Santiago de Querétaro 2022
| 2022-02-01: Research | ||
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| 2022-02-10: Flight to Santiago de Querétaro - Leg 1 | ||
| In the last 24 hours I have spent about 16 of them in a mask. I don't think I would have survived that in the beforetimes. Good thing I've had lots of practice over the last couple of years! I am not impressed with the \"partnership\" between Aero Mexico and WestJet. We were supposed to fly to Vancouver at 7:30PM on Thursday, arriving in Queretaro at 10AM on Friday. We got switched onto a 10:15 flight to Vancouver with a 12-hour layover in Vancouver before continuing our journey. I'm pretty sure that WestJet only lets Aero Mexico have spots on the planes if they can't fill them with other people. The two websites don't talk to each other. The way the airlines operate are so different that the WestJet staff didn't know what to do with us. We couldn't check-in online for ANY of the legs... because... nothing worked right between Aero Mexico and WestJet. Just meh. But, super grateful for Michel who was willing to come pick us up super early to take us to the airport so we could deal with all the issues first thing. Among other things I'm not impressed with is the Aero Mexico website. Every time they change our itinerary (and the do it often) they send an email with a link where I can go to \"accept\" the change. I click \"accept\" and it says thank you... but nothing changes, and I keep getting messages that I have to accept. I can't do ANYTHING else until it works. And I end up having to phone a person to tell them that I accept. Bleah. On the list of things I'm grateful for... Brent's brother, Doug, for picking us up at YVR and entertaining us for the day, Brent's niece, Lisa and her boyfriend, David, for letting us hang out for hours at their apartment. Best 12-hour layover ever!!
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| 2022-02-11: Bonus night in Gallo room at La Encantada | ||
| That was a whole lotta time in that mask since we left Edmonton, my goodness. I'm happy to be able to spend some time with my face \"commando\". That said, though, people here take their mask wearing very seriously. Most people on the street, and in establishments, are wearing masks. We've taken to wearing masks while out as well. I guess it's going to be a very mask-y time. We left Vancouver at about 11:30 last night and flew to Mexico City. The worst thing was that someone had brought an infant with very healthy lungs on the trip, and the infant was NOT happy. It spent the whole night shaking the walls of the airplane cabin with its wails. Poor little devil. And poor me trying to sleep through it. Ugh. Thankfully, the wails weren't enough to down the plane, which, incidentally was a MAX-8. I probably wouldn't have chosen to fly on one of those but... que sera sera, and we made it alive. Our original plans were to fly down with a different airline, arriving on Saturday, not Friday. Thankfully our AirBnB had a room available on the same property for one night. Not the SAME room, but *shrug* hey, at least on the same property. So, we arrived today about 11AM, but check-in wasn't until 2PM. We had to hang out in my \"office\" (aka the roof-top lounge) until the room was ready. Tomorrow we'll have to check out of that room at 11AM and hang out in my \"office\" again until we're able to check into our \"permanent\" room. I am SO happy to be here.\n After we got minimally settled in, we went walk-about in town, ate some local gorditas (hopefully they won't trigger a Montezuma's revenge like the time Brent and I ate local in Zihuatanejo). They were delicious! I hope they're as happy to be in us, as we are to have them in us... time will tell... It is an AMAZING 23C here today, and that's about what it's going to be every day that we're here. I am so happy that it's not sweltering. When Brent and I last went to Mexico, we went to Zihuatanejo, and it was about 30C every day. We suffered for close to five days before we were acclimated enough to move around. I think this suits me much much better. I got my computer all set up to work this afternoon. It had some kind of a hard drive error, so I was a little concerned for a while there, but two reboots seem to have brought it back up and it's working fine now. I'm hopeful that I will be able to work well from here. What an awesome life.
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| 2022-02-12: Switch to Canario room | ||
| We have to switch from Gallo room to Canario room in La Encantada today. Our original trip plans had us arriving today, but things changed and we ended up getting here a day earlier. I'm super grateful that our host had another room in her property that was available so we don't have far to go to make the switch..... buuuuuuuuuut... we have three hours in between rooms. We need to leave Gallo at 11AM and we can't check in to Canario until 2PM. I had a look at the forecast today, and there is only one day in the forecast where we're supposed to get rain... of course that's today. And there's only a three-hour timespan where we're supposed to get rain through the day... of course that's from 11AM to 2PM. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OMG. Even though I have my laptop along to work, we also brought along the new Surface, partly for Brent to use and partly to confirm it will work for posting tp DAMDetails when we don't have my laptop along, like when we go to Europe in the fall. I used my trusty old Surface all the wat from the 2015 tour until France in 2019 when it became impossible to use. I bought the 'new' (to me) Surface after France but then the Covid came and put a stop to my travels.\n Using the old Surface was hard for putting photos onto DAM because DAM won't take photos larger than 500MB and the Surface had no software that would \nreduce a photo's file size. So my workaround was to upload photos to FB then download them from there but now FB often gives you a file larger than 500MB. Anyway the new Surface has Paint on it which can reduce a photo file size easily so experiment concluded, experiment successful One thing I really like about being here is being treated like a person instead of like a mark. I get really tired of everyone we see putting on the hard sell trying to get us to buy whatever they're flogging, whether it's a bracelet or a condo when we're in a tourist spot. The rain during our period of homelessness turned out to be a non-event. Yay! We got into the Canario Room, which is where we'll stay for the rest of our time here. I got a makeshift \"office\" set up. The place that I think will serve me best is actually the shelf in the closet. Good thing I'm flexible... minded, anyway.
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| 2022-02-13: Walk Queretaro | ||
| We were going to go to La Pena de Bernal and Tequisquiapan with Laura today, but we decided to postpone that. The weather was kinda crappy this morning, Laura took a fall yesterday, and if we wait until next weekend, maybe Elissa can come with us. \n We thought about taking a bus to San Juan del Rio, where Laura lives, to have a visit with her, but we couldn't get a ticket for the local transit to get to the regional bus depot. The local transit only accepts scannable cards, not cash, and we can only buy those scannable cards during the week. We could have taken a cab, or walked, but ultimately, we decided to stay in Queretaro for today and see Laura another time soon. Walking around Queretaro today was wonderful. We walked through Centro, which was alive with Sunday markets through plaza after plaza, and then walked the lovely pathway along Rio Queretaro. \n Queretaro has some bicycle infrastructure, and we found lots of bike lanes. Maybe we'll go for a ride one day soon. We just need to figure out where to rent bicycles.
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| 2022-02-14: Work Day - Does Working Here Work? | ||
| We have not seen a single mosquito here. Not. A. One. If this trend continues, then Queretaro is definitely my new favorite place on planet earth. I've been working since we got here, and proven that my technology, and my brain, will cooperate with the whole idea. Today was the first business day, though that I really worked, and it went fine. I worked in the wee hours, like I normally do, and I had some meetings during business hours, like I normally do, and everything just worked. Yay! While I worked today, Brent ran some errands, including picking us up some rechargeable Qrobus passes. The local transit busses can only be used with one of these passes - they won't take cash. I had read a four-year-old blog that said you could buy the passes at most OXXO or Mini Super stores at self-serve kiosks, but we looked all over yesterday and not a single store had a kiosk. The Qrobus headquarters is only open on weekdays, so this morning, Brent went out and scored us a couple of passes. We'll have an adventure in city transit very soon!
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| 2022-02-15: Gratitude | ||
| Legendary Ed always said you need something to look forward to. My main thing that I look forward to is travel. When the pandemic started, I got it in my head that it would last six weeks. As it stretched into two years, I wondered when, or if, I would ever travel again, and I got super depressed about the thought of it being over.\n Today was a day of new experiences. We took local transit in Queretaro. We at in a completely off-the-grid \"restaurant\" which is a word-of-mouth local treat, invited by the maintenance man at our AirBnB. We sat on the roof of our AirBnB, enjoying the sunset, and the flocks of small black birds that zip past every evening. And I am grateful. So grateful. I'm grateful to be from a time, and a place, where women have been afforded the opportunity to set the course of their own lives. To make a decent enough living to buy myself these experiences. To have the health that I enjoy for making the most of these experiences. To be able to travel. To have chosen a vocation that allows me to work remotely. To share it all with this wonderful companion... my Brent. Thank you, Universe. I am having a serious Joe Banks (the Tom Hanks Joe Banks) moment.
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| 2022-02-16: Roof Sittin' is Good Sittin' | ||
Brent has been doing a lot of roof sittin' since we got here, mostly while I'm working. Today I decided it was my turn too. Instead of wandering far from home, we mostly sat on our roof and watched the city go by. We also went to the mercado (market) and had a look at Los Arcos (the aqueduct), but mostly... roof sittin'.
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| 2022-02-17: Elissa Arrives | ||
| I worked all day today and then Elissa arrived from Calgary in the afternoon. We brought her over to our AirBnB via the Aqueduct for a quick look, and then up to sit on our roof, because roof sittin' is good sittin'. We filled her full of wine, guacamole, queso and more and then took her back to her place to (hopefully) get a better sleep than last night. We've had yet another SNAFU with Aero Mexico. They changed our itinerary (again), and sent me an e-mail with a link to \"accept\" the change. But the link didn't work. I ended up calling them to sort it out, and the reason why things weren't working... well... was because they had us flying from Vancouver to Edmonton the DAY BEFORE we were going to fly from Mexico City to Vancouver. As a remedy, they wanted to put us on a different route all together, leaving Queretaro on the Thursday evening, overnighting in Mexico City, leaving Mexico City at 5PM-ish for Toronto, then leaving Toronto at 9AM the next day. Three days shot just trying to get home. You've got to be kidding me. After some more phone calls to WestJet (the partner on the YVR-YEG leg) and to Aero Mexico, Brent got us hooked up with a one-day itinerary on March 10th leaving Queretaro at 6AM and arriving Edmonton at dinner time. That's a whole lot better!
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| 2022-02-18: Bike Tour Queretaro | ||
| I worked this morning and then we met up with Elissa to go for lunch and then to our bike tour. At the restaurant, we looked at having some guacamole as an appetizer, and there was an item that looked like it was guacamole with cheese. I asked the server if it was queso (cheese) and she said yes. Well, there was a breakdown in communication, because it wasn't queso... it was crickets. Elissa was a trooper and jumped right into the adventure, followed shortly by Brent. I followed as a very reluctant third. They were salty and a little fishy and a lot chewy. I wouldn't seek them out again, but for all the times I've wondered if I'd be able to eat bugs... well... now we know. We had a really fantastic tour this afternoon with Uriel from Bike Tour Queretaro. He was very confident and skilled at leading us through traffic. His English was perfect, he was knowledgeable, interesting, and engaging. He took us to the hot spots in centro, and to my surprise, Brent and I had already hit most of the on our walkabouts. But it was still great to hear all of the stories, the history, the gossip and the conspiracy theories. Uriel also does tours to go see the migrating monarch butterflies. We're hoping to join one of his tours for that! After our bike tour we walked back to our AirBnB along the Rio Queretaro. Elissa spotted a huge train of leaf-cutter ants making off with their daily loot. It was A-MA-ZING!
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| 2022-02-19: Lazy Day | ||
Just a slow day today. I worked this morning. Elissa had to change from an AirBnB to a hotel, so she brought her stuff over for it to hang out here in between her two places. The three of us went out and did a little shopping. Elissa and I bought pants that we could wear to ride horses to get to the butterfly location on the butterfly tour. We went for lunch, did a bit of grocery shopping at the Mercado, and then Elissa left to check into her hotel and now Brent and I are just hanging out. A very pleasant day.
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| 2022-02-20: Peña de Bernal with Laura | ||
| Woke up this morning to another notification that Aero Mexico has changed our reservation for our return to Canada. They've changed the flight from YVR to YEG again. Three hours later on March 10th than what Brent arranged. We'll see how many times they change it between now and March 10th, and how long it takes them to change our YVR-YEG flight to happen the day before we fly from MEX-YVR. Unbelievable. Today, Elissa, Brent and I hopped on the local Queretaro bus 19 and took it to the main city bus terminal where we hopped a regional bus with Amealcenses (approx 60 pesos each) to San Juan del Rio, where my friend, Laura G, picked us up. We drove out to her parents' house and picked up her daughter, Inez, and her mom, Rocio. The five of us went for a lunch of Carnitas, then out to Peña de Bernal for the day, then ended back at her parents' for a beer where we met her dad, Jesus, and saw his amazing irrigation system for his alfalfa crop. Laura then organized a driver... like an Uber but not an Uber... to take us back to Queretaro. This is one of my favorite days ever - thank you Laura!!
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| 2022-02-21: San Miguel de Allende | ||
| Woke up this morning to ANOTHER notice from AeroMexico that our flight itinerary has changed. When I looked it up, the leg from YVR to YEG was completely gone. Spoke to the customer service agent and he says the WestJet flight isn't \"cancelled\" but is not \"confirmed\" (I think probably related to a WestJet strike). His recommendation: Wait a few days and see if the flight gets confirmed. On the spur of the moment, Brent, Elissa and I decided to head out to San Miguel de Allende today. It seemed like a good thing to do. We had a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to take busses - city bus to the terminal, then regional bus to San Miguel. The city busses were not running efficiently and the regional bus schedule was few and far between, so after waiting at the city bus stop for a while, we gave up and got a taxi. Cesar took us to San Miguel for 600 pesos (plus tip). We got his phone number for future excursions.\n We came back with a taxi as well. We could have taken a bus, but the best option was to take one at 4:50PM, and we weren't ready to leave when we had to to get to the bus depot, so with the price of the taxis being so good in relation to the busses (because the taxi costs the same for three people as for one, but the bus is per person), we just grabbed a taxi again. This one was 800 pesos plus tip. On our way into town, our cabbie got pulled over for some reason - we're not sure why. We think maybe it was to check to make sure he was not picking up in Queretaro, which he may not be licensed for. San Miguel de Allende is a more beautiful and interesting city than Queretaro (not that there's anything wrong with Queretaro, mind you). It also has more restaurant-ey restaurants. The trade-off is that there's WAY more tourists, many of them English-speaking. There are two walking routes for SMDA, and we walked both of them, seeing what we could see. We liked the morning better when it was less busy, but the whole experiences was fantastic. After we got home from San Miguel de Allende, Brent and I had a beer on the roof to await \"Bird-O-Clock\", which is the time when the big flocks of black birds fly over. \"Bird-O-Clock\" usually lasts from about 6:15 to 6:30 in the evening. Tonight there were more flocks, and bigger flocks than usual, and a lot of them flew RIGHT over top of our property, and some of the birds flew just a few feet above our heads. We love this evening ritual!
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| 2022-02-22: Sleepless Night Hangover | ||
| I really have to learn to lay off the coffee, even as a treat. When we went to San Miguel de Allende yesterday morning I drank a latte. Then I suffered for it all night. I only got about two hours of sleep, starting about 3AM. I had a few meetings this morning, but otherwise didn't work. I have to get my head cleared before I attempt much. Laura W and Ann will be thrilled to know Brent has finally won the ATM-War. Before we left Edmonton, he went and got a new bank account at Scotiabank, and voila. Just like that, he's able to get money out of an ATM when we're out of country.
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| 2022-02-23: Las Americas - Boa Mistura | ||
| We took a city bus up to Las Americas. The bus was jam packed with bodies, hot and stuffy. It was not pleasant. We were happy to get off the bus.\n Walking around Las Americas was really interesting. At one point, a random truck driver who was delivering candy to a store gave Brent three RockaLota lollipops, which were really unusual. Different layers of spicy, fruity... unusualness. Not unlike the neighborhood of Las Americas, which is on the side of a hill, so everything is steep and layered. Layers of spicy.\n Rather than get back on a bus to go home, we decided we were ambitious enough to walk the ~6km back from our walk. It was really interesting too, and I can't wait to go back and explore some more in the neighborhood just north of the river from us.\n For dinner, Elissa suggested her favorite local taco restaurant, Taco Tucson. It was delicious, and almost shamefully affordable.
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| 2022-02-24: Workday | ||
I have a lot of meetings today and a lot of work to do, so today is a workday for me. Brent went walkabout without me. He walked and walked and walked to the west looking for a fire we saw in the distance last night but he never found it so he just turned around and walked and walked and walked back.
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| 2022-02-25: El Cerrito Pyramid | ||
| We started the day with breakfast (Guacamole Toast) at Las Palma (an Elissa discovery). \n We were going to take a random cab out to El Cerrito, but we had communication problems with the first two cabs that we tried to flag down, so instead we texted Cesar, our cabbie who took us to San Miguel, and he came right away and took us out to El Cerrito, which is in a town on the outskirts of Queretaro called El Pueblito. Elissa took the opportunity to negotiate a ride out to the airport on Tuesday from Cesar. Yay for Cesar!\n El Cerrito was very interesting. We could walk up to it, but, like many Mesoamerican pyramids, they no longer allow people to climb all over it. I agree 100% with that decision.\n After we got a good eye-full of the pyramid itself, Elissa discovered more leaf-cutter ants, and we spent several minutes watching and photographing them.\n After El Cerrito, we decided to walk to the Chopo (Covid testing clinic) about 1.5km from there. We inquired about Covid tests for our return voyages to Canada. Chopo clinics are walk-ins (no appointment needed), the antigen tests cost 600 pesos (about $45CAD), and we found out that there's a Chopo really close to where we're staying. \n After we found the Chopo, we wanted to find a place to try and watch the far-end (arrivals) of our nightly bird-o-clock. We've been hoping to see the birds arriving at their nightly tree. That was not to be, however. We tried looking at the intersection that Elissa had been given by a biologist friend-of-a-friend, but it was a nightmare highway interchange. We thought maybe Centro Universitario might be a good spot, so we walked up there. Yeahhhhhhh.... no. Not so much. So, we walked up to Rio Queretaro, thinking we might find a place for dinner where we could face the rio and keep an eye on the ficus trees (where the birds supposedly roost), but that was a bust, too. \n We ended up going for dinner at the plaza near where we're staying. It's really close to the big church that, every night, rings their bells incessantly, and then sets off firework explosions (not the pretty twinkly kind... just the boom-ey kind). It was REALLY loud in the plaza, and there were a lot of children playing nearby when we realized that large pieces, particularly long sticks, from the fireworks were falling in the plaza and the children were collecting them and playing with them as they fell. Yikes. It's all fun and games.....\n All-in-all we walked about 12km back from El Cerrito to our \"homes\" over the course of the day. Something like this: Map
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| 2022-02-26: Workday | ||
| My lower back hurts quite a lot today from all the walking yesterday. Laying low and taking the opportunity to catch up on some work. Our flight from YVR to YEG still doesn't appear on our Aero Mexico itinerary so I phoned them again this morning. No change - they still don't know if the WestJet flight is going to go or not. Their recommendation: Just wait longer. Call them back in a couple days.
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| 2022-02-27: Butterfly Tour! | ||
| Today we went with Uriel from Bike Tour Queretaro to Michoacan to the Monarch Butterfly Reserve. I have heard for years about the migration of the Monarch Butterflies, and that they migrate between Canada and Mexico, but I never expected to be able to actually see the place that they congregate in Mexico. Today I saw it and it was amazing!\n We left Queretaro at 9AM to make the long drive to Michoacan. Along the way we noticed that the closer we got to the butterfly reserve the more the terrain resembled St. Vincent. Very beautiful big lush hills and valleys.\n We had lunch at one of the food stands at the parking lot. They offered a selection of quesadillas, including ones with Huitlacoche. I thought the name seemed vaguely familiar, and when we found out what it was, I realized it was because I'd first heard of it on the hilariously written Steve, Don't Eat It! blog (scroll down to Vol 7). Sooooooo... guess what we had for lunch!? And it honestly was quite tasty.\n After lunch we stood in line to buy our admission tickets. Then we stood in line to buy our horse ride tickets. Then we stood in line to get on our horses. Apparently it's the busiest day they've had in three years because of the pandemic, and the conditions today were really good. Getting up to where the butterfly colony is is a fairly long and steep trail up. You can walk up, but most people choose the horses, and that's what our tour included. Elissa and I bought special horse-riding pants because we were warned that the horses may have fleas and we didn't really have any pants along that were suitable for riding flea-infested horses.\n The horse ride up was good. Elissa and Brent had fairly calm horses, while mine was quite... spirited. It's been a long time since I've ridden a horse, but I managed to stay on while my steed tried to gallop up a 10% grade. I pretty much gripped the oversized saddle horn the whole way up.\n Once we were up the hill we joined the hoards of people on the hiking trail to get to the heart of the butterfly colony and the experience did NOT disappoint. There were, literally, millions of butterflies. It was completely magical, and photos don't do it justice.\n We were fascinated to learn the life cycle of the Monarchs. It is not the same critters that you find in Canada that end up in Mexico. They have three one-month generations and one nine-month generations, with the nine-month generation essentially being the one that does most of the traveling. Here are some Monarch FAQs.\n After watching the butterflies, Brent, Elissa and I hiked down the trail while Uriel chose to ride the horse down. We had a nice drive back to Queretaro, with a short stop in the pretty little town of Angangueo, and then took advantage of the fact that vehicle passengers don't get in trouble down here for having a beer in the car. Since photos just don't do this experience justice, here's a video:\n Michoacan\n
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| 2022-02-28: Elissa's Last Day | ||
| Today will be Elissa's last day in Queretaro before she heads back to Canada. Although we weren't expecting to have her around for this long (we were planning on a couple of days, but her plans changed), it's been SO MUCH FUN having her along for this part of the trip. It will be strange when she's gone.\n Today I am working a long day. Brent and Elissa are out running errands - picking up a parcel for Elissa at the bus depot (which, at the end of the day, was more than an ordeal), and getting her Antigen Covid Test done so she can board her plane tomorrow.\n Meeting up after I'm done work for Taco Tucson and Bird-O-Clock at the Blue Bicycle hostel. I am really loving my Unightie. I'm a huge bamboo fan already, and when Calgary entrepreneur, Jackie, approached the COC with this interesting new product she designed, I was an early adopter. I was thinking that I would mostly use it on cycle tours, since I don't do much backpacking these days, and thought I'd give it a trial on our trip to Mexico. I have slept in it every night since we got here, and when I've been working, which is most days, I just stay in it. So, I've been wearing it, let's say, an average of 10 or 12 hours per day since Feb 11, and IT STILL DOESN'T STINK. Today is laundry day and for the second week in a row, I am withholding the Unightie from the ritual. Let's see how long I can wear this baby for before it starts to offend me...\n One thing I do wish it had... not for Mexico, but for cycle tours (and backpacking) is a front-flap for the peeing. I would use it with my pee style, but since Jackie wants the product to appeal to men as well, I think a front-flap is in order.\n The only other thing about it that may not be ideal... although it's more funny than anything else... is that the magnet sometimes holds onto something that I don't really want it to. Sitting on my chair working, the waist magnet grabs onto the chair. Sleeping... the Unightie bunches up around my waist and the lower magnet engages with the waist magnet. :) | ||
| 2022-03-01: Museo de Bichos de Querétaro | ||
| Today it's back to the drawing board with Aero Mexico trying to figure out how we're going to get home. I'm not worried... yet. We've paid for our AirBnB through to March 13th, so perhaps we can get an itinerary that keeps us here a couple days longer (our current, incomplete itinerary has us leaving on March 10th, but being stranded in Vancouver).\n\n Brent and I looked at different options with different airlines, and even talked about looking for other accommodation for some extra days and going back a little later. He then called Aero Mexico to see about getting our itinerary either fixed, or canceled, and... just like magic, now the YVR-YEG flight is back on our itinerary. I guess we'll see how long it takes for them to drop it again. Before she left, Elissa gave us a brochure about things to do in Querétaro and there are several things on there that I think we'll check out with our remaining days. I worked this morning, and then this afternoon, we went for an outdoor lunch, and then went to the Museo de Bichos de Querétaro (bug museum). The bugs on display were interesting, but nothing we hadn't really seen before (being bug museum aficionados). The highlight was getting to hold a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, and Amelia the Tarantula.
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| 2022-03-02: Lots of Work, not much Mexico | ||
| I have a lot of work to do, including meetings at noon and 4 (Queretaro time), so, today I am mostly working, very little Mexico-ing. Fit in a video visit with Cheryl in the morning.\n When my meeting ended at 1, though, Brent and I walked down to the Mercado, had lunch at the Fonda Lupita stand within, and bought some groceries, including a Mamey Sapote, which neither of us have eaten before. | ||
| 2022-03-03: Work and a Walk | ||
| Another work day. Worked. Went for big burritos. Had a walk. Worked some more. Video visit with Shannon. Just a day, but a day in Mexico! Yay for days in Mexico! I think our bird-o-clock days may be over. When we got here, every night between 6:15 and 6:30, huge flocks would fly right over our building. We'd watch them go over, and sometimes they would be close enough that we could hear their wings. As time went on, though, their path and time shifted. They're flying more between 6:30 and 6:45 now, but the worst part is that they're flying in a much more north-bound route and not going over top of us at all. For a few days we had great bird-o-clocks over at Elissa's hostel (the Blue Bicycle), but I think the bird route has shifted enough that they're probably not going directly over the hostel anymore either. Sigh. It was awesome while it lasted.
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| 2022-03-04: Full Day Queretaro | ||
I worked a full day today, but we still managed to fit in lots and lots of great Queretaro stuff. We started with a walk over to El Tepetate, a market area north of Rio Queretaro and west of us. We had an excellent fried chicken lunch from vendor Jesus, and then walked back home via the Musea Casa de la Zacatecana where we stopped for about an hour to see what it was about. Then I had a work meeting, followed by a video visit with Mom. After our visit, Brent and I went down to \"our\" square and had a couple of cervezas while we waited for the sun to go down and then we walked all around Queterato Centro to have a look at the city after sundown. It's a completely different place in the daytime as it is in the evening. A different energy and a different bustle. It's a wonderful city - I love it.
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| 2022-03-05: Museum Day | ||
| We had earmarked today to visit some museums. I chose three museums, but we only made it to two of them before I ran out of steam. I didn't get enough sleep last night. So, we had to save the Art Museum for another day. Hopefully we'll have time to visit it before we leave. Otherwise we'll have to leave it on the table for a future visit. I had searched museums in Queretaro hoping to find the best ones to visit. One of the blogs that I looked at most highly recommended the Calendar Museum. Huh. Who would have guessed. But we put it on the list and I'm glad we did - like the blog said, it's way better than you would think.\n It starts off with an overview of the solar system and the universe. Then, it talks about the various types of calendar systems in use: Lunar, Solar, and Lunisolar, and describes a bunch of different calendar systems and what types they are:\n
After the history lessons and tutorials, it goes on to display a huge collection of original art that went into making mass-produced calendars, and then a huge collection of samples of mass-produced calendars. It really was so interesting.\n The museum also includes windows into what's beneath the floor - interesting discoveries made while they were renovating the building to make the museum.
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| 2022-03-06: Plan B in Queretaro | ||
| Early in this trip I said we hadn't seen any mosquitoes, and we didn't for the first week or week and a half. After that we started getting a few, which was a mild annoyance but nothing too bad... until last night. The whole back of my left arm is completely covered in bites, and I have a few in other places as well. When I saw my arm, with multiple bites all in rows, my mind went to bedbugs and I made Brent get out of bed to check out my arm, and our bed with me. He says they're mosquito bites, and we had annoying mosquito sounds keep us awake for a good part of the night to prove it. Ugh. Maybe they've woken up with the warmer weather? Our temperature range when we got here was about 6-20, and now it's more like 15-30. We were going to go back to San Juan del Rio today to see Laura and her family. We were going to visit Tequisquiapan and then have a BBQ at her parents' house. This morning she messaged me to say that her daughter, Ines, was sick with a fever and cough, so we decided not to come. We'll leave Tequisquiapan, and family visits, \"on the table\" for a future visit. \n So, after some ruminating about what to do today, we decided to visit the large Querétaro cemetery (Panteón Municipal de Querétaro), and the art museum (Museo de Arte de Querétaro). As a bonus, we stumbled across the indigenous art museum (Museo Indígena Querétaro) and visited it too.
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| 2022-03-07: Lost Day | ||
| After having not slept well three nights in a row, today I was done. I worked almost a full day, Brent and I went for lunch, and then came back to La Encantada for a bit of roof sitting. I conked out at about 4PM and slept for 12 hours. | ||
| 2022-03-08: Centro Sur and Feminist March | ||
| I'm sad that it's our last day here. Working \"from home\" in Mexico has been absolutely wonderful. Queretaro is a wonderful city and we've thoroughly enjoyed everything about being here. Miracle of miracles - we got a message this morning from WestJet saying that we're confirmed on our flight from YVR to YEG. I guess we're actually going home. After my spectacular night's sleep last night, I felt much better than I have the last couple of days. I worked for a while, then we went for breakfast at my favorite square (outdoor seating), then I worked for a while, then we went walkabout in Centro Sur. Then, one last visit to Taco Tucson, where we had some awesome tacos and we both enjoyed a 1L cup of guayaba (guava) juice.\n After dinner we headed back to La Encantada to have a quiet beer on the roof, but the city had other plans. Apparently tonight was the night for a feminist march that came by right underneath our building, circled around El Tanque, and then returned from whence they came. We're a little disappointed that they vandalized El Tanque in the process.
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| 2022-03-09: Swab up the Snoot Day | ||
| Elissa had an easy experience with Chopo when she went home, so that's where Brent and I are heading for our \"swab up the snoot\" this morning. Elissa got a coupon after she had her test, so she's sent that to us. Be nice to get a few bucks off, but if it doesn't work... meh.\n Our flight leaves Mexico City at 9:05AM, and our Antigen test needs to be within 24-hours, so we hustled down for exactly 9:05 because I need to be at a meeting at 10AM. We got there and waited in line for a bit, then the lady told us they do the Antigen tests, but only after noon, so come back later.\n We went back after 1PM and got the swab treatment. It was easy. The hardest part was trying to function with our dismal Spanish. I am SO OVER Aero Mexico! When we came down we couldn't check in ahead of time because their stupid website didn't recognize/accept the first leg, which was with their \"partner\" (very dysfunctional relationship), WestJet.\n This morning, I sort of hoped it would work going the other direction... at least for the Aero Mexico legs, but nope. When I try to check in on their website, I jump through all the hoops then at the very end it just says \"oops an error has occurred please try again\". Grrrr. So, then I downloaded their app and tried to check in with that. Jump through some hoops, get to the page where you can indicate checked bags. There's a fee for that, so I fill out the payment info... three times... it won't proceed. So, I checked us in without a checked bag, and it let me do that but it only gave me boarding passes for MEX-YVR. Our first and third legs... no boarding passes. Checking in ahead/online is supposed to be a convenience. There is nothing convenient about this.
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| 2022-03-10: It’s all over now but the flyin’ | ||
| I’m so happy and grateful to have traveled again. We spent the last month in Querétaro, Mexico - our first time visiting the interior instead of the coast. Travel is my favorite thing to do and the lack of it has been what has been most depressing for me since the pandemic started. I hope to do lots more in the future! Got ‘made’ by the food sniffing dog in YVR. Smart li’l fella picked up on the empty grocery bag in my computer bag. When we checked in with AeroMexico they only checked us through to Vancouver. I expected this - I figured we'd have to check in for the WestJet flight when we got to Vancouver. Unsurprisingly, when we got there, the WestJet computer didn't recognize our passports, so we had to wait for a person. The person was very helpful and got everything straightened out relatively quickly, but dang... just a dysfunctional relationship between those two all around.\n Once we got the flight sorted out, we had just enough time to take off with Brent's brother, Doug, for a whirlwind visit (including Lisa and David again) and sushi. It was pretty rushed this time, but still nice to see them, and nice to eat some awesome Vancouver sushi. :)
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