Pátzcuaro

Our drive from the failed hot spring experience was across a fertile agricultural plain south of San Luis Potosí from San Miguel de Allende towards Morelia the capital of Michoacán State, one of our favorite areas.

Squirt is a great van dog even though he needs training obviously. He travels with no problems curled up on his blanket behind our seats with no complaints. When we stop he sits in our seats and grumpy Rusty retires to his bed on our bed which is too high for Squirt to jump up so he has a refuge. 

The countryside was hot though GANNET2 recorded highs bear 85 degrees only.

A lot of the high plains were less fertile and reminded me of the desert southwest with mesquite bushes and dust everywhere. 

I can’t say it was attractive and I’m not sure I want to see it again particularly but I enjoy driving and these backroads have very little traffic. But lots of potholes. 

The stops to stretch our legs seemed to please the boys. I got thorns in my Crocs but they were fine. 

Layne buying fruit while Squirt tries to cross the main road. I am so used to Rusty’s traffic sense I struggle to remember he has no sense at all. How he survived on the streets is a mystery. 

Rusty seeking some solitude. One night he ran off into the darkness and freaked me out. He was just letting me know he was sick of sharing his slave with another dog. This phase of our journey is filled with stress for all of us.

Might as well be Florida…or more likely Arizona! 

Except there were some bits with odd topography. The road surface wasn’t too bad with not many potholes. Of course there were stretches where road maintenance was all patchwork and GANNET2 rattled like the surface was washboard.  

We passed the heroic larger than life representation of Miguel Hidalgo considered to be the first rebel in Mexicos fight in 1810 to throw out Spain. He was born in Guanajuato in  1753 and studied theology and philosophy in Morelia. He became a parish priest in the city of Dolores in 1803, a city known today as Dolores Hidalgo where started several businesses and learned Indian languages not a common thing in those days. 

On September 16th 1810 Hidalgo gathered the citizens in front of the church in Dolores and proclaimed the Cry of Dolores ( “El Grito de Dolores”) “Long Live America! Death to the Goverment! Death to the Gachupines (Spaniards)!” And so began the Mexican Revolution. He was caught in 1811, defrocked and executed. You may celebrate Cinco de Mayo when Mexico defeated France in 1862 at Puebla but for Mexicans the Grito de Dolores on the 16th of September is the big day in the calendar. 

All very well of course but we were driving to Pátzcuaro and night was falling. With perfect timing we found ourselves on the freeway driving past the miserable city of Celaya currently under martial law with the Army and National Guard trying to suppress a more vicious than usual cartel war.

I’m not scared of driving around Mexico but I’m not stupid either. We’d seen the columns of troops and police driving there two days prior and had no illusions. This was real. 

We were looking for a truck stop to spend the night but we weren’t stopping anywhere near Celaya by mutual agreement. 

Apparently the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel resents the Rosa da Lima cartel trying to muscle into Celaya and there have been a few massacres in the city lately. They aren’t interested in foreigners passing by but their aim isn’t always that great but their firepower is,  and getting shot in the crossfire is a distinct possibility. We raced the setting sun. 

Obviously we were fine and saw nothing untoward but we breathed easier once we were out in the fields driving the freeway through the countryside. There wasn’t a gas station to be seen for miles as we drove toward Irapuato from Celaya so when finally a small Shell station appeared we pulled over, not for gas but for the cement apron where a couple of trucks had stopped. We joined them. 

My former colleague Keith texted me as I walked the barren field with the dogs and I greatly enjoyed exchanging messages from afar discussing our former lives together, work and Key West. A small connection across a vast world. 

The freeway to Morelia and then Pátzcuaro was an easy drive. Layne tried to contact several boarding organizations in San Miguel de Allende as we drove. It was her brilliant idea to see if we could board Squirt in his future home town until Andrea his new mom could pick him up on Friday.  

We nearly pulled it off but in that very gringo town the only owner had had any room wouldn’t take him because he hasn’t been vaccinated for kennel cough. Huh? In Mexico? Just our continuing streak of bad luck. We are stuck with him till Friday. 

Above you see the sign warning you there is a toll booth coming and to prepare your cash. But they don’t actually show how much that is! Mexico the inexplicable… but there is an electronic sign right at the booth revealing the various amounts as you fumble at the last minute with  your coins and bills. Some brave souls use electronic passes but I’m not sure they are quite reliable just yet. 

Lots of magic third lane in action on the two lane highway. Slow vehicles ride the shoulder and when you want to pass you run down the middle. No problem, no road rage. 

It can get s bit hairy when some people get over enthusiastic but I just hang back and hope for the best. We did nearly get squashed once when a truck driver apparently distracted slammed on his brakes and started fish tailing with clouds of burnt rubber just as I was passing (in s straight stretch). He missed the truck in front by a long way but nearly wiped us out. 

We passed s bad accident too with an 18 wheeler crushing a sedan and knocking a pick up truck into the median.

The pick up was carrying avocados which made a mess but worse than that the sedan driver was whisked off in an ambulance. One oddity at these scenes is you almost always have an insurance company vehicle parked among the police rescue and  tow truck crews. 

Trash clean up. Freeways are operated by private companies in Mexico and your toll fee buys you emergency services if you break down and need a tow truck. Pretty slick actually though I’m glad we’ve not had to used them yet. There are also far fewer speed bumps on toll roads six often not too many pit holes. 

I felt confident driving 60 mph on this smooth highway. Here below I’m on the shoulder and the VW pick up is in the magic third lane as a car cones toward him. 

We arrived in good order and decided to spend the week in Pátzcuaro with the dogs until we can drive back to San Miguel Allende (bypassing the cartels of Celaya again) to drop off Squirt. Then we will drive north to finally fix Layne’s teeth in Los Algodones before we return to the States for a brief summer tour. Something like this over ten days:

Grutas Tolantongo

Don’t ever let anyone tell you two dogs are no more trouble than one dog because that’s just not true especially if one dog is Rusty. We’ve lived with two dogs and we sailed with them through Central America from San Francisco 25 years ago and that wasn’t easy. 

Now we have two dogs for one more week and the prospect is causing us to wake up with panic attacks. “Tule” has become Squirt for his new owner and he is as cute as ever. 

But Andrea can’t take possession of him until next Friday air we are stuck with two dogs for another week and the stress is killing us. Rusty is grumpy as hell and he is letting me know. 

I wish I could explain to him we have but one more week of the undisciplined high energy teenager in our midst but he keeps looking at me as though to ask why I am torturing him.

Squirt is a sweet dog, all 13 pounds of him and he is a quick study considering he was a street dog nine days ago, he’s even learning to walk on a leash more or less, but his curiosity and lack of street sense gives me palpitations. He happily runs into traffic and he broke the harness we bought him last week to try to control him. He needs training and lots of attention and routines that don’t vary. All things his new owner will shower on him at her home in San Miguel de Allende. Meanwhile we are awaiting impatiently for the hand over next Friday. Watching Rusty suffer is no fun at all. Cleaning up small accidents reminds me why I don’t want excitable puppies in my life. 

Frankly we’ve been having a tough time of it. When Andrea wanted Squirt we were delighted and when she wanted to postpone pick up for ten days we were philosophical about the delay but it hasn’t been easy especially watching her dog Sassy get along so well with the dog she calls Squirt. 

We figured we’d take the ten days and enjoy a circular tour of mountain towns we’ve long wanted to visit, San Luis Potosí, Queretaro, and Guanajuato for a start. 

First though we figured we follow some friends who told us of an excellent wild camp near some spectacular pools which they enjoyed with their dog. Lauren posted a video on Instagram of their dogs enjoying a private section of riverfront. Perfect for Squirt and Rusty! 

And the main attraction are famous for their beauty too, the Grutas Tolantongo hot springs. 180 pesos ($10) each to enter and 30 pesos ($2) to park inside. Deal! 

The reason I’m not posting my own pictures are because we got the security guard at the gate who said no dogs allowed anywhere in the park. 

Indeed there was that green sign on the road in which we thought no dogs at the famous pools. Lauren got her two in didn’t she? Well Mexico is the land of the random inexplicable and we fell victim to his mood of the day. It was 90 degrees in the canyon and we faced the sand long drive out we had just taken to get in. 

The pools are in the middle of nowhere and the last few miles are a series of well paved zig zags deep into the blazing hot canyon. 

At first I figured the zigs and zags would be uphill but we down deep.

“Barbacoa” in Mexico doesn’t mean barbecue as you know it. In fact it’s a stew usually of mutton or beef and around here it’s popular. We weren’t in the mood especially in a restaurant cantilevered over the void relying on Mexican building codes to support it. 

With our luck it would collapse during lunch. Our state of mind was bleak as you may surmise. 

“Borrego” means sheep. Or mutton in this case. 

The views driving in and out of the canyon were spectacular however Layne wasn’t in the mood for scenery over a vast drop off. She stayed glued to her seat and let me take the pictures. 

There were turns out and rash cabs and water tanks if your radiator needed a refill. It was very civilized. Except there was no phone signal. 

So we shipped out Starlink, as you do and planned our route out. 

We Google mapped a route to San Luis Potosí a city with several tourist attractions and also guaranteeing a cool mountain climate and off we drove.

Crappy roads and all back to civilization. When we got a phone signal Layne found A campground close to San Luis Potosí attached to a hotel. It sounded promising. Then of course, because this is our luck at the moment the owner of the hotel lost his head when Layne called ahead. The price doubled from that posted online for RVs to $60 a night (!!) we could only use the pool in the morning (?) and dogs had to stay in the van and couldn’t be let out. Thank you very much we declined politely. He sent us a WhatsApp message saying $40 a night and the pool all day but no dogs as though ours had suddenly de- materialized. 

We stopped roadside for lunch not expecting much but what a lovely surprise! “Gorditas” freshly hand made… Gordita literally means “small fat thing” and they were. And delicious too: 

It’s a thick corn tortilla griddled and expertly slit like a pita and then filled with one of her seven different fillings. A buck twenty five each.  Potato and chorizo: 

We hung out and chatted for a while and tasted her tart chili verde with chicken, equally good and we told them of retirement and travel, no children or house to go back to, just us and the dog (Squirt was in the van owing to the proximity of the main road where he had nearly got run down once already). 

The cook on the left laughed in embarrassment when I said I’d like to marry her and sit and read the paper and eat a Gordita every hour she was open, a different flavor each time. Her daughter who runs the store thought it was a great idea but their neighbor on the right said being retired and doing what you want is the best. She’s been retired for four years and knows of which she speaks. 

Well at least lunch was a hit. We had no idea how to spend the next week with Squirt and Rusty but we had to figure something out. With Squirt barely house trained a hotel was out of the question. We fell back on the tried and true, a campground we can liked hang a day away in the city of Pátzcuaro, the serene garden shown at the top of this post. We changed direction. Our luck had to change.