Day 4 - Trip to San Miguel
We decided to move away from our semi-comfort zone of Mexico City and take on a piece of real inner Mexico and head to a town called San Miguel. It's a bit over 3 hours north west of Mexico City so we travelled by bus. This resulted in 2 clearly opposing experiences. First experience was the bus. It was basically like travelling first class with spacious, recliner seats, your own TV and wireless internet. The trip was luxurious. The opposing experience was the travel through 3rd class Mexico where the houses were shanty's and most of them half complete or falling apart. It really was an eye opening experience. There are photo's below of some of the sites.
Arriving in San Miguel we had our first challenge as the bus stop was approximately 5 km from the town centre which was where our Hotel was located and we had to work out how to get there. Fortunately (or what I thought anyway) there was an information desk so I thought I would start there. I started politely with Bienos Dias (Good morning) with a warm reply of Hola (hello); good start I am thinking. Then, I respond with no hablo espanyol (I do not speak Spanish), habla eenglis? (do you speak English). The response was "No". Uh oh.... So, here we were 5km from the hotel and a communication breakdown. Only thing I could think of was to show her a picture of the hotel and she responded with: Taxi. So next cultural experience, a Mexican Taxi. We loaded the bags into the boot and then hopped into the taxi. I proceeded to attempt to put on my seatbelt however I could not find the clasp when the humorous taxi driver responded with: "It is illegal in Mexico to wear a seatbelt" . So there we are, in a Spanish speaking small Mexican town travelling in a Taxi to the city centre. As it turned out, due to all the streets being cobblestones and as at each intersection it was first in, first served in relation to giving way, we did not hit over 30km/h so all was very safe.
The photo above is from the courtyard of the hotel we stayed in looking up to our room. It was a quaint, little hotel with only 20 rooms. Ours had 2 double beds and a bathroom. Extremely cosy and very liveable. We loved San Miguel, all the locals were friendly and patient (they had to be with our lack of Spanish) and the cobbled streets were filled with stores of all kinds (clothes, shoes, tourist merchandise etc) and restaurants with delicious smells of authentic Mexican food. We spent all afternoon exploring and taking in all the cultural aspects of what this town had to offer.
After dinner, we noticed a lot of commotion taking place in and around the main plaza and predominately in front of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel (the main cathedral/church in San Miguel). Given the events that then took place, I have created a separate page to explain and display.
The photo's below are of both the trip to San Miguel and some of the sights.
Arriving in San Miguel we had our first challenge as the bus stop was approximately 5 km from the town centre which was where our Hotel was located and we had to work out how to get there. Fortunately (or what I thought anyway) there was an information desk so I thought I would start there. I started politely with Bienos Dias (Good morning) with a warm reply of Hola (hello); good start I am thinking. Then, I respond with no hablo espanyol (I do not speak Spanish), habla eenglis? (do you speak English). The response was "No". Uh oh.... So, here we were 5km from the hotel and a communication breakdown. Only thing I could think of was to show her a picture of the hotel and she responded with: Taxi. So next cultural experience, a Mexican Taxi. We loaded the bags into the boot and then hopped into the taxi. I proceeded to attempt to put on my seatbelt however I could not find the clasp when the humorous taxi driver responded with: "It is illegal in Mexico to wear a seatbelt" . So there we are, in a Spanish speaking small Mexican town travelling in a Taxi to the city centre. As it turned out, due to all the streets being cobblestones and as at each intersection it was first in, first served in relation to giving way, we did not hit over 30km/h so all was very safe.
The photo above is from the courtyard of the hotel we stayed in looking up to our room. It was a quaint, little hotel with only 20 rooms. Ours had 2 double beds and a bathroom. Extremely cosy and very liveable. We loved San Miguel, all the locals were friendly and patient (they had to be with our lack of Spanish) and the cobbled streets were filled with stores of all kinds (clothes, shoes, tourist merchandise etc) and restaurants with delicious smells of authentic Mexican food. We spent all afternoon exploring and taking in all the cultural aspects of what this town had to offer.
After dinner, we noticed a lot of commotion taking place in and around the main plaza and predominately in front of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel (the main cathedral/church in San Miguel). Given the events that then took place, I have created a separate page to explain and display.
The photo's below are of both the trip to San Miguel and some of the sights.
