Our detour from Rioverde Southeast through Xilitla (hee-leet-la), Jalpan (the Seirra Gorda), and looping down to Queretaro was a challenging but very beautiful ride. We were treated to much warmer weather, jungle-like views, grand waterfalls and picturesque colonial towns either perched on hilltops or nestled in valleys surrounded by grand mountains. The highest point we got to was about 2,300 meters which was just past Pinal de Amoles. Fortunately, we got Belinda’s finest moment on camera! In hindsight, we probably needed an extra two days to complete the ride comfortably, which would have allowed us to have more breaks. Gotta love hindsight. I must say though, once we did finally reach the top we got some wonderful views of the countryside and enjoyed the long and winding descent down the otherside. The day we cycled into Queretaro we passed through a small town called Bernal which is situated next to the 3rd largest monolith in the world. Fancy that!
For Belinda’s birthday we treated ourselves to a night in a hostel and gorged ourselves on Mexican biscuits (Chokies are our favourite so far). It was a very funky place named Casa Caracol where we slept in a tipee! The hostel is conveniently located close to La Poza, the place where Englishman, Edward James called home for many years. He was a rich but potentially a tad crazy with too much money and time on his hands. He created an endless sprawl of enormous surrealist-style concrete structures, such as, giant orchards and stairs to nowhere. The jungle is now taking over but it is very creative and pretty to walk through. The other highlight for the birthday girl was having a $7 lunch compared to the usual $1-2 fare. We had ‘mole’ for the first time which is a complicated and delicious sauce to concoct that we had with chicken and all these wonderful side dishes served in clay bowls.
We arrived into Queretaro just as it was getting dark and we found ourselves lost in this big City. Getting directions on Google maps seemed very straight forward but we got muddled up in our 3-D surroundings. We were in good hands though and after many attempts of trying to find our own way amongst the hectic traffic we sat tight at the ‘Italian Coffee Company’ Café eating expensive, calorie-filled cheesecake and waited for our hosts to meet us. Silvia (SERVAS) and her kids kindly lead us back to their home with the hazard lights on. We cycled madly behind them and watched on as the traffic swerved in and around our slow-moving convoy. We made it in one piece and we were very grateful not having to navigate ourselves to the house. We enjoyed two nights with Silvia, her husband, kids and sister-in-law (Hilda). We were warmly welcomed and settled into family-life playing games with the kids, watching them in their gym class, sharing meals together and taking in some of the sights of downtown Queretaro with Silvia and Hilda. We also got our bike serviced by a guy, Jose Luis, that stopped us on the roadside (for a photo and who happened to be a bike mechanic) as we cycled in towards the City. We were again, blown away by Silvia and Hilda’s kindness as they lead us back out of the City so we didn’t get lost or have a hard time with the volume of traffic. It really made our ride to San Miguel de Allende so much easier. Thank you very much!
We are now in San Miguel de Allende and enjoying two weeks off the bike and learning Spanish. We are staying with a wonderful lady (Ellen) that we found through SERVAS that has generously agreed to have us for our entire stay. If you would like to ring us while we are here to have a chat please email us to get the number. We will post another blog sometime while we are here.
Don’t you just love the drawing my brother-in-law, did for my birthday? Albeit not entirely accurate!!! Thank you Martin, we think it’s great!