Boring note to myself for the future, a diary of this current trip to Mexico.
Sunday: flew from Los Angeles to Guadalajara, GDL on Mexicana (2.5 hours; they upgraded me and a lot of other American Airlines ticket holders to First Class), checked in at Hotel Quinta Real in the Zona Minerva, a truly luxurious hotel with beautiful spacious suites ($215/night for the best rooms; all staff speak English; free fast reliable in-room Internet (wired)). Anastasia says it is the finest hotel in which she has ever stayed. Toured the lively and historic downtown.
Monday: Visit to Tlaquepaque, great outdoor lunch at El Fuente (or Fuerte), on the pedestrian street. Dinner at Casa Bariachi (good entertainment, bring cushion next time for the chairs, eat elsewhere).
Tueday: ETN bus to Guanjuato (4 hours; incredibly spacious and luxurious; $25). Stay at Hotel Refugio Casa Colorada. Dinner at La Capellina (great salad and pizza, just E of the Jardin) with Daire and RoNelle, gringas from the bus. Daire tells us of her trip on Primera Plus in which the driver lost control on a wet highway, flipped the bus through a complete 360, and then ran away so as not to be detained by police. She rides on ETN now.
Wednesday: All the downtown museums and churches. Fabulous haircut for $5 just 1/2 block W of the university. Ironic twist: Diego Rivera’s house featured photo exhibit with pictures of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Dinner with Joe and Naeko at La Capellina. Concert in Teatro Juarez, Jorge Buenfil, the trovador of Yucatan. Drinks with Joe, Naeko, and their lawyer friends from Texas, Steve and Ray. Steve tells us about Veracruz and how we must go there for the best seafood, the best coffee (“they don’t make one cup at a time; they have a machine from the 19th century that drips espresso constantly and they shovel the coffee in”), and the danzon. Steve tells us about the medicine women that one can see for advice. Steve finds out that Anastasia is Greek and tells us about Matala, Crete, fears of having contracted a disease from a Norwegian girl, the hospital in Irakleon where none of the doctors spoke a word of English and the waiting room was crowded and chaotic, then having to leave for Morocco to avoid the shame. He hitched a ride with the British Army, who took him to an American air force base where the doctor told him it was urethritis, not gonorrhea.
Thursday: Museo de Momias, in which the mummified corpses of folks whose families could not afford to pay the cemetery dues are exhibited. The state pays for the first five years in the cemetery and, after that, if no payment is received the body goes to be cremated or to the museum. Cremation looks like a great option after you see how distressed the mummies look. Visited La Valenciana, one of the most ornate churches in Mexico. Fabulous lunch at El Conde, across the street from the church.
Friday: Verdict on Hotel Refugio Casa Colorada: incredible view, friendly staff does not speak English; no Internet; no writing desks in room; bathrooms outdated; restaurant fair, but not special and often out of menu items. Might be worth the $250 per night if you stay in the presidential suite and are honeymooning. Anastasia back to Boston; Philip to San Miguel de Allende. Evening concert by Alejandro Campos Quartet at the jazz festival.
Saturday: Breakfast with Gerald and Mora at the Posada Carmina (reasonably good hotel; $65-100/night; sort of noisy due to central location; no Interent). Museums and churches. Weather continues 75 degrees and sunny. Evening concert by Salomon Maawad (Lebanese-Mexican) and friends.
Sunday: House and garden tour with Biblioteca Publica. Visited a beautiful house in Malanquin designed by Nicole Bisgaard and built in 13 months. Second house was designed by Nicholas Schlee and also made good use of views to interior gardens. Used free wireless Internet with laptop at Mama Mia’s. Rumor has it that the Jardin is also covered by a free wireless network courtesy of the city government. Enjoyed an evening concert, with dancing by 50-year-old (Mexican) couples, in the plaza. Dinner at La Grotta. Ended up at the owner’s table with their English expat friends. One of them talked about how the U.S. economy couldn’t defy gravity forever and was headed for a huge crash because most people in the U.S. are useless realtor-style folks.
Monday: Negotiated purchase of Robinson R22 helicopter, to be delivered in the Los Angeles area the middle of next week. One-hour Spanish lesson at Academia Hispano America. Met Mike, a former Army chaplain, in the plaza and learned about Warren Hardy’s language classes (three two-week sessions), and also Casa de Mericela, 41B Jesus, $40/day incl bkfast and lunch, 3 blocks from Jardin, wireless Internet on 2nd floor, very clean and good food. Visited at lunchtime, where 12 happy Americans were gathered around the table with their hostess. The food did look excellent. macahe2000@yahoo.com.mx. Maricela Campos Hernandez, 1 409-209-0030 (U.S. number). Quick lunch at Tortitlan. Went with Sandy Baum out to the local San Miguel airport. The strip is 1/2 mile long by his car’s odometer and in reasonable condition with grass and gravel. There are some powerlines at the W end and some good-sized rocks. Sandy’s friend operates a Cessna 206 out of here. Enjoyed Munna Bhai, an Indian comedy, at the Cinemateca. Dinner and wireless at Mama Mia’s.
Tuesday: Breakfast with Rosalba Rangel, owner of www.rosalbarealty.com. Viajes Vertiz ride to the Leon airport ($25) and American Airlines to Dallas, then Boston.
That mummy museum is a must see for me. I think we are the same age so perhaps you remember the mummies and skulls in the Natural History Museum. My aunt lived a few blocks away in SW DC and we would regularly hoof it over to that museum where I immediately implored her to take me to the room with the ‘soap people’. There were at least two mummified ‘soap people’ and probably two hundred native american skulls. Unfortunately that exhibit was taken down by the Smithsonian many moons ago, I think they deemed it politically incorrect.
Geez, what do you do for fun!? I loved that helicopter entry. Sort of like what I’d imagine the great internet diaries of our time are like:
Larry Page, August 13th, 2004. Company listed. Sergey gave me a wedgie after BB game. Weather was nice. Tuna on rye for lunch. Cat coughed up a hairball this morning. I am losing hair as well.
I wonder if that buss driver is the same guy who killed my brother-in-law’s best friend? Did she mention any private cars that got messed up in that 360?
The very thought of flying in an R22 frightens the daylights out of me. Didn’t you once write about he R22’s shockingly short “reaction time” requirements? (i.e. how much time the pilot has to lower the collective and establish autorotation after an engine failure before the rotor speed drops to an unrecoverable level) Wasn’t it something under 2 seconds? It seems to me that the slightest inattention at an inopportune moment could prove to be fatal, and because of that I have resolved never to let my backside come into contact with an R22 seat. Or am I recalling incorrectly? 🙂
Dilbert: No other vehicles were involved in the bus crash. When she did a Web search for “Primera Plus” crash, hoping to find a news article, there were hundreds of articles found relating to other crashes.
CC: The R22 is an unforgiving ship and even Frank Robinson wants to move training up into the R44. If you’re cruising along at a high power setting, you do indeed have less than 2 seconds to lower the collective. At lower power settings and therefore lower angles of attack, you’d have more time. Still, it would be hard to find a student who can afford to train in an R44 (2X the hourly price at most flight schools).
Engine failure is very uncommon and this will be a brand-new ship. So I’m not too terribly worried. The majority of R22 accidents are pilot error unrelated to the performance or reliability of the machine. The same accident would probably have happened in a perfectly functioning Jet Ranger that was on the same mission.