Esperanza

¡Vamanos a Patzcuaro! A group of us had decided earlier to go to Patzcuaro on the weekend. Patzcuaro is a very historic town about one hour outside of Morelia. We all met at el estacion de autobus at 10:00. The bus to Patzcuaro was only 28 pesos ($2.80). The bus ride had some nice views of mountains, lakes, and the Mexican countryside. We arrived in Paztcuaro in no time. My intitial impression of patcuaro was "finally, I get to see a real Mexican town." Rusted trucks, market stalls, kids playing in the street...all that good stuff. We walked around looking through the many market stalls. Patzcuaro is on a lake and allot of the vendors were selling really gross looking dried fish and fresh fish. There were ponchos, fruits, fish, cowboy hats, jewelery, and much more in the markets. One guy was walking around with turkeys on a leash trying to sell them. We went to the see the catedral (I have yet to go to a town without a catedral), which was nice but not as large as Morelias.

We then sat down for lunch in a nice little restaurant. They kept giving us more and more bread. Them some little children came by trying to sell us wicker baskets and we gave them some of our bread. I had a vegetable platter and some guacamole with chips. The vegetable platter was ok, but the guacamole was really good. After lunch we went in search of a hotel. The buildings in the center of Patzcuaro are all really nice spanish style, adobe with red tile roofs, buildings. We found a hotel that was $300 pesos for three people a night. It had a very quaint feel and was really nice. Our room had a balcony that looked over part of patzcuaro.

We then departed for la Isla de Janitzio. This island is in the middle of Patzcuaros lake and features an enormous statue of Morelos. Morelos was a Mexican hero who rebelled against the Spanish during the Mexican war of Independance. We took a small motor boat to the island. The island was a really neat little place. It had all sorts of little touristy shops, cafes, and small little houses. After a long walk to the top of the island we were able to go inside the morelos statue. Inside the statue were murals all over the walls. There was a long windy staircase that led to the top of the statue, where you could look out far accross the lake and land around it. We then climbed back down and looked around the island. After a few hours we took the last boat back to Patzcuaro.



We returned to the hotel for a little bit to drop of our belongings and rest a little. A few of us then went out to eat. We found a nice place and I had enchilladas with a side of guacamole. They were really, really good. We met a graduate student from Montana who told us what we could do patzcuaro. We then went to a nearby discotecca, which was kind of empty, and played some pool. The discotecca had these really amazing chips (yes i did say chips). After that we went to met up with the rest of our group. Once thing that was wierd was that the streets of Patzcuaro were pretty much dead. It was really wierd, we were one of the only ones on the streets and it was only 11. We went back to the hotel and met the rest of our group. All of us then departed to another discotecca. We walked through this park were a dog started following us and then started chasing cars. As we were crossing the street soem guy in a minivan started yelling American swear words at us. We continued walking. The same guy in the van then came back again with a complete change of attitude, and was like "hey amigos, i am from america too, whats up?." He then pulled over his car and started talking to one guy in our group. Then, this police car comes driving up at like 50 miles an hour and pulls up right in front of us. These three cops get out, one with a giant gun and bullets around his chest, and said "Que pasa?" I was pretty scared at that point. One guy in our group speaks perfect spanish and told them we were just talking. They told us it wasn´t safe to be out right now. We then told them we were going to head back to our hotel. We then walked away pretty scared. Luckily nothing bad happened. On the way back to the hotel, the guy int he minivan came back once more and again was all friendly. He then drove off. It was kinda of wierd because he had a bunch of kids in the backseat watching an incar movie, it seemed like he was drunk or crazy or something.

Tired and unsure of what had just happened we all went back to our hotel and went to bed.

Posted by Brady on Sunday, July 02, 2006 at 9:13 AM | Permalink