Guachimontones

Here are the photos of the hotel I promised you yesterday:

Are you ready for this...?

It's BIGGER on the INSIDE!

The patio from our room

Also the patio

The bar

Chapter One
In Which We Are NOT Left Behind

As you read yesterday, our day at Guachimontones almost didn't happen. We were supposed to meet the tour car at 7:45, and we got our unexpected wake-up at nearly 8:00. The driver said he'd pick us up here in 10 minutes, so we broke a few speed laws getting dressed and out the door before the car arrived.

The other two tourists were a pair of German ladies. Hannah not only lives in Palm Beach, which is very much better than anywhere we might possibly live, but she provided us with an itinerary of every Hilton she and her sister Heidi (I'm not making that up) had stayed in between Belgium and Guadalajara. Of course that was after she berated us for wasting an hour and a half of her time. Since the car wasn't leaving until 8:00, we actually wasted about 19 minutes of her time, but I didn't want to get started with her. Heidi lives in Germany. She is a human being whose only great fault is being Hannah's sister.

Our first stop was in a tiny village up the road, where we stopped at a farm shed with three cows and half a dozen people sitting around with styrofoam cups, drinking and chatting amiably. In the morning, you can find a place like this along the side of the highway every mile or so. This is where you get your morning cup of pajarete. It goes like this:

On a little table are instant coffee, sugar, chocolate powder, vanilla extract, and sugar cane alcohol. Not rum, exactly, but rum's slightly rougher cousin who wears his Luckies rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve. You put in your ingredients to taste, take your 16-oz cup to a man with a cow, and he fills it up with milk from the source. The resultant beverage--foamy, sweet, warm, and pleasantly alcoholic--will make anyone's morning better. After drinking mine, I was even feeling slightly charitable toward Hannah, but it didn't last

Cowboy

Cowgirl

Chapter Two
In Which I Climb  a Pyramid

So after seeing an hour and a half worth of Mexican scenery, we arrived at Guachimontones. The civilization who lived here 3,000 years ago left several round step-pyramids, only one of which--along with some sites of homes and temples--has been excavated. Most structures are arranged in concentric circles. There are also two ball courts, as a ball game was the way to settle legal and social disputes.

The largest and tallest pyramid hasn't been excavated yet, so it's a big hill covered in trees and shrubs, with quite a rough and rocky and narrow path running up to the top. I climbed it with Hermán and also Hannah, who pissed me off yet again when on our way down she stood in the middle of the path and made a couple of dozen schoolchildren climb up the hill around her instead of stepping two feet out of her way. I think my pajarete must have been wearing off, and there were no cows in sight.

Pyramid--schoolchildren added for scale

This is not the wall I fell off and hurt my knee

But I did fall off a wall and hurt my knee. It's mostly okay now except for a colorful bruise about as big as my palm, and it dislikes stairs even more than it did 2 days ago, but yesterday it sported a goose egg the size of a baby head, and I consider its absence a decided improvement.

After leaving Guachimontones, Hermán took us to a place called Monte Carlo for a late lunch:

Chapter Three

In Which I Feel Superior to Hannah

After waiting five minutes for Hannah to perfect her custom order in English to a waiter she knew damned well didn't speak it and having it patiently translated by Hermán while she continued to modify and perfect it, I straight up ordered a Caesar salad. And damned if I didn't feel just a bit superior, even if I don't live in Palm Springs.

And then home, and later a walk down to the lake to have dinner at one of the lakeside restaurants. Oddly enough, it wasn't more expensive for being almost on the water.

And that was our day. Wish you were here. Possibly you do too.