Enjoy!!
gary August 2011
blog
Us in Brittany (a short video)
We spent four days in Brittany walking around Dinan, Lohan, Saint Malo and Dinard in July, 2011. Most of the images are from Dinan. The weather was sunny but chilly, better than rainy and cold. Dinan is a friendly feeling place, not entirely a tourist town, and we lodged here. The Tudor architecture is a major attraction, although far from exclusive to the town or region. Crepes (sweet) and galettes (also thin pancakes but whole wheat and savory) are a mainstay, as are moules frites (mussels with fries). Our favorite restaurant was Licorne (means Unicorn), recommended by Rick Steves and you’ll see photos of our meal there. They drink much more cider than wine. We stayed in the center of the old town, surprisingly comfortable for an old place despite the steep, windy stairs, and quite enough except on the night before Bastille day. Fireworks kept us awake a bit!
The countryside in the area is lushly green. The river Rance runs through it and along we walked to Lohan. You can see the abbey in the video slide show, made with “Imagination”.
To Sancerre and Dijon
June 2011
We had to vacate our temporary apartment in the 6th, which we renovated several years ago and which is owned by two of our friends. They had some paying guests coming and then their daughters were to stay for a weekend. We took a week to visit friends in the south. Sally lives near Sancerre. Peter and Caroline have a 13 meter canal cruising boat. We are to meet them in Dijon for a week on the canals.
Sally was married to Paul when we met her. After we sold our boat in France in 2002 they bought a house in a very small town, just five houses. After a while he left her for Rosalind, the French woman next door. This woman in turn left her husband and moved in with Paul in a house that is about ten minutes away. Somehow Rosalind’s now ex-husband (I assume they were married and are now divorced) blames Sally for what happened but won’t talk to Sally so Sally has no clue as to why. When all this happened Sally’s daughter from a previous marriage told her that Paul had molested her. It took Sally quite a while to get over all that, I imagine, (I am not sure that I am!) but but she has dealt successfully with all that stress. Paul received a suspended sentence as a result of a plea bargain. In general these are difficult cases to prove, so the fact that there is a conviction is significant.
While with Sally we went out with her to La Recreation Gourmande, the restaurant she used to work in, to celebrate Peg’s birthday. The restaurant is quite good, and received a listing in the Guide Routard, our favorite restaurant guide which lists high quality places that offer good value for money. Peg’s dinner included a rabbit aspic, which she quite enjoyed, although for me it is Thumper in Jello. The cheese course was fabulous as was the dessert. We both had a pork chop for a main dish, which was very good but not outstanding (and made for too much food, so we took our pork chops home)
After lunch we met the chef and his wife. He works nearly 100 hours a week, she splits time between the restaurant and the children. She lamented the temporary loss of a worker due to depression, I think it was. She said under French law she had to wait a month to replace her, which made life difficult for them in the meantime.
The next night we had dinner with Bruno and Babette, who were Sally’s neighbors until 18 months ago. I once called her Brunette, but she didn’t think it was very funny. They bought an old farmhouse to renovate but still can not get the permits! So they bought a mobile home and use a bucket since they are not connected to a sewer. He grilled large amounts of meat, way too much, and we drank rose wine.
Bruno wants to meet their electrical needs using a 12 volt system. Having lived on a boat, I can tell you this can be difficult at times unless you get a gas-powered refrigerator and of course you can forget electric heat or even ordinary fans. It is possible of course to stay off the grid, although given how hot the summers can be I’d like to have enough grid current to run a few fans at least. In the meantime they are running an extension chord from the house next door to meet their modest needs, assuming a 48″ flat screen tv is modest. It will take quite a few batteries to run that thing!.
Sally’s new neighbors – her house is semi-detached meaning one neighbor’s house is glued to hers- are quite picky about where she walks, apparently. She owns the land right out their back door, strangely enough, which is the only way she could conveniently reach the nearby pasture. Apparently that was important to a previous owner. The new neighbor wants to buy that patch, but Sally declined the offer.
R, who was married to G (both Brits, like Sally, as well as Peter and Caroline), is still single despite being rather attractive and still fairly young. Another couple we met are selling the house they had just completed in 2002 when we met them. A French women, in her 70’s, had a hip replacement and as she was standing for the first time after the surgery, her leg fractured. She seems to be getting better although she misses her dog, who died recently. These are all people Sally introduced us to on previous visits.
Afterward Sally took us to the train station. We got off in Dijon. Peter and Caroline were there to meet us. We spent the next week on the Canal de Bourgoune with them. This is their 19th boat. They have stopped using it during the summer. It is just too hot in the south of France. They recently sold their house near Toulouse having bought a flat in the UK near Brighton. This puts Caroline much nearer her friends and their three daughters and Peter decided that his model airplane hobby is best served in the UK, where they do a much better job of making it a safe activity. Apparently the French don’t think about planes running into people from time to time, especially the young boys who come with their fathers who run around oblivious to the danger.
It was fun riding the boat through the canals, and very pretty. However Peg and I both decided independtly we do not need to own another boat to do this. It is not so much fun that we’d want to do it all the time. And it is cheaper to rent one- do it with a group, it’s more fun, since you do not have to take care of it.
We are back in Paris staying with Anne and John. Tomorrow we move back into the apartment in the 6th, and stay until July 11. On the 11th our friends have paying guests again (the apartment rents just short term). To make our travels less expensive we got senior passes- yes we are over 60!- so we get 50% off rail travel. Next we are going to Normandy, a little town called Dinan near the coast for just a few days. I’ll eat lots of snails which like to grow there for some reason. And they are easy to catch. In the meantime we’ll cruise around Paris on our trusty bikes, the ones John found and assembled from parts he found on bicycles people had abandoned on the street.
Paris Connections
Paris has become familiar. The first time you come to any city there is so much to absorb and you are rather lost, your nose planted in the skimpy map in the guide book when your eyes are not taking in the sites. But we’ve been here before and we’re back because it is a beautiful city, with a long history and a refined culture, a great place to be especially when you have time to absorb the vast offerings.
Paris is a city of art as much as it is a town that searches for the egalitarian ideal. Of the former more in later posts, I am sure. These days the latter is expressed in the services provided to the hungry- there are meals every day of the week- and lodging, in the tents that line the Seine downtown, a kind of nose- thumbing gesture, so I’ve heard, at the failure of government to provide enough low cost housing, and the velib, the bikes you can use free for 30 minutes with a monthly transit pass.
This time there are more beggars than last, sadly, with an unemployment rate about the same is in the US (around 9%) victims of the job loss that came from those phony investment schemes originating on Wall Street, a scheme to defraud investors disguised by a multiple layers of complexity. But here they are now, sitting on sidewalks, not just Romas and drunkards but a few otherwise promising young people, men and women alike. But this is a sadness I can not resolve. Enough then. And besides there are fewer here than in my own country.
We shall be living in the 6th for a bit. We have friends developed from our travels here. This came about from our time here in 2000. We rented from Prisca, who had rented to Gaston and Gloria, whom we met through Paul and Vicky, whom in turn we met through a book he wrote in the mid 1980’s and her keeping up with correspondence: she responded to an email from Peg 12 years ago when we were living in Madrid. From Paul and Vicky we somehow got to Anne and John, whom we got to know well, and then to their friends Chris and Rosemary, whose apartment we will now stay in for a month or two. From Anne and John I got to know Emoke at the French/English/Spanish conversation exchange at the American Church, where I met Ketty, from whom we will rent for a year beginning in August, her husband having been transferred to Le Havre. I suppose it all sounds rather complicated, and perhaps it is, but it did not seem so as all this unfolded.
As lovely as Paris is, and as rich is the art, we both think Valencia competes. The latter has a long parade of “quehaceres,” like free concerts, exhibits, shows and festivals- hardly a day goes by without one. You can strike up a conversation and become a friend in a moment. This is a bit harder to accomplish here, but as you can see, not impossible, it’s just that the Spanish are much quicker to smile. The people you see every day here in the stores are often a bit more dour, as if work were a very unpleasant burden.
The land of jamon
Hispania is the Latin name for the Iberian peninsula. It means ‘rabbit.” There were a lot of rabbits when the Romans arrived. We should change the name to whatever the Latin is for pig (I looked it up- one site said it’s porcus, so can you imagine saying “The Porcus Peninsual?”). There is a lot of it here- hams I mean. Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.
There are huge displays, bigger than this one, in the larger grocery stores in Spain. There are similar displays of chorizo, but let’s wait to talk about that.
It’s consumed mostly on bocadillo, which are sandwiches made with a baguette (called ‘barras’). I prefer it alone or with a little bit of bread and a glass of red. Wow!
There are other ways of using this ham, though I have never tried any of these dishes: http://www.lopezortega.com/files/recipes.php
Jamon serrano, jamon iberico, Italian pruscuitto it’s all made in the same basic manner: salted, rinsed and then aged. Aside from aging hams in this manner, the Spanish also do a foreleg. Jamon iberico is more expensive. The pigs are free range and eat acorns both in the fields and during their last few weeks.
The Italians and the French also produce similar products, but nowhere else is a populace so enthused nor the product so popular. They range in price from about 14-80 euros per kilo ($12 a poung and up).
Breakfast in Valencia
Breakfast is not celebrated in Spain. It’s a time for a quick espresso and a croissant glazed with a thin sugar coat. Perhaps cafe con leche (ok any time in Spain but only breakfast in Italy), or a cortado (an espresso and an equal amount of coffee). Coffee or thick thick hot chocolate and churos I’ve seen in Madrid but not here, at least not much. Plenty of people order toast (you can buy it in packages in the grocery stores which I think they serve cold) and coffee. In the bars or at home you can spread a little tomato on the bread and drizzle a little olive oil to boot (it’s a tapa, really, but if they have a tomato they’d do it for you no matter when- they’re very accommodating). Toast and coffee, toast and croissant, about 2 euros (close to $3 at the moment), add maybe another euro and you can have some orange juice too.
I’ve not seen anybody eating fruit for breakfast. It’s more of a desert thing after big meals. If they wanted to, there would be plenty to choose from. The figs just came in (it’s June 2011). They are large and soft, very good if not perfect. Of course the oranges, now selling for as little as 1 euro for 3 kilos (6.5 pounds). At this price some of them might be a bit dry but mostly they are sweet and juicy. We’ve had very few we would consider bad, although the locals might have much higher standards.
The grocery stores all sell cereal in boxes, so apparently people eat it, I assume for breakfast, but I’ve never actually seen it done. There is one high fiber cereal around. No hot cereals, unsurprisingly.
Breakfasts here get you going, but they don’t last long. You’ll need a tensy. That’s what the Spanish do! You might have churros, perhaps an apple tart or any number of sweets, or a bocadillo (a bit of baguette with a slice of jamon serrano or some manchego), smeared with tomato if you wish, or a bit of “ensalada” as they call lettuce and what not even when applied to bocadillos. The choice are seemingly endless, including the famous tortilla española . It’s a thick omlette with potatoes is the most traditional, but there are variations and variations upon the variations, such as with shrimp. You can have a plain omlette too in some places. It would not be unheard of for lunch or dinner, here, in France or Italy where it’s called a fritatta.
They may not celebrate breakfast here, but nonetheless there’s a richness to it, and something for everyone.
Ready to eat! Morelian Every Day Cuisine
Just one minute from our front door is a ‘Cocina Economica’ (literally ‘Economical Kitchen). Similar places are called ‘Cocina Casera’ and ‘Comida Corrida.’ At this one, for 30 pesos (a bit over $2.00) you get soup, main course with rice and beans, and a beverage (a watery but tasty juice). The main course, called ‘el guisado,’ can be chile rellenos, either red or green. I’ve had both and they’ve wonderful!. They are dipped in batter and deep fried. ‘Relleno’ means they are stuffed, in this case with a slice of cheese. They also serve chicken, beef or pork in various formulations, and sometimes leafy greens. All these dishes are out for you to inspect, so even if your Spanish is limited, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you are getting. The beef is served ‘encellobado’ meaning with onions, or in a ‘caldo,’ a broth (beef in this case). Pollo (chicken) and cerdo (pork) are also served in a broth or stew of some sort.
Most ‘guisados’ are served with rice and beans. The rice at our local place has a few chopped vegetables and is cooked in broth. It is better here than in most such places. As for the beans here and most places, I find them too soupy.
The soup is chicken based, entirely free of fat, with some vegetables and pasta if you want it. It’s always good.
There are many Cocinas Economicas in town, and most of them charge 40 pesos or so. I had a fabulous chicken mole at some granny’s hole in the wall for 40, plus 20 for a beer, so it was twice the cost of our local spot. Mole sauces are very common and there are many variations on the theme. Mole only comes with chicken as far as I know.
What else, in no particular order:
Tacos are everywhere and universally wonderful. I’ve only had them two or three times when Peg bought 8 of them at 5 pesos each. This was from a spot just down the street. The beef is shredded ( never ground) with lots of cumino and I don’t know what else in it. I’ve seen them selling real small ones for 2.
In some places they cook the meat on a vertical spit like the Greeks and Turks. They slice it as it cooks and wrap it in two tortillas. Always 2. Peg has has lengua tacos. Tongue. I don’t kiss her lips for a long time afterwards. Tongue tacos should be included in Leviticus where whatever you don’t like can be condemned.
Tacos dorados, golden tacos, are tightly wound with bits of beef or whatever, and deep fried.
I seldom see burritos.
Tortas, everywhere. Tortas are sandwhiches. Always on fresh, locally made bread. I had one called una Torta Espanola. Ham and other meats, various cheeses, sauce. Tortas are always moist and filling. They start around 15, up to 28 pesos.
Milanese Breaded fillet of beef, pork or chicken in the style of Milan. No different from what you’d get just about anywhere but always good and inexpensive! Very thin. Might be served as a torta.
Gazpacho. There are little shops selling it everywhere. I was curious because gazpacho is a soup and why would people walk around eating soup? In Spain it’s a soup, but here it’s finely chopped fruit served with slightly spicy chile powder and grated cheese. Fabuloso!
Breakfast: Eggs al gusto (as you like them) and pancakes, just like the pancakes we know in the US. Most people eat tacos, enchiladas and other everyday items, often at sidewalk stands with a few bar stools attached to the cooking/serving unit. They start as early as 8 a.m.
Savory Crepes: There are savory crepes with ham, cheese, vegetables, and sweet crepes, hold overs from the days the country was run by the French. Maximillian lived here.
Fish and shrimp. Lots of it. Peg had a decent sized shrimp cocktail for lunch today for 25. I had a fish soup with a sizable piece of fish in it for 30. Very mild flavor. The fish looked like it dove in there. No points for presentation.
Hot sauces are served with most everything. They are mostly home made, both green and red. Commercial sauces might have an emulsifier in them so they don’t look the same. Some sauces are hot and some are very hot. If you get soup you will get finely chopped chilies and onions. The chilis are spicy and crunchy
Chicharrones (fried pig skins) are on every street corner. Sometimes they are huge, maybe 3′ x 3.’ Of course you buy bits and they put a red sauce on it.
Fresh potato chips join the list of the ubiquitous. A small bag costs 10. They are good but not much better than what you can get in a bag for less. Served with a red sauce. There are also long thin sticks right next to the potato chips, also served with a red sauce.
Tortilla chips Nary a one.
There are many local specialties but what I’ve mentioned are what you can get anywhere any day of the week.
Guatemala, December 2008
(This is part of our journal for this period. We landed in the Yucatan and traveled by bus across Mexico to Puebla, Oxaca, across the border into Guatemala, then finally to el Salvador. The journey took about 6 weeks. We flew out of Guatemala.)
To Volcan Pacaya from Antigua, Guatemala December 13th, 2008
Guatemala is full of surprises, mostly because people don’t tell you everything you need to know, or you don’t read the real fine print which could be written vertically in very small letters in hard to see colors. Today we are going to Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano with a flowing lava field.
It started out innocently enough. The van arrived at 3:50 PM, 50 minutes late. There were 12 of us in the zocalo (central park) waiting and wondering. One couple was looking for green van, another a tan one, a third had been told what color to look for, although we’d all bought are tickets from the same agency. Peg and I were told the van would be green- it was. When it arrived the driver hopped out, calling out names from a list. There was one that sounded right so we gave him our ticket, the one that said ‘no refunds for any reason,’ and ‘the van can arrive anywhere from 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after the scheduled time,” with no address on the receipt. So I said it was 50 minutes late but that depends on how you measure it. Could be an hour, could be 35 minutes.
On our way one of our fellow travelers said he was told the trip took an hour each way, another said one hour twenty minutes. We were told two hours each way, two hours to the top. “Two hours to the top” should have was a hint about what was to come but we didn’t notice. About an hour and a half later, after driving on some steep mountain roads, skirting the outskirts of Guatemala (the Guatemalans drop ‘City’), we could see the smoking peak of Volcan Pacaya, the plume rising lazily in the cool mountain air. We could see three other volcanoes, one with a plume.
On the last leg of the trip the van was climbing a steep and narrow road. We were behind a stuffed chicken bus. I saw a woman’s back smashed against the window of the rear emergency door, which opened as I looked on. A young man climbed out of the bus onto the ladder leading to the roof, closing the door as the bus zoomed around the curves, our van in close pursuit; the term ‘tail-gaiting’ does exist here, apparently, or if it does, there are no enforced laws to discourage the behavior. Then the bus veered down a steep one lane road so we can only assume that the young man made it just fine.
When the van stopped at the entrance we were surrounded by young boys hawking walking sticks; this turned out to be hint two. I must have heard “Walking steek, meester?” 150 times in the first 10 seconds. It was so loud the driver closed the windows that the kids were poking their heads into. He then opened the van’s sliding door, pushing the kids back. When we bought the tickets for the journey we were told there would be a $5 charge to get in the park but we hadn’t heard the part about paying the ‘conductor’ but that’s what he said we had to do now, and we all did. This was hint three, since he gave us no time to check things out. The entrance fee included the guide, which no one had mentioned to us. Let’s call this hint four.
Our guide introduced himself as Antonio. He gave us hint five, and the most important: hire a horse. For q120, about $14, you would get a round trip on the smallish horses that stood around, their presumed owners sitting comfortably in the saddle. No one took him up- why would we want a horse or a walking stick or one of the flashlights the kids were offering – and off we went. This was nearly a major mistake.
We found out why right away. The first section after leaving the base is very steep, very very steep, a 45 degree angle or so. Peg had to stop after at most five minutes of climbing. Everyone was puffing heavily except the guide who again strongly suggested we get on a horse, but Peg was adamant that she would walk up this hill and I was game so it was onward and upward. Antonio said it would level out in another 5 minutes, and then go up and down, and a woman in our group said this bit was the hardest; they were both mostly correct.
The men on their horses were right behind us as we mushed on, saying ‘taxi horse,’ or ‘horse no cansado (tired)’ about every 15 seconds. ‘Caballo no cansado’ and ‘buen precio’ became common calls.. Sometimes they got ahead of us to position themselves where the trail was steep, especially if we were in cinder fields, since the bad footing made the steep slopes even harder to climb.
We lagged behind when I could not maneuver to keep some people behind us. Antonio stopped to rest about every 20 minutes or so, especially after particularly steep climbs, which must have numbered about a dozen. In the meantime he assigned Angelito to us, whose job was to make sure we did not make a wrong turn. Angelito was no more than 8 years old and never said a word, and never seemed to labor.
After about 45 minutes we passed the 2000 meter sign; that’s about 6500′ in altitude. Antonio said the peak was at 2800 meters, but the lava flow we’d come to see was at 2400 meters. He said it would be about 20 minutes before we would get our first view of it, and another 20-30 minutes before we arrived at our destination.
The ‘taxis’ we still watching us, like vultures at a cadaver,. Peg wanted me to tell them she thought it evil of them to prey upon us laboring tourists. But I did not want to create ill will and instead said she did not like horses, in the hopes they would stop annoying us; we might need a ride at some point. It made no difference as the hawking continued.
We enjoyed some fabulous views when resting in clearings. When the price got down to q20, we knew we were getting close. Just a few minutes later, an hour after we left, we got our first view of the lava. A thin red stream flowed from near the cone. As we took in the view the caballeros led their horses on their return journey; six had come so far for naught.
The final march of about a mile uphill the whole way took about 30 minutes, winding through a now cold lava field formed in 2000. The lava had formed a wide variety of forms. Antonio warned us to walk carefully. If you fell the rough rock caused a nasty wound. He was at this location in 2000 when there was a significant eruption. Rocks, steam and gas spew forth. No one was injured, largely because the wind was blowing away from the group he was leading. After that even more tourists came, hoping for more spectacular sights. ‘Crazy,’ he said, but I wasn’t sure if he meant the tourists or himself. Perhaps it was us he was referring to.
When we finally arrived, you could feel the heat of the lava. Large cinders spewed forth from the edges of the flow, cooling as they bounded down the slope. The mass edged almost imperceptibly, silently downwards. In the distance two volcanoes stood silhouetted against the pending sunset, the plume on one clearly visible. We stayed there about a ½ hour, maybe 45 minutes.
Peg ordered a horse for the ride down; her knees would not take the downhill portion. Antonio called his buddy Arturo, waiting at the base, while I snapped portraits of women who traveled without partners and joked with Antonio about cooking hot dogs and marshmallows with long sticks so the 600F degree plus lava wouldn’t singe hair and skin.
Angelito was assigned to identify Arturo for us; he stayed with us the rest of the time. Peg climbed on Canela (Cinnamon), who hesitated at the first hill but then moved steadily thereafter. Soon the sun fell. Arturo offered me the choice of being in front or behind. I thought it wiser to avoid the business end of a horse so it was the former for me. Soon it was pitch black, for the moon had not yet risen. The flashlight was strong enough except for the few occasions Antonio directed it elsewhere.
Somewhere along the way we’d been joined by Juan Carlos leading his horse. Peg had been interviewing him while I tried to stay in one piece. I only landed on my butt twice on the way down. One near fall I landed on my hands and bounced right back to my feet. Juan Carlos noted how well I’d recovered from the latest near fall, saying I was very strong (‘muy fuerte’). I said most of the time, in fact, I carried Peg down from mountainsides, but since it was dark, I could not do it this time. There were other jokes back and forth, and some discussion of the fact that Carlos’ wife, an American, was 16 when they married; Antonio said Juan Carlos was a bit impulsive. Also during the extensive interview Peg conducted in Spanish with little help from me, Juan Carlos told us that the biggest expense of a horse was its original purchase. His purchase price was $1300! He told us that a typical horse could do this trip once a day for about 8 years (less if used more often) before they had to do something else.
By this time we’d caught up with another horse, so I was at the business end of one of these critters for almost half the journey. I could barely see the animal. His handler wore a white blouse so I could see her, though. I passed her during the last two hundred meters. This was the steepest part and the horses slowed to a crawl as they made their way along the concrete path.
We said goodbye to our friendly caballero and his horse, Peg tipped Angelito (still completely silent), and offered him some crackers, which attracted a crowd of other hungry kids his age. We climbed aboard the van, looking for the next surprise to come our way. In the meantime, however, we were thankful to be in one piece and wondering only how much our legs would hurt the next day, and coming to an understanding of why the tour vendors provided so little advice and information about this rather arduous journey- it would be a revenue killer!
Morelia, Mexico Part II
Last night, we went to a performance that is part of a three-day modern choreography workshop going on here. Young choreographers from all over Mexico have brought their students to present certain dances. There are 6 1-hour performances over three days, in two theatres. Last night, we went to a sort of “black-box” theatre – audience on all four sides. Two VERY interesting pieces, one good performance but too long, and one only fair. The presentations are free, of course. I actually had sort of a Spanish conversation with the couple behind us in line. Her daughter is a dance major who is working for the presenting organization as part of her practical experience.
We ae in the middle of a three-day Modern Choreography workshop here. Two 1-hour performances a night for three nights. We missed the first one last night, but went to the second one, which was four dances. Very modern, but not “pop” – no rap music type choreography. The choreography is by teachers in dance schools across Mexico, who have brought their students to the workshop. By far, the audience members looked to be between 18 and 20 years old. Interestingly enough, at least 60% were guys. Quite different that I would expect in the States, although perhaps I’m thinking more about classic ballet. I can’t remember going to a modern dance workshop in the States. I didn’t go to any dance performances when we were in Gainesville. Maybe there are more guys there than I would expect.
Morelia, Mexico 2009 Part I
Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico April 17, 2009
Morelia Charming and Entertaining
(We spent two months in Morelia in 2009 waiting for our Peace Corps stint to begin in August. Definitely cheaper to get medical care there. We needed some things attended to b before the PC would fly us to Panama).
Morelia is a charming city. It has an attractive, sizable downtown area filled with World Heritage buildings, friendly and courteous people, fine cuisine and many free, high quality cultural events. Like Merida, Peubla and San Cristobol de las Casas, it’s more beautiful, richer in culture, better organized and cleaner than you would expect. Everything comes together in a way that leaves you tranquil and culturally elevated.
Morelia is in the province of Michoacan, with a population of about 685,000. It sits at an altitude of 1920 meters (6300 feet) with an average daytime temperature of no more than 85F. Rain is infrequent; the skies are always blue. The downtown area has over 1000 colonial buildings and churches that are World Heritage designated. Cost of living compared to the US is about one half. Medical care is excellent and as affordable as is most everything else.
There are some concerns, of course. Recently a mayor who fired his police chief for corruption was assassinated, and there have been some attacks on police or army installations by drug traffickers. However, most of the violence in this province as elsewhere in Mexico is between competing drug trafficking gangs. Most of that occurs in non-public settings so safety is not effected. My other main concern is air quality. Pollution from cars and buses on main thoroughfares can be quite offensive. The constant breeze means the problem ends up somewhere else.
We arrived on in Mexico on March 24, 2009. At the bus station in Morelia you pay 35 pesos (currently at $13 pesos per $US- they use the $ symbol here too, in fact the word dollar comes from Spanish) at a desk inside the station for the taxi ride to town. There is no dispute about how much the ride costs, and there is no extra charge for an extra passenger or luggage, getting visitors off to a good start.
Peg found our place using the wireless internet in the $20US a night hotel in downtown Morelia. In less than two days we moved into an apartment run by the Baden-Powel Institute. BPI has about 7 apartments rented to students studying Spanish. There were plenty of spare apartments so they rented us one. We negotiated a discount from the weekly rate but still a lot more than we would pay for an apartment elsewhere in the city. Since we are going to be here a relatively short while, and since the rent includes all utilities, a cell phone, weekly maid service, a water purifier, cable TV with lots of subtitled movies and other English language programs, wireless internet and a very convenient location in the historic center, it makes sense to pay a bit extra. So far it’s worked out very well, although our first apartment was a bit noisy being right on the street. Now we are on the second floor, it quiet, less dusty and we are not bothered by automobile fumes.
Since we arrived we’ve seen 1) a two-day outdoor weekend international folk dance festival with participants from 7 or 8 Latin American countries, 2) an outdoor production bu a modern dance troupe 3) an excellent outdoor production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and, 4) the first three of four evening performances of the 19th Annual International Guitar Festival and competition. Total cost to us: $0.
There is also live music at many of the bars. One night we saw a very good belly dance performance by 3 women at a restaurant; one of them also did a few flamenco dances. Our total bill for a very good meal, 2 beers each included, was $42US. That’s for four people, not two.
