Beautiful Town

Queretero, Queretero, MX
Feb 1, 2012

Had an uneventful day on way to Queretero (K ret taro, emphasis on ret).  We had a beautiful B and B in Queretero that was dog friendly.  The owners had decorated the B and B with antiques that were for sale.  They had an antique store at the front of the place.  It was all beautifully done with several patios outside all the rooms with gorgeous plants.  We highly recommend this B and B for all of you eager to visit Mexico :) !!!

We stayed there four nights so we could see the city.  There were cathedrals on almost every corner.  It is a thriving town with gorgeous plazas in the center of the city with beautiful landscaping and nice restaurants with seating outside facing flowers. 

We visited a winery, Freixenet of Mexico, and bought wine.  We got a private tour from a young woman because we missed the last tour and she felt badly for us since we had driven all the way from TX and would leave the next day.  We tried to pay her afterwards but she wouldn’t take any money.  How nice!

We enjoyed a museum, Museum of Art,  that was across the street from the B and B.  It was an old convent in the Baroque style, supposedly one of the most beautiful buildings in Latin America.  There was an exhibit by Mario Martin del Campo that we really enjoyed.  He used musical instruments to do 3-D displays with paper, steel, silver.  His mediums included puppets and puppet theaters.  Excellent.

We toured an old convent.  The tour guide was an old man, even older than us!  So he had a lot of information.  The rooms are painted and repaired but basically it was like it was in 16^th century.  Unfortunately F and Cloud got tangled at one point and F fell and hit his head on concrete.  Luckily his hard head only got a small goose egg. 

The town also has aqueducts that go for miles built in the  1700’s.  They are several hundred feet tall and go all across the city.  We went up a mountain to be able to see the extent of the aqueducts.  At night they are lit up and are beautiful.

Fun events:  I met three 15 year old girls eager to talk to an Anglo.  They were darling.  Actually, I asked them a question, repeated their answer and they giggled.  I acted like they were rude and they caught the joke and laughed more.  We had a nice conversation and visited while F went shopping for a coat (it was colder than TX and we did not come prepared).  We could communicate some but they were really fun.  They were fascinated by Cloud.

The next night we went to a restaurant on the plaza near where I met the girls.  The maitre’d  said, “Oh, you are the people from Austin!”  We were astonished.  He said he heard me visiting with the girls and heard me tell them I was from Austin.

While we were eating several people came up to us to ask about Cloud and pet him.  Three little boys under 8 were especially fascinated.  They asked Cloud’s name and we told them Nube (new bay).  Their parents thanked us for letting the boys pet Nube.  After we finished dinner and were walking home, we heard “Adios, Nube, Adios, Nube.” The 3 boys were hanging out of their car shouting and waving to Cloud as they drove by.  Fun!

On our way out of town we visited a pyramid built between 900 to 1200 AD and took a tour.  Fascinating.  The tour was in Spanish, of course, but F could get the jist of it.  There was a deserted house on top of the pyramid.  Some Spanish family had built it to show their domination over the indigenous people.  We really were glad we took the time to stop.

Because we stopped to see the pyramid, we were late getting into Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa.  We were on a toll way (only two lanes, though).   Drivers on toll ways (quotas) are crazy.  They pass whenever they feel like it, regardless of yellow lines, traffic coming toward them, two lane roads, etc.  Amazing there aren’t more wrecks.