Puerto Vallarta

On my return to Guanajuato, everyone met me in Puerto Vallarta. Everyone being Emily, they boys, and Heidi, Tim and Austin. And we had a good time. 

The beach was beautiful, and it was quite a change to be in an area with humidity! Quite a change from Guanajuato dryness, as well as Wisconsin winters!

But it wasn't all peace and tranquility as the pictures may lead you to believe, with this crowd of adventure seekers, and Emily's knack for planning adventures to remember, there was quite a bit of activity. As this video shows, Tim leads the way down a path of self destruction in the pursuit of adventure!

And Emily's promise of wildlife was fulfilled on a whale watching trip to remember. We spent quite some time with a mother humpback whale and her baby, just amazing!

And to top it off, they brought us to school of dolphins, where they swam along side of the boat, jumping and playing. We even got to get in and swim with them!

Las Montanas son vida con musica

We have had the opportunity to do some pretty wonderful hikes in the
mountains around GTO.  And we are hoping that many more guests want to
join us on these adventures.  But we do doubt that any can provide the
musical interpretation of these hikes as well as Greg and Ann.


This is a tribute to GTO.  and of course Hazel who should really
appreciate the first video.


Enjoy


P.S.  OK so these videos have to have a postscript.  Yes, we did climb
(slide-twist-slither) down the steepest part of this mountain
peak-incredible!  I wanted to turn back and go the way we went up-but
Rico said he needed to take me kicking and screaming.   Needless to
say as the song clarifies we made it down in one piece--but I
definitely recommend a different route for future guests :)


-Emily

Las Escuelas

I realized that I hadn't shared any information about the schooling situation for us. We have 3 new schools in our life. Benito Juarez Primaria, Instituto Guanajuato, and Don Quijote.

Benito Juarez Primaria is Maurice's school. It is a couple block walk from our house, and it's in Zona Centro, the center of town and near all the action. Maurice is really liking it. He goes from 8 until 1, with a lunch. Lunch is 20 pesos for fresh made tacos, or whatever else they are making for the day, with some sides. He is making a bunch of friends and involved in anything athletic they offer! He is on the school's basketball team (as well as another basketball team... more on that in a future post) and the fútbol team. He also participated in a track meet, and a mini-volleyball tournament (I am not even sure exactly what that is, but he said it is like volleyball but you can catch the ball). And we are even making a little progress getting the homework assignments complete.

Benito Juarez Primaria

Maurice in his uniform, ready for school.

Rico and Damonte go to Instituto Guanajuato. It is a little further away, about 3 miles. They take a cab every day. Their day goes from 7:30 am to 3:10 pm. But from the sounds of it, that is not all study time. From what I can tell, the first period is socialization. The day also includes over an hour of free time, which includes basketball and fútbol. Plus a lunch (again fresh made choices of food). They are excelling at the social aspects of education :)  They both have made a ton of friends, and despite Damonte's best efforts, are socializing in Spanish full time. They only have to wear uniforms on Monday, and I enjoy my relationship with my sons too much to try to take pictures of them in uniforms and post them online :) You will have to come visit us to see it in person. Here are some pictures of their school.

Instituto Guanajuato courtyard

Rico studying

Buildings at Instituto Guanajuato

The boys are really enjoying schooling here, much more than they ever imagined. But they are not the only ones. Emily headed back to school as well to Don Quijote. Believe it or not, she still takes education quite seriously, and has the most homework of them all! 

Damonte and Emily checking out Emily's school.

Around Town

Just thought I would post some pictures from around Guanajuato. Not necessarily the touristy stuff, just things from our daily lives...

la tienda

la tortilleria

One of the roads heading into a tunnel

Plaza de la Paz

On the way to el Jardin

Our favorite Chicken Shack

San Fernando

Empacadores!!!

Immediately after the win against the Bears, I started working on changing my plans. My flight back to Mexico would have left me on a bus during the Superbowl, which was not going to cut it. I got my flight changed and made it back at 2am Sunday morning. In time to see the Packers in the Superbowl with the family... we were excited!

We had watched all the playoff games in the same restaurant, el Retiro, a few blocks from our house, and it was mostly empty for all of the games. However this was the Superbowl, and I was a little nervous about our plans. I sent Maurice down to el Retiro an hour and a half before kickoff to make sure there was space. Maurice came back with a disturbing question, "Do we have reservations?" Well, no of course we didn't. He said that the restaurant was filled and the table that we watched all the other games at (the big table with the best view of the TV) was "Reservado".

Imagine my concern! Travel all this way to get shut out! As I walked in to look for any options, the owners ushered us right to the reserved table. As it turned out, they must have anticipated our return for the big game, and reserved a table for us!! It really made us feel good, and was the start to an AWESOME evening! GO Empacadores!!!

Walking and more walking...

There are two things you do a lot of in Guanajuato-eat and walk.  It is a blessing that you have to walk because without it we would be putting on a lot of weight. We did a weigh in at Sue and Dave’s before departing for this trip—believe me it is a good motivation for constant exercise here.  This video is a sample of the walking down part of Guanajuato—we’ll make sure to have Maurice film the going up part-but plan to wait a few weeks so that we are in a lot better shape.  We have already noticed that we have moved beyond the burning lungs and coughing that we had after our walks up the callejon in our first weeks.  We are still wheezing a bit and walk very slowly-but are definitely in better shape.

-Emily

Go Take a Hike

One of the advantages of Guanajuato's location is that you are literally minutes from a hike in the mountains. In fact we are so close to trails that our first time, we set out on foot from our house to explore. There are some great places, but the trails are not very well marked. Like, not marked at all, which may have impacted our first hiking experience. Now it's not like our first trip went horribly wrong, Emily didn't have to call the coast guard, or anything like that (like in Puerto Rico!). However, we did get a little separated, and got to see a couple different "trails", Reid, Rico and I explored one area, Kent, Damonte and Maurice explored another area, and Emily practiced trying to find us.

After our first adventure in hiking, Emily suggested we contact Mari, a hiking guide recommended to us when we first got to town. And after a couple of hikes with her, we can tell you it is a world of difference. She grew up here and has been running these mountains for a long time. The things she has already shown us have been spectacular. Take a look at some of the scenes we have experienced:

An Early Morning Start

Guanajuato is known for its silver mines, and Spain originally colonized it for its silver. It is still mined today, but we got to see some of the mines abandoned long ago.

A Mine Entrance

Maurice, stopping to enjoy the view.

The next mine Mari showed us was soo cool. The early morning temperatures were probably in the 50s, but the air coming out of the entry must have been in the 80s, and extremely humid. It was so different the the normal air (dry as can be!). You can even see ferns growing in the rocks. It was really a neat thing, that we could have never found on our own, or even with directions (which would have been something like... go out until you find a church in the middle of nowhere,  go past the pack of mean dogs, up the mountain and then in a little valley, ta da!! )

Mari shows us another old mine

Sunrise in the Mountains

And as kept going up and up through this desert mountain landscape, great views in every direction, we were stunned by what we found at the top of the trail:

Rico takes in the view of Presa de Mata