Jun 29 2006

i only stayed one night at hotel siesta cross the road from the bus station, since i could not figure out which bus to take to going to downtown and nobody spoken ingles there.
it was p200/night for a single room, it was ok, you can take bus 9 for downtown, takes 10 minutes. i did not pesos at that point and someone even paid for me coz the driver would not take my dollar bill.

the cathedral was beautiful, and there was this salvador guy, who always sits around in the church trying to get people for his guided tour and ask for some donations for his 62 kids.... he took me up to the top of the bell tower, the scenery was beautiful, i really enjoyed the zocalo view. but then he started asking for donation, so i told him i am only a student and gave him a few dollars and i left. later he saw me in the zocalo hanging around, so he asked me to sit at the cafe with him, he was tutoring two other mexican girls english. what made me very uncomfortable is that i saw him gave the waitress the dollars i just gave him for his coffee! i mean come on, you said you are gonna make money for the 62 kids already! now you are spending the money for your own damn coffee! i did not like him too much. maybe somebody took his tours before, i don´t know.

i left the next morning for real de catorce.

Jun 30 2006

i really like this place. i was not sure if i wanted to go there since there is no direct bus going from saltillo to real, but finally i made up my mind and bought my ticket the next morning.

you need a transfer at matehuala, i did not stop there but the bus passed through town and it seems to be quiet and nice, not that colonial though, just mexican, a lot of bright color resident houses and a nice little plaza.
then the bus going to real is a common bus, not luxury any more, and filled with locals, they were pretty nice but i just could not talk to them! too bad.

the tunnel to enter real is pretty cool, very long too. it is like a surprise suddenly you see real right in front of you after a few minutes in the dark. i am still thinking about how those drives figure out this one way tunnel for both way traffics.

there was this local, who seemed pretty honest, with red tan face, telling me ¨"hotel" something, so i followed him. the altitude is pretty high so i had to walk slow. he took me to real de alamos, on constitution st, i definitely recommend this place! for p100/n, you can even have the room with a little balcony, really nice. the setting is simple but comfy. i liked it a lot so i decided to stay for two nights.
the local guy even showed me the restaurants. he took me first to a fancy one with great valley view but too bad they were closed for a break at that time, i did not understand what the waitress was trying to tell me though.

then he took me to el real, the other fancy restaurant in town, they even have english menu, which made me really happy. now i realize how beautiful english is after several days not be able to use it! the restaurant even played english music! haha. so i had my lunch there. i forgot to tip the local guy though. i did not even know his name coz when i asked him his name he told me the restaurant´s name. my espanol is just horrible. i thought the hotel might give him some deals though, so i won´t feel too bad for him. actually i am still feeling bad that i did not pay him for doing this for me.....

after lunch i just strolled around in town, took a look at the cathedral, a lot of school kids were inside doing a mass or something, they seemed exicted to see me and making faces and poses for my camera.

then i walked north to see the cemetery. it was not mentioned in the guide book but i think it definitely worth a little trip. it was closed by the time i got there but it is just so beautiful when i looked at the church from the outside. it was a nice afternoon so i took advantage of the swings outside one hostal by the cemetery, seemed to be out of business, and swinging away for a while.

then i met these mexican boys from universidad de zacatecas. they were planning to camp outside the cemetery and invited me to join them for the camp fire and some beer. of course i agreed coz they seemed really nice although not speaking too many words of english. they only knew like "are you alone", " are you married" " where are you from" "you are beautiful" that kind of universal sentences for guys. these guys, most of them looked very european. they were doing a road trip in slp for a week and camping to saving money. i wish i could do that, but camping for a week? that will just drive me insane.
we had some good time at the camp. there were even a italian couple camping there that night too. we had quisadilla and beer for dinner, and they played mexican pop music in their car for entertainment. it was nice, i just wish i could spoke more spanish!

one question here, how much do you usually tip in mexico? 10 percent or 15?
i figure 10 would be good but i am not sure.

ok i will tell more stories about real de catorce later. now i am going back to my hotel for an afternoon nap.

Jul 2 2006

You should really try the horse back riding in Real.

the mexican college kids told me they were going for a ride the next morning at 9, so i got up early and got there by 9. i had some tacos for breakfast, the stand had this menu for tacos but all these names of stuffing were in espanol. so the girl showed me the containers and i just randomly picked whatever seemed right. i did copied down the menu though so i can go back and check what i was eating!

the price was 120pesos for 2hrs ride, but the horse men changed their mind right there and asked for 250. of course everybody said no. we finally got down the price again but only two of the guys were going with me because they said they did not have that much money anyway.

the guide took us into the mountains and you can look back to the town and see the whole view. it was very pretty, the town was under some morning clouds, and the church really stood out. we got to see some spanish old mine owner ruins, they were spetacular.
the afternoon i was sitting in the plaza hidalgo and writing my diary and figuring out what to do tomorrow. i finally made up my mind about going to st luis potosi before i get to zacatecas, since it is closer to matehuala, one thing about traveling alone is that you can always change your mind about anything. even for your own stupid reasons. because it is your own trip and you should definitely enjoy it.
i did not do much that day, just went to the cemetery again. this time it was open. great. so i walked in. there were so many fancy tombs there, with a lot of statures and flowers. the guard man sat lonely at the top of the steps infront of the beautiful church. i walked around a bit and enjoyed it a lot.

then i hiked up the moutains a little, but the path seemed to disappear after a while, and i was alone, so i did not walked too far. the scenery was gorgeous, and you could see goats and horses eating grass there peacefully.

i went back early, only had banana and yogurt for dinner since i was running out of cash. i would wait until tomorrow when i get to matehuala to get some money. there is only one atm in town and it is in the turismo office, which had really nothing there, only one old crapy map without real de catorce´s name on it. i just did not feel like using that machine, so i went on diet.

Jul 2 2006

i got to the tunnel at 7 in the morning since there was a local woman told me siete manana.
then i waited there, the sky was grey and it started dripling a bit. that was a sad good bye to real de catorce.

but the bus did not come until 7:30, and it left at 7:45ish. there are only four buses going out each day so make sure you schedule ahead before you leave. the shuttle costed nothing but you pay when you get to the other side of the tunnel and it is like 44.5 pesos for a two-three hours trip, depends on how many local people are getting on and off.

when i got to matehuala i was totally hungary and i could not even use the bano coz i only had 1.5 pesos with me. i paid the bus with my credit card and ran out to find an atm. which is el cajero automatico. haha. now i know another word! on my way back i stopped by at this deli place, order some taco barbacoa, it was sooooooooooo good!

and i saw the first bano in legend, toilet without toilet seat, basket is full, and the worst part, no flushing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i had to use a empty plastic butter bowl on the ground, which i figured is what they use to flush the toilet, and did so. that was not very pleasant, and i got one horrible mosquito bite there on the back of my right hand, it swollen for three days and got really big........... i guess i am allergic to it.

finally i got to st luis. the bus station is nice, and the bus going into town is on the other side of the highway and it seemed impossible to get to the other side by walking, so i gave up and got a taxi with other people´s help. you just buy a ticket at a ticket window, only 25 pesos, takes 10 minutes to get into down town, the driver called the station so he can drop me right in front of hotel principal, the cheapest i can find in lp. i got the last room, lucky me. it was not that great, with some weird smell, but you can´t beat the price and the location.

wandering around the city a bit, i went into the gallery with some contemporary mexican art display. sorry i don´t have lp with me right now so i just don´t remember it name! everything seemed to be closed at that time (2pm), i was a little confused. then i ran into this turismo office in armas plaza, the ladies there told me(in ingles of course), mexican people go home and rest for the lunch break. how nice. it was like that in my city too. we definitely need a break during the day. she even told me there was a free concert in teatro la paz tonight. great. i just felt real lucky.

then i went back, napped, showered, the shower in hotel principal never get warm so make sure you take yourse during the day.

the concert at night was great, it was a good three hours concert, with a lot of performance, it was totally worth the time. i enjoyed it a lot.

it gets chilly at night. thank god my hotel is two blocks away. the hotel is close to everything and you can buy yogurt and agua purificada in oxxo. very convinient. i don´t like those stands with greasy fried tacos and chicken legs though. but the locals seemed to love it a lot. it is like their night snacks.