Sylvie's Travels Home

We met at 9am this morning for the included breakfast.  The owner made us yogurt with fruits and nuts as well as scrambled eggs with tomatoes, mushrooms and turkey.

We were supposed to stay in Mascota for 2 nights but decided to pack our bags and go with the flow since we were driving around all day long.  We ended up back in San Sebastián for the night, making it an hour less to drive tomorrow to Mayto.

We first drove around Mascota and stopped at a hat store we had been to a few years back.  The owner was looking through the lens of his telescope toward the forest, explaining to Max and Pogo that the trees in the mountains were not real trees but camouflage for extra terrestrials and their weapons…he was trying to show a link on Facebook that his friend had created to prove their conspiracy theories but he wasn’t able to open it…you can’t make that stuff up.

We drove 20 minutes outside the city and stopped at Lake Presa Corrinchis.  Such a beautiful and quiet spot. Shaun did a little fishing on the shore.  We went to an empty restaurant with a fantastic view of the lake and the mountains and had a drink.

We drove in the mountain for a little over 30 minutes on winding roads all the way to Talpa de Allende, our third Pueblo Magico in two days.  Talpa, founded in 1599 as a silver mining town, is surrounded by pine covered mountains.  It is also a very religious town and a very popular pilgrimage route, especially at Easter time. 

Our hotel owner had told us that it might still be very busy from the long weekend celebration of Benito Juarez, the 26th president of Mexico, from 1858 to 1872.

They were closing a lot of the temporary stalls when we arrived but we were fortunate to see a big group of cowboys leaving on their horses followed by a fanfare.  It was so fun!  People were dancing and playing music by the church.

We had lunch in town in a small and colorful courtyard.  Pogo and the kids had birrias and I had a chorizo quesadilla.  As we were leaving town, we found a small street full of murals.

We left Talpa around 3:30pm, zigzagged our way down the mountain and stopped briefly in a little village called Yerbabuena where we saw only one person, an old man sitting on a bench in the small square.

We arrived in San Sebastián at 5:30pm and went straight to the Hacienda Caudillos, an incredibly gorgeous hotel we had found online. Unfortunately they were fumigating the place. The manager said rooms could be ready within the hour but when we found a dead bird on the patio, I thought it was a sign that we needed to move on.  Too bad because it was really stunning.

Shaun found another place right in the village called Mansion Real Hotel.  It wasn’t as spectacular but still very beautiful.  We rested for a little bit then went walking in town to find a restaurant.  Everything was closed but for one called El Fortin.  Pogo had tamarind chicken, Shaun had pizza and Max and I had pasta bolognese.

We carefully walked back to the hotel on the very uneven cobblestones and went to bed.