Hurrah for the Circus

We have spent the last week slowly moving North and visiting a string of colonial cities. Our favourite was Guanajuato, but more of that later...We had just one night in Queretaro, a surprisingly beautiful town full of sunny plazas and the usual array of ornate churches. We especially enjoyed lunchtime gorditas from a taco stand eaten in one of the many public squares.

We drove the 40 miles to San Miguel de Allende, a picture-perfect Mexican town which is now home to over 10,000 ex-pats, many of whom turned out for the enormous Palm Sunday parade to kick off Semana Santa - a huge holiday in Mexico. 

As we entered town, we spotted a travelling circus, something Francesca and Liberty have been fascinated with since they read Enid Blyton's 'Hurrah For the Circus', three times! We booked tickets for that night and were amazed to find it was a performance straight out of Enid Blyton's era - tigers jumping through rings of fire; llamas leaping over bulls; terrible clowns; kissing camels; dressed-up dogs; whip-cracking; and mediocre acrobats. The girls loved every minute, but the RSPCA would have had a field-day!

On the way out of San Miguel, we stopped at La Gruta thermal baths where, to the girls delight, there were 4 pools, including one which required swimming through a tunnel into a cave. That evening we arrived in Guanajuato, an old silver mining town set in a steep sided valley. We all loved the narrow, colourful streets which were buzzing with the holiday crowds and festivities.

Without a doubt the strangest thing we have done so far this trip, has been to visit Guanajuato's 'Museo Mommias'.  Weird, very weird...

On the morning we were due to leave, the girls were thrilled to find we had new neighbours with a 5 year-old son, offering the rare luxury of a playmate.  Having delayed our departure to let them all play (hide-and-seek is not an easy game in two camper vans!), we opened a beer and settled for an extra night and some more time in town.

It took most of Maundy Thursday to drive to Zacatecas, another colonial mining town where we've spent today watching more parades, eating more Mexican fare and touring a disused silver mine.  Tomorrow we head towards the coast again - through Durango and the mountains to Mazatlan - the town we arrived at by ferry, from the Baja, two months ago.

Cities and Churches

We spent a glorious, sunny day pottering around the lakeside town of Catemaco, intending to visit the jungle and cloud forest in the surrounding hills the following day.

Unfortunately, the cloud forest was true to its name, and we saw little but fog, so opted for a final seafood lunch as we skimmed the coastline before heading inland to Puebla. Climbing through dense fog to 7,500ft we broke out into clear sunshine on top of the Central Plateau and found our campsite near Puebla in time to enjoy the blissfully cool evening air.  Having largely stuck with coastal and rural areas so far, this was the first of a number of colonial cities we intend to visit on our way back North. The girls are thoroughly enjoying a taste of 'cafe society'.

We also spent a day in nearby Cholula, which is known for its numerous churches built by the conquistadores, one of which they perched on a hill that turned out to be the second largest pyramid in the world, Pyramide Tepanapa. 

We climbed to he top of this still unrestored pyramid for geat views of the city and surrounding volcanoes.

Avoiding the congestion and pollution of Mexico City, we took the new toll road to camp close to Teotihuacan, one of the largest and most impressive archaelogical sites in Mexico.

Heading Home!

From the far South Eastern corner of Mexico, we headed up the Yucatan coast and stayed one night on the Riviera Maya, but were deterred from going any further towards Cancun by the Spring Break crowds.  We did, however, find one last perfect Caribbean beach with the Yucatan twist of an adjacent freshwater cenote to bathe in. Sadly we were not allowed to camp the night there, so we headed inland and stayed beside another cenote - this time in a enormous cave, complete with stalactites and spooky fish. The day will long be remembered by the girls for the five separate swims we fitted in.  For the statistically-minded, one beach, two pools and two cenotes!

Having spurned the crowds of Tulum in favour of more swimming, we felt obliged to find time to visit Chitchen Itza (to a chorus of "not more ruins" from the back seats). This hugely impressive site is one of the 'seven modern wonders of the world' - but the hawkers and flippin' tourists got in the way of a good view! On top of which there were no monkeys or tunnels and climbing the pyramids was not allowed. We really appreciated having already seen some of the more remote ruins.