The Long Goodbye: How We Finally Ended Up In Mexico

I recall a movie called the Long Goodbye, from the 70’s I think. Not sure I saw it, but I feel my life has been a version of that since about October 2^nd. Plans went awry and a cross country trip was not undertaken. We did several shorter flying trips. We spent a week in Denver with my family and friends before returning to Denver on November 14^th. Not really a sightseeing trip so there are no pictures to share, but we had a great time with a lot of people we love and love to see.

November 19^th was the big day when we finally departed to Mexico. Long day, really long day! We got up at 4am in order to catch a 7am flight to San Francisco for a 2 hour layover. Then, on to Houston for another 2 hour layover before boarding for a flight to Guadalajara Mexico.

I was a bit apprehensive about landing in Guadalajara at 10:30pm. I have had some very long, 2-3 hour, adventures at customs after deplaning south of the border. This was not one of them. Baggage got off in time, customs was super efficient and people were kind and helpful. Getting a taxi was easy and we got to our hotel before midnight. For a long day it was a great experience, even with my minimal Spanish speaking abilities. We were in Mexico!

I had a travel revelation. Spokane does not offer efficient travel options to the middle of Mexico. It is going to take a couple of connections to get to either Mexico City, or Guadalajara. Previously we flew to Mexico City. Either way it takes a significant bus ride to get to San Miguel de Allende. From Mexico City it can take under 3 hours. From Guadalajara it will take more than 5 hours. Those 5 hours are filled with the magnificent scenery of numerous agave fields for the first 3+ hours. The trade off was how easily we got through customs in Guadalajara and how helpful workers were there. It is a pick your travel poison travel decision.

Neither of us slept well, but we got up had a free breakfast then took a taxi to the bus station for a 5 and 1/2 hour ride to our destination, San Miguel de Allende. That’s a lot of sitting. From 4am Tuesday until 5:30 pm Wednesday we had spent almost all of our time sitting on our butts, and they were sore. Once we got our luggage to our room we walked down the steep hill (picture in the next entry) to the central square. Felt so good to be moving. The area was energetic, full of people, just like we remembered it. We had a mediocre dinner then headed back up the hill to our room. We were in bed before 9:30, and this time we slept well.

Today, Thursday the 21^st we had a few goals; change money, find a market to buy groceries, and walk. We accomplished all of that, but other things did not go perfectly. Our T-Mobile phones only have internet when we are connected to a network here in town. Life is better when you can connect while wondering around town. Making it worse, I have been unable to contact T mobile so far for assistance in fixing this. Manana. Facebook is also acting up. It works from my phone, but from the laptop it treats me like a hacker, even when I tell them from my phone that I am the one trying to log in. The thing is, we know there are difficulties often when traveling. Part of traveling is problem solving. In that respect it is like chiropractic practice.

We found a market we were familiar with and bought vegetables, fruit and fish. My mistake, I did not take pictures of the market, but will do so soon. For about $12 we bought 10 ounces of tilapia, 8 tomatillos, 2 avocados, a lime, a lemon, 3 carrots, a red bell pepper, a red onion, a garlic bulb and a large head of broccoli. We then spent $7 on vinegar, olive oil and dish soap. To top it all off we shared 3 tacos for $2.50. The tacos were on large fresh corn tortillas and overflowing with three kinds of meat. They were easily double the size of any tacos we have had in the U.S.

After we walked back to our room we went on an exploration to test my memory of where we had stayed previously. We found our way easily, and the lodging we stayed in previously. That was the academic part of the afternoon walk. The heart felt part was to continue down the street to our old friend the chocolatier. He holds a place in our heart because he has an exquisite chocolate shop (again I apologize for not having a picture, I will make amends), but he also makes two non-dairy, no sugar chocolates. This is important because Sheila has been off sugar and dairy for more than 45 years and it is very rare to find chocolates she can eat. We each had two and we sat in the shop at a quaint little table listening to classical music. Later we sat on our upper deck and drank a glass of Baja Mexico Sauvignon Blanc to round out the afternoon. We had our first home made meal in a few days using the groceries we bought earlier.

During the day we make it a point to talk to everyone we can and ask them for hints about finding our home for the next 10-12 weeks. We have a week to transition from our hotel to a home. I will start tomorrow with a 3 hour Spanish class that I have been offered to sit in for free to see if I might want to pursue some degree of Spanish fluency there. After that we are going to walk to our favorite park before I get down to the business of home search.

Now that I am here the posts will be much more frequent. The pictures are from our balcony looking into downtown, up into the hills, down into the cactus garden and of the balcony.