Puerto Ángel

Mexico, Travel,

Mar 1 – This morning we bid adios to Huatulco, and took the bus to Puerto Ángel. Unlike Huatulco, cruise ships don’t stop here, and Jim remembered it fondly as “real Mexico” when he traveled here in his youth.

It was a one hour ride on a big air conditioned bus, which in my little mind went right along the coast, so I wasn’t prepared for the rocking, rolling mountainous route we took. Whee! Who needs roller coasters when you can ride buses in Mexico?

The chatty taxi driver who took us from the bus station to our hotel asked if we knew about the earthquake that Oaxaca had experienced last week. He wondered if we had heard about it in Virginia, and we told him that we had. He said the houses shook “like paper” and it was very scary, but no damage.

When we got to our “hotel”, La Casita de Marlen, I got a bad feeling. Although it had gotten some high reviews on Booking.com, we stood out in a courtyard while the lady told us that the apartment with kitchen we had booked was not available, and instead she offered us a sad, bare room with a flimsy metal screen door, one lightbulb, no air con, no warm water, two sad flat pillows… Whoops, I just used the word “sad” twice in the same sentence. This was a sad place. We walked down a steep hill to check out the beach, past shacks and shanties, with people cooking out in the yard, and places that appeared to have no electricity. Poor and sad.

Although the beach was beautiful, we had to walk back up the steep hill to arrive, breathless and sweaty, to our poor, sad room.

Jim got back on Booking.com and was able to cancel our reservation without penalty. As “real” as it was, I just couldn’t picture us spending a week there.

So now we are on the other side of the same cove, in a happier hotel, La Cabaña. (Look at the guy photobombing Jim! He was very pleased that he got in our picture.)

Air con! Hot water! A pool!

Just across the street from the beach!

The walkway to our room!

Now we are in a happy place, with lots of fluffy pillows, although we won’t have a kitchen or fridge here.

Don’t expect much news this week – we’ll be swimming and sunning!

Another Day in Huatulco

Mexico, Travel, ,

Feb 28 – We got up early today, so we could walk into the Huatulco National Forest before the sun got too high in the sky. The official entrance to the park is miles away, where cruise ships stop to let people experience the beach. We are not near that entrance, nor do we want to get anywhere near the cruisers, so we will be satisfied with a morning walk.

This is the dry season, and the road was arid and dusty.

I’m sure this culvert will have water in it after the spring rains.

There sure are a lot of noisy birds here. We are not birders, so I can’t tell you the names of the birds we saw, but they are unlike any we’ve seen at home.

We’ve settled into a lazy pattern here: a Jim-cooked omelet and coffee for breakfast on the veranda, a morning walk, a Jim-cooked lunch in the shade, an afternoon swim, then supper down on the beach. Seafood prices here are very reasonable. Folks get a table, order food, take a dip in the water and let their children play, then get out to eat. The evening temperature is ideal, though if you are not alert, scavenger birds swoop right down and help themselves to your food!

A full moon, a warm breeze, native music and a margarita- what could be better?

Bahía de Santa Cruz, Huatulco

Mexico, Travel,

Feb 27 – So here we are, in a sleepy little town right on the Pacific Ocean, at the edge of Huatulco National Park. We are staying at the Hotel Casa Blanca del Sol, in a big round room with thick plastered walls near a crystal blue pool. Serene. They have a kitchen that guests can use, which makes Jim very happy. Air con? Si! Hot water? Not so much, but it turns out that when you are hot, hot, hot, a cool shower is kind of nice!

A short walk to the waterfront, and we are inundated with offers to go out on fishing boats and eat in seafood restaurants. The restaurants have hundreds of tables, an indication that cruise ships stop here. But there is no ship today, so everyone is competing for our pesos!

The cove is very pretty.

The chapel is outdoors too:

I don’t have an exciting story to tell today, so I will share some of the tropical flora we saw on our morning walk. Lots of reds:

Lantana and a mariposa:

Poinsettias in their natural habitat:

They have Guns and Beers here.

Maybe they have dinosaurs too?

Tell Emma we saw an elephant!

More from Mexico City

Mexico, Travel, , ,

Feb 25 – We left the Basilica and picked out a place to eat lunch from a row of sidewalk shops. Here the meal included noodle soup, a plate of warm tortilla, a plate of red rice, beans and a choice of chicken or pork. We ordered one of each, and I got the chicken, which was covered in molé sauce. Let’s just say that molé is an acquired taste that I have not yet acquired. Its basis is cocoa; it is dark brown, bitter, and smells like paint thinner. After a few bites, Jim noticed my distress and switched plates. The pork, in red sauce, was spicy, tender and delicious! I know I have to keep trying with the molé, as it is very popular in southern Mexico. Wish me luck!

The Metro let us off at a huge park, where lots of folks were enjoying a warm Sunday afternoon. The fountains were repurposed a wading pools for kids and teens.

On the other side of the part was the Palacio de Belles Artes, with it’s beautiful multi-colored dome shimmering in the sun. As a Sunday bonus, admission to the museum was free!

There rooms full of pots and bones and museum-y stuff, but the big attraction was the top floor, which was covered with murals by Diego Rivera and other famous artists.

I laughed to watch a mom photographing her young daughter beside a huge boob – sorry I didn’t catch that pic!

Feb 26 – Want to know what Rosario served for breakfast this morning? Chilaquiles, which is a corn tortilla covered with tomato sauce, sour cream and a little cheese, a traditional Mexican breakfast. For all the cheese we are subjected to in US Mexican restaurants, this is the first cheese we’ve seen here. Muy delicioso!

It is Monday and most things are closed, so we walked over to the Metropolitan Cathedral, which is the largest cathedral in the Americas. It has 16 side chapels which were gated and dark, and two main altars.

The statue called the Poison Jesus resides here. Do you know this story? Once there were two rich men. The first was generous and devout, going to mass every day, humbly kissing the foot of Jesus and depositing a gold coin in the alms box. The second rich man was jealous of the first. He had a cake laced with slow acting poison delivered to the generous man in the name of a grateful townsperson. The generous man ate a big slice with his morning cocoa, then walked to mass. The jealous man followed him to see when the poison would take effect. After mass, the generous man bent to kiss the foot of Jesus, and the statue turned black from foot to crown. The jealous man understood that Jesus had taken the poison from the man’s body, and he confessed and begged forgiveness, which the generous man immediately granted.

That is where the story should end, but here’s the postscript. A few years after this miracle, one of the altar candles fell over and set the altar ablaze, incinerating the statue. As the statue was a popular place to pray and request healing, the Church had a replacement statue made, of course already black…

In the afternoon we made our way back to the bus stop and returned to the Aeropuerto to catch our flight to Huatulco (Wa-TOOL-co). One hour later, we disembarked in a place as different from Mexico City as a place can be. Yes, this is the Huatulco Airport.

Let the relaxation begin!

Sunday with Our Lady of Guadalupe

Mexico, Travel, , ,

Feb 25 – After another scrumptious breakfast (with spicy scrambled eggs and papaya juice), we set out to conquer the Metro. We walked to the station, which was so surrounded by sidewalk vendors that the entrance was hard to see! We charged our card with the proper fare (easy peasy) and stepped inside to study the big map of the M3 line. A young woman immediately came over and asked if we needed help – Nice Person of Mexico! She confirmed that we were headed in the right direction, and let me know that if I was traveling alone, the Metro provides Ladies Only cars for females and kids under 12 to try to mitigate sexual harassment on the trains. Found out via Google that many countries provide this service. Sad that it is needed…

The train was crowded, but not like in Japan where they have to push you in to get the doors closed! In a blink we were at our stop, and walked upstairs into another plethora of sidewalk stalls selling food, clothing, shoes, bags and religious trinkets. We could see the Basilica straight ahead.

As we crossed the street, a parade with flags and a brass band marched by! I wonder how often this happens?

In our travels, we have visited other sites of Marian visions: Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the #1 most visited Christian pilgrimage site in the world, hosting over 20 million people each year. Here’s the story in case you are not familiar.

In 1531, a poor Aztec peasant named Juan Diego was visited by a Lady who instructed him to have a church built on the place where he stood.

He told the local Spanish bishop, who did not believe him. He reported this back to the Lady, who told him to go ask again. This time the bishop told him not to return unless he could bring back miraculous proof. When he told this to the Lady, she sent him up the hill to gather Spanish Castilian roses, which were not native to Mexico and definitely would not be blooming in December. He gathered the flowers in his cloak, and when he opened his cloak in front of the bishop, the Lady’s image was miraculously imprinted on the cloak.

The image of the Lady with dark skin and black hair, wearing an Aztec gown and black maternity belt and speaking the local Aztec language really wowed the natives, and millions converted to Catholicism in the next decade. The cloak, made of rough hemp, has not degraded despite being handled for 500 years.

We took a moving walkway past the cloak, which is mounted high up on the wall of the new sanctuary, where mass is said 24 hours a day.

The new sanctuary is huge, and was totally packed with worshipers kneeling and singing.

In the museum, there were lots of other images of the Lady.

We walked up the hill to the old sanctuary, where natives were chanting and dancing.

The old church was small and crowded with people just walking through.

We saw the exact spot where Juan saw the Lady. We

Unlike other Marian pilgrimage sites that welcome visitors from all over, all the signage and the masses here are in Spanish. With the exception of one Korean group, we saw few foreigners. We did see many babies and young children dressed in white, brought here to be baptized.

The walk down the hill.

The Words of the Lady inscribed above the door, “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”

Saturday in Mexico City

Mexico, Travel, ,

Feb 24 – Our hostess, Rosario, fed us a five star breakfast, with warm fresh brown bread, cucumber juice (yummy), fresh yogurt, pancakes with warm raspberry jam, sliced banana and a huge mug of strong coffee. Fuel for the day!

Walking out in the morning, we encountered many poor men sleeping barefoot on the street, and beggars grinding street organs for spare change. No upscale buskers here. Our first excursion was to the National Palace, a magnificent structure longer than a city block that includes a cultural museum.

The Fountain of Pegasus.

Here, the artist Diego Rivera painted huge murals all around the second story, back in the 1920s. He hoped the Mexicans would unite as Communists to make their lives better.

The Spaniards branding slaves.

Not sure what the turquoise feathered guy is doing with that arm…

I listened to an English tour guide describing this one to his group. Karl Marx is at the top, like God. The pipes are filled with the blood of the Mexican workers, which turn into money for the government at the bottom. The priest kissing the prostitute on the left represents the corruption of the Church, which should be helping the people, and likens the Church to the Nazis by showing the line of crosses with a swastika included on the right.

Below, the good Communists, including Rivera’s girlfriend Frida Kahlo (with the eyebrows), are taking charge and teaching the poor children to read. Thank you, tour guide. He was the only we one we encountered today who was not guiding in Spanish.

I liked these little sculptures, and the two big ones flanking Jim.

In the afternoon, we walked through several markets, which underscored just how poor this country is. We saw lots of energetic selling, but very few were buying. A peso is worth about five cents, or 20 to the dollar. We wandered into an area where small animals, birds, puppies, hens and goats were packed together cruelly, and a man, seeing our cameras, shouted at us to leave. We left.

We are only spending a few days in the city before flying south to the beach. We have mastered the bus system, and tomorrow we will take the subway (Metro). The other travelers we met at breakfast said we are brave to try the Metro. I’ll report tomorrow!

Down Mexico Way

Mexico, Travel, ,

Feb 23, 2018 – Jim wanted to take a break from winter and warm our bones in someplace sunny. We had tried a short cruise to the Bahamas in December, and discovered that cruises were just not our cup of tea. So this morning we got on the big iron bird, and by lunchtime we were in Mexico City!

Our plan was to take a city bus from the airport to the city center, guided by our trusty phone GPS. As we exited the airport, I was dismayed to discover that the phone would not connect, no matter what I tried (yes, of course I tried turning it off then back on!). We pestered the bus driver to tell us when we reached our stop, as the stops were not announced or posted. Very nerve wracking! We got off at the right stop, and Jim found our B&B by some miracle, as there was no sign at all, upstairs in a office building. Once we got WiFi, I spent an hour troubleshooting the phone with the guy from T Mobile, doing everything including a factory reset, but no luck. Finally, I did what I should have done first, and texted Peter. He solved the problem in two minutes! Now we will be able to find our way around this big city.

Our very nice B&B Chillout Flat is in the Centro Historico, very near to the Metropolitan Cathedral.

The cathedral was built by the Spaniards by taking the bricks from the ancient Aztec Templo Mayor, leaving the temple in ruins.

Next to the ruins, several groups of natives drummed, played, chanted and danced.

Our B&B hostess recommended several tourist restaurants nearby for dinner, but Jim had a more authentic experience in mind. We ate chicken with spicy salsa verde, green beans, soup, rice and tortillas at a second floor walk up family restaurant, where we were the only foreigners in the place. A good first day!

Oviedo to Madrid to Chicago to Norfolk VA

Backpacking, Flashpacking, Hiking, Spain, Travel, , ,

July 2 – Had to get up early this morning to catch our train.  Our hotel graciously set out our breakfast buffet a half hour early, so we wouldn’t have to travel without our daily caffeine and jamon allotment.  We booked our train ticket to Madrid about five days ago, and were surprised to find all the second class tickets sold out, so we are riding first class in reserved seats.  This turns out to be the same as a second class seat, except you are offered a free Spanish newspaper and charged twice the price!  Four hours of high speed rail later, we are in Madrid.

To simplify our lives, Jim booked us in at a very nice hotel right at the train station, so we can easily catch the train to the airport in the morning.  We did a final day’s worth of laundry, watched some strange but English language tv, and repacked our packs to go on the airplane, stowing our hiking sticks and everything that was in the outer pockets.  We had purchased some fragile souvenirs, which I will hand carry, rather than entrust to the baggage handlers.  We are ready to go home.

July 3 – Walked back to the train station, and waited on a 20 minute line to purchase a ticket for the 10 minute ride to the airport.  The very nice man at check in informed us that he could only see one flight for us in his computer, from Madrid to Chicago, and that we would have to go to American Airlines in Chicago to print our second boarding pass for our flight to Norfolk.  Oh well.  Air travel!

We were amazed and amused to encounter a singing trans stewardess belting out “I’ve Gotta Be Me” in a husky baritone in the duty-free shop.  We slugged the free Jagermeister shot offered, and applauded enthusiastically.

Then we were up and away for our nine hour flight back to the USA.  Adios, Spain, we’ll miss you!

After getting through Customs and retrieving our bags, we tried to collect our boarding passes for Norfolk.  The not-a-people-person service rep informed us, quite harshly, that we had no reservation, and weren’t going anywhere.  Jim produced the paper booking confirmation he had been toting around for three months, and she told us that American no longer had that flight, and so had canceled our reservation.  Hadn’t they informed us?  Well no, they hadn’t, but as they also hadn’t refunded our fares, I thought we were in a pretty good position to insist that it was incumbent on American Airlines to get us home.  Seeing that we weren’t going to go away, the rep eventually relented and put us on the next flight.  Peter came and picked us up, and we were home by 11pm eastern, which was 5am the next day as far as our bodies were concerned.  A little sleep is all we need.  Until next time!

More Oviedo

Flashpacking, Hiking, Spain, Travel, ,

June 30 – What a wonderful city!  We were encouraged to try the unique Asturian cuisine, so we headed to the street of tourist restaurants.  Here we dined on cream of seafood soup, Asturian beans, fried veal and chicken filets stuffed with ham and cheese (like a cordon bleu except with red sauce), and Asturian hard cider.  Very good, but that much food almost killed us.  I guess our bodies are remembering that we are no longer hiking.

We visited the Museo Bella Artes, displaying paintings of many renowned Spanish artists.  There was a room filled with El Greco that contained his renditions of the twelve Apostles.  I hate to tell you this, but he used the same model for many of them.  In some they were even wearing the same outfit!  I guess he never considered that someday they would all be displayed side by side…

Lots of Mary Magdalenes here:

This little angel, up in the corner, had more detail than the rest of the whole painting.  Look at those dimples!

Can you tell these are by the same artist?


I liked the clouds in this one:

There is a Picasso here:

And a Salvatore Dali:

Lexi and Emma – your art could hang in a museum someday!

We walked through the Parque de San Francisco.  Cool and green.  You’ll notice it is still jacket weather here – in the 50s this morning.  I could get used to this kind of summer weather!

The native dancers and pipers entertained us in the square, and buskers filled the streets with music.


One more church before we go, the Iglesia Juan Baptiste:

I kind of like the scruffy look of these apostles, don’t you?

Inside there was a columbarium with some unusual art:


Woody Allen, you are right – we love Oviedo!

Gijón to Oviedo

Flashpacking, Hiking, Spain, Travel, , , , ,

June 29 – Today’s journey is just 30 minutes south by bus to Woody Allen’s favorite Spanish city, Oviedo.  This Asturias city is also part of the Camino del Norte (Camino de la Costa) and the Camino Primativo, and will be our last stop before returning to Madrid for our flight home.  

We arrived at the bus station at 10:45, and bought tickets for the 10:45 bus.  Two minutes later, we were on our way!

Our hotel is in the Old City.  The buildings are beautiful.

There are lots of statues on the street:

There is a statue of Woody Allen here, as he declared Oviedo his favorite city when he was here filming Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I guess has a nicer ring than Vicky Cristina Oviedo.

We visited the Archeological Museum, housed in an old monestery.

This is St Anne, holding Mary, holding Jesus:

How nice to die with a dog at your feet!

Even nicer with a dog and trusty servant at your feet!

Jim tried a sample of the local cheese – very nice!

We visited the Catedral de San Salvador de Oviedo, one of the most preeminent cathedrals in Spain.  They say, “Who goes to Santiago but not to Salvador, visits the servant but not the Lord.”

The main altar tells the life of Jesus in pictorial form, for those in centuries past who could not read.

Riding into Jerusalem:



The assumption of Mary.  The scene to the left shows the wedding at Cana.  Although the story says there were six jars of water turned into wine, the retablo only shows five because…

One of the jars is here at the cathedral!

The cathedral also houses the companion piece to the Shroud of Turin; the cloth that was wrapped around Jesus’ head when he was laid in the tomb.  This is a picture of the cloth, as the actual cloth is stored to prevent deterioration and only brought out three times a year.  Analysis of the cloth indicates that Jesus’ blood type was AB.  The room is called the Camera Santa, and also houses relics of many saints and the Virgin Mary. Don’t ask how you get relics from someone who was assumed into heaven – it’s a mystery.

The Apostles surround the relics.  St James with his shell and walking stick is shown with St John:

St Thomas has eyes of blue sapphire, for those who believe but have not seen.

Santa Eulalia of Mérida is entombed here.

To be continued…