Sylvie's Travels Home

We woke up to the lovely sound of church bells and roosters. We all met at 9am and looked for a breakfast place. Mario had spotted a crèpes counter the night before but it wasn’t open. They didn’t feel like a Mexican breakfast so we went back to one of the hotel’s restaurants where they had a bigger selection to choose from.  I had a croque-madame and Pogo and Josée and eggs and bacon.  Mario had French toasts.

We went back to our room to pick up our hats and stuff then left for a day of exploring.

Just as we were leaving Tequila, which by the way is a Pueblo Magico and a Unesco World Heritage Site, we saw workers cutting agave by the road. Pogo pulled over and we walked in the field to see them work. We had to be careful not to cut ourselves on the very sharp leaves of agave plants, especially because we were wearing shorts and sandals. One of the workers who spoke good English told us that the aim was to cut 800 piñas that day.  The one he had just cut was between 75-80 kilos (165 to 175 lbs).  The cutters/shovels they use are incredibly sharp and it takes them about 30 seconds to remove all the leaves, after digging the agave roots. Josée pretended to pick up the heavy piña.  The foreman said she should not have touched it with her bare hands as it could burn her eyes if she touched them.  They had water so they poured some on her arms as we were leaving.  She rubbed the water on her arms and they immediately started itching and burning and she got a small rash.  She put hand sanitizer on her arms as soon as we got back to the car but she was in pain for a good 20 minutes.  Not fun. No wonder they wear long sleeves and pants in this heat.

When visiting little towns and villages, we always go to the old center of town, centro historico, to find the main square which usually has a pavilion and a church near by. Sometimes it is bare, sometimes it is surrounded by beautiful gardens and decorations. It always gives us a flavor of the town. We first stopped in a town called Magdalena. We walked around, went into the church but didn’t stay too long. We noticed a map telling us about a loop through small villages worth taking so we decided to go to the next town called Santa Maria. It was tiny and very dusty but as soon as we got out of the car by the center, a young woman came to talk to us and offered to tell us about her town and what she would like to do to get more tourists to their town. It was very nice to drive by but I don’t think it will become a tourist destination anytime soon. At least until the group of archaeologists we talked to, who had just stopped in town down from the mountain, made the sight they were discovering, available to the public.

We had to leave by then as we were meeting a very interesting group of people in Etzatlan. A picture of that town had popped up on my Instagram a few weeks ago and I had sent it to Max to check it out because she was in Tequila and Etzatlan was pretty close. She decided to go and it just happened that it was during their Carnaval celebration so she saw dancing horses, cowboys, live bands and drinking stations everywhere. The main appeal was the crocheted cielo tejido (woven sky) which got a Guinness World Record in 2019 for being the largest crochet canopy in the world. We found out that it is much longer this year than it was in 2019.

After Max made a post about it on Instagram and tagged their account, she was able to arrange for us to meet with the lady that started it all. We arrived at the cultural center at 2pm and were greeted by Lorena, the matriarch of the family and her daughter. Her grandson was the interpreter. He told us that a few years ago his grandma had started crocheting hexagons to add to the front of the center to give it attention with colors. The next year the town encourage her to make it bigger. It now takes 200 town ladies about 8 months and 25K hours to create. Every year, they installed them in February until the end of May. They don’t keep them longer because they get dusty and they don’t last that long because they are made of raffia. They removed them also before the raining season.

They were incredibly nice and informative. The whole family came to welcome us and showed us the studio where they were working. We felt like very special guests. You could tell their pride and astonishment in how quickly they became famous. The Mexico pavilion for the World Expo in Dubai is cover with their creation as well as we speak.

Max had also asked her contact if we could go to a terrace to see the artwork from above. Her aunt told us to go to her brother’s bar not too far away to look at it from his rooftop. She had never called him and his bar and everything else was now closed for siesta when we arrived there but Pogo knocked on a few doors and talked to a few people and suddenly we were on someone’s rooftop admiring the woven canopy. Mexican people are just the best!

It now felt like we were in a ghost town. Everything was barricaded with metal doors. We were hungry by then so Pogo looked on google map for an open restaurant. We all had chicken fillet with rice, salad and beans. There were a few french fries on the top.

We were an hour away from our next destination, an archaeological site called Guachimontones. We got lost, ending up at a mountain ranch then finally made it 15 minutes before they closed. They let us in reminding us to be quick. The attendant asked if someone had difficulty walking and Pogo said no. We found out quickly after parking, that we had to climb a steep road. It was exhausting especially in the heat. Halfway there, Pogo decided to go get the car. He got back just before we reached to top. The round pyramid was pretty but very small and with just a few more structure around it, was not spectacular. Nothing to write home about. The views were beautiful but we had to rush back down the mountain.

We stopped at the center of the town call Teuchitlan and it was lovely, full of trees and dreamcatchers. It took us another hour and 15 minutes to get back to Tequila. On the way we saw greenhouses as far as the eyes could see, lots of fields and trucks full of sugar cane and we saw a murmuration of birds.

We refreshed and went to get a Cantarito in the square then walked to a little restaurant on the second floor of a building near to where we were. We were the only customers. It took forever to get our food, burgers for Pogo and I and ribeye steaks for Mario and Josée. It was not very good. After we left, Mario was very excited that the crèpe place was finally opened and he had a nutella crèpe for dessert. We went back to the hotel and had a drink at the beautiful bar to celebrate a day well spent.