THE HILLS OF PATZCUARO

Thinking that today would be dullsville, hanging around here at the RV Park, I WAS planning on FINALLY getting to my post about our thoughts on being van dwellers versus - umm - being trailer dwellers. I have all sorts of things to talk about on that topic from how we feel about our little, now named, van, the changes we MUST make and those we would LIKE to make. 

That WAS the plan, that is until Derek said those few little words "Let's go for a walk." 

Sounds innocent enough right?!

TRUE.

BUT you don't know Derek - well - this part of Derek anyway. If you are with him and he mentions - a walk - take your lunch!

I have been suckered into those few words so many times now it doesn't really bother me - I am either in for a walk, in for a hike or in for a death march. I've SURVIVED them all! Cassia on the other hand is just learning. The poor dear, so unsuspecting.

I don't know how many times I have heard "Well it would be a shame to stop now..." as we are half way up a mountain - it happened to me on Mt. Arrowsmith on Vancouver Island and it happened to me at Rockhound State Park in New Mexico. It has happened in many ways in many different locations over the years..

I didn't even see today's ADVENTURE coming - no water, no snacks - nothing. At LEAST I had my running shoes on.

Our walk began through the neighbourhood adjacent to our RV Park. Just LOOK at this CLIMB - must be a 45 degree angle for sure. Good thing they don't have snow and ice here - can you imagine driving down or up this road in those conditions. I shudder to think!

An impressive view from the top. Obviously some upscale homes.

We could JUST see the lake. 

 Derek went a little higher and zoomed into the Isla Janitzio - we're going there tomorrow.

 At the end of the paved road we noticed a trail - hmmm - well, let's take it. This is a picture looking back at what we just climbed you can see the green and orange house that we were JUST standing beside.

Ahhh - sometimes you just have to shake your head and laugh. As we were looking out from a viewpoint Derek heard a scraping sound. We looked down to see this truck taking off the corner of the roof as he was TRYING to back up. Derek zoomed in to get a good shot.

If you can believe he just kept going - even though at one point he got out of his truck to survey the damage. I guess he figured the damage was done already.

At this point the trail headed into the forest. The trail was pretty clear at this point - judging by the bottles and such it is obviously a bit of a party place.

Every now and then we were provided a great view of Patzcuaro - this is looking towards el centro.

Nice for Cassia to be able to run - Roofous is just ahead of her.

Somewhere along the way the trail went from well used to something more like an animal trail. We were pretty optimistic that it would continue. At this point the smart thing to do would have been to turn around and head back. Don't try this at home!

Beautiful plants and flowers along the way. It made us feel nostalgic for home - hiking in our ponderosa pine forests.

Cassia 'Little Walker'

For the twenty minutes or so before this picture, things got a little dicey. We no longer had any type of trail and really - we had NO CLUE where we were. Derek kept going ahead to see that we could get through. The term - bush whacking - comes to mind. Cassia was CLEARLY not having fun anymore. 

But in the end we made it to this road - old cobblestone - amazing that it is way up here in the hills. 

As we followed the rough road down we came upon this road - passing a few very nice houses. This one to our right was very large - the car you can just see to the right was a Mercedes Benz with Texas plates.

A cute little house we wouldn't mind calling our own.

And a restaurant of all things tucked up here in a neighbourhood. We were pretty happy to see this place. Just before it was a sign for the Hotel La Casa En El Bosque, this was GREAT news. At the beginning of our walk, not to far from the RV Park, we had seen a sign for this hotel. 

Thank goodness we hadn't gone and gotten ourselves completely lost with little energy to spare.

We came down the road to the left.

There seems to be several abandoned properties on our street. A nice gate to this one.

Another Wood Clan possibility. This house also looks abandoned - just IMAGINE what we could DO with this place - and the garden! It appears to be for sale.....

You just gotta LOVE google maps. Tonight I decided to take a look at where we hiked today - here's my attempt at our path - the street's are right - I took a bit of liberty with the forest part.

WHAT A HIKE!

We were gone for about 2 or 3 hours. We were SUPPOSED to be resting after our walk around el centro yesterday in preparation for our trip to the Isla Janitzio tomorrow.

Somehow I managed to walk over to the Bodega Aurrera - owned by Walmart - later in the afternoon. Nice to have a grocery store so close - darn that I have to be in another Walmart type store. It was busy with the common sound of very LOUD music playing on the outside and inside. A peculiar thing about Mexico - all that loud music.

I almost thought I was seeing things when I saw a box of 'black tea' in the tea section, VERY hard to come by in Mexico. I ALMOST had hope that there would be a bag of salt and vinegar chips waiting for me in the chip isle - but no - I really shouldn't hope for so much. Plain chips, cheese chips, chilli chips - take your pick.

Ahhhh Mexico - how I LOVE thee!

AND not that numbers matter ..... but we were pretty darn excited to see that we passed the 70,000 mark today! 

Teresa

TODAY'S INTERESTING LINK: I JUST found another travel blog to follow - anybody else following Chedder Yeti? Who knew? Dennis and Jeanette are behind Motornomadics that I linked not to long ago. Their BUS is very COOL - watch the video! Makes me want to start looking for our own Wanderlodge.