I went to book my tour, the agent told me that if I listened to a timeshare presentation, I could go on the tour for free...plus have a free massage!!  So I spend my morning yesterday at a random hotel listening for two hours to someone trying to get me to buy a timeshare that I definitely wasn't even considering buying.  But the massage was nice.  And at least I didn't actually pay any money for the day of boredom today!

Our first stop was a small church in Pitillal, a cute little neighborhood about 20 minutes from downtown.  I was actually excited to visit this neighborhood, but my spanish teacher had told me last week how to get there on the city bus, and I should have just done that.  The church was our only stop!!  After about 10 minutes of picture taking, we got back on the bus to headed to a tequila distillery, where we had a quick presentation about how they make tequila and got to taste a few different kinds.  Now don't get my wrong, I really enjoyed my first tequila presentation back in February.  My second one with Louie was fun too.  And I even enjoyed my third one while Kellie and Joe were visiting.  But my fourth one was a little boring.  

Mariachi Band in church :)

So the day wasn't starting off very well.  Next, we headed to Old Town (a few blocks from my house) for an hour of shopping.  And not even fun market shopping, but "store" shopping.  Clearly this tour company has a deal with these store owners because I have checked out a LOT of shopping areas here in PV, and this was not the best one.  Not that I have any money to spend or any room in my suitcase to buy anything anyway!  And I definitely have all of the Mexican souvenirs that I need already.

Next we headed south to my favorite beach, Mismaloya.  This is the beach where Night of the Iguana with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton was filmed.  Parts of Predator were filmed here as well.  But as I stated before, Mismaloya is my favorite beach, so I have already been there several times.  And since nobody had their swimsuits, we only pulled over to get a view of the beach from the side of the road!  But at least I got to take a picture holding an iguana.  

We ate lunch at an expensive and super touristy restaurant, and I was a little nervous that I was going to have to eat alone, but fortunately, I had chatted with another single lady traveling by herself earlier in the tour, and we found each other, and had a really lovely lunch together, discussing the state of the world.  It was definitely the highlight of my tour.

We made one more stop along the road on the way home for another scenic overlook (which was pretty beautiful, but I have driven along that road like 10 times already), and headed back downtown.  I was getting a little worried that we weren't going to visit Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's old houses which are connected with a bridge and that was the part of the tour that I was most looking forward to!!  So I asked the guide, and he told me that they don't go there any more because people have to walk up the hill (very steep) and some lady broke her leg once!!  But he told me that the house was downtown, and the bus could drop me off at the bottom of the hill if I wanted, and I could walk the 5 blocks uphill myself.  I said yes, and when the bus stopped, I realized that I was only about 2 blocks away from my own house!!  Yes, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor's old houses are only about 4 blocks away from my own apartment!!  So I guess I could have done that on my own too.

The bridge between Richard's and Elizabeth's houses.

Anyway, at least I know that I did a great job of exploring Puerto Vallarta on my own, and this whole experience reaffirmed the fact that I am just not a big fan of guided tours.  When traveling, it is way more fun to just explore.