2001 Central Mexico - Taxco, Ville de Bravo etc.

2001

Today - Feb. 10 - we have just arrived in the area of Puerto Vallarta and staying in a very tropical campground by a mountain creek. The vegetation is very thick this year as they have had some rains during the winter which is unusual.

Since our last newsletter we have been to Cuernavaca, Taxco, Hacienda Vista Hermosa, Ville de Bravo, Patzcuaro, Lago de Camecuaro, Ville Corona, Melaque, La Manzanilla and Punta Parula.
From Cuernavaca we took the bus to Taxco as it is a mountain side city that you cannot drive into. In fact the one way street, the taxi, car traffic and the people walking is enough to only stay a few hours and you want to leave. It is known for its silver so there are many shops selling and trying to get your attention and business. We didn’t buy any silver - just enjoyed the old city and its architecture.

Ville de Bravo is again a town built on the side of the mountain with a large lake in the valley. We stayed at a boat dock near the town and had a spectacular view of the lake and mountains. The drive from Toluca to Ville de Bravo took us to 10,500’ altitude and the lake was about 6,000’. Leaving the lake we climbed up to 9,000’ into the pine forest and on to Patzcuaro. We finally went over to the Island Janitzio and climbed up into the statue of Morelos, which is 130’ high.

We played lots of tennis and lounged in the hot pools at Ville Corona. It was a very pleasant stay and oh yes we rode our bikes into town for groceries and for the fun of it.

We have been on the coast for about 1 ½ weeks and Chris is almost “beached out” but we will have about another week before we go inland. The weather has been great and the humidity hasn’t been as high as it sometimes is. We will spend some time in Lo de Marcos, which is on the beach and about 75km North of Puerto Vallarta. We will stay there until we receive our mail. This will be the first delivery since Dec. 1 in McAllen, Texas. Lo de Marcos is a small village on a bay, but there are great places to walk, bike and go birding so you do not need to be on the beach to enjoy yourselves.

We plan to leave Mexico the end of March and the time left will be spent around La Laguna Sta Maria del Oro and places between there and Alamos. Our plans change quit a lot as we end up staying longer in some places as we are enjoying it and then other places we move sooner than we had planned as it was not quite what we expected.