whirlwind final day in mexico

As you know (if you've been keeping up with my blog), a week and a half ago I flew to Mexico for a wedding (congrats again Rogelio and Raquel), and then traveled Mexico for a week with coworker / new travel-buddy-for-life Iana. Since we had only a week, and Mexico is rather large, we kept up a blistering pace to pack in as much as possible.

While I think we managed to cram in a heck of a lot over those weeks, I am especially proud of our final 24 hours in Mexico. On Saturday morning we had the following constraints: we were a 4 hour bus ride from Mexico City, and had to be there at 6AM on the next day for my 8:00 flight. The standard/sensible/boring solution would have been to have a chill morning in San Miguel de Allende, catch a late afternoon bus to Mexico city, spend the night in a hostel there, and then cab to the airport. As you have probably deduced, we basically did the exact opposite, and crammed as much as we could into our final day:


Part I: souvenir shopping Extravaganza: Since this was our final stop, we could buy bulky things and not have to schlep them from town to town. Unfortunately, when you combine this fact with the fact that San Miguel de Allende is known for its shops full of well-made goods, you get a bit of trouble. It is safe to say that Iana and I got a bit carried away. The picture to the left is me with the hand-made wool rug I bought. (No comments from the peanut gallery about my rug/blanket negotiating skills). I also grabbed two day-of-the-dead skeleton statues, and Iana picked up a triple-painting. We had so much stuff that I had to buy a large bag so Iana could tote everything home!

me, my rug, and the rug vendor. Her whole family works on the rugs - her grandmother makes the wool thread and dyes it, her husband weaves it, etc (she had pics). Pretty cool.

Part II: Botanical Gardens: Exhausted from all that commercialism, Iana and I decided to get back to nature, and hiked around a botanical garden which was basically a whole ton of cacti rescued from around town and re-planted.

Iana, that's not the way you're supposed to enjoy nature! (disclaimer: no cacti were harmed in the filming of this stunt)

Part III: Ole! Our next stop was the bull fight. This is actually what set our plan to cram as much as possible into the day as possible, as it would force us to miss the early afternoon flight. Bull fighting here is quite the spectacle - tons of people crowd in (many of whom have BYOB / BYOW) to cheer, heckle, and in general have a good time. I found the fight to be. . . interesting. Killing an animal for sport isn't really my cup of tea, but I think it was well worth attending to observe an important part of Mexican / Spanish culture. Side note: even though the ticket is twice as much, you might want to pay extra for the "shade side" - that being said, I did come out with quite the tan!

the bull charges

Part IV: Outdoor Cafe / backgammon: After the bull fight we headed out to the outdoor cafe we'd found the night before. There we enjoyed the great weather (I love eating outdoors!), had dinner/drinks, enjoyed the live music they had, and engaged in an epic Backgammon marathon. (Iana won 4-3, but it was close! One game ended with Iana moving out the last of her pieces while I had one left!).

enjoying backgammon at the outdoor cafe

Part V: surprise concert: As we were walking back from the cafe, we happened on a symphony orchestra performing a free outdoor concert right in front of the main cathedral. The music was great (movie theme music - when we walked up it was the Indiana Jones theme), and the setting was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, we arrived at the last song, although they were convinced to get an encore, so we got to hear two songs. I wish we'd known about it in advance so we could have been there for the whole thing!

The outdoor concert in front of the cathedral

Part VI: time to go home: By now it was about 11pm - time to pack it in! We returned to the hostel and packed up all our stuff. I significantly lightened my load by giving Iana several things to take back - thanks again Iana, I really appreciate it! And thanks to Trinh for doing the same in Mexico City! We slept as much as we could on the midnight bus to Mexico city (arrived at 4), cabbed to the airport, successfully passed the anti-swine-flu gauntlet (heat sensors), cried a little when one of my souvenirs was confiscated by security (Apparently there are no rocks allowed, even when they're crystals), and then spent the next few hours sacked out on the chairs waiting for our flights.

catching a few zzzzs in the airport - the one thing this adventure was short on was sleeping time. (who needs sleep anyways!?!)

We ended up pretty tired (man did I sleep well the next night), but it was well worth it - a great way to end the mexico trip!