I am a few days behind in the blog, due to being sick and some long days on the road. Publishing this on the 24th, but dating it the 22nd.
We both caught some sort of cold as we got to Patzcuaro and decided to stay an extra day to recover from it. The campground cleared out on Friday and we were the only ones left on Friday night. Other than the booms that seem to constantly go in in Mexico, it was a really quiet night and we both got some good rest. We packed up the traveling road show and since we paid the premium price for the toll roads on the way out here and we had several days before we had to be in Mexico City again for Kathy’s flight, we’d take the back roads to a cool little town I was surprising Kathy with named Salazar. But before that, Graeme recommended a local town called Tzintsuntzan that has an old Aztec ruin that we could visit. It was a quick 30 minutes down the road, so we headed that way.
The town is named Tzintzuntzan, which means “place of the hummingbirds” and was settled in the 12th century and was the most powerful from 1450-1521. The ruins were built between the 12th and 14th century and contained 5 circular pyramids, each with a wooden structure on top that was for ceremonies and burials. The town was conquered by the Spanish in 1521, the emperor was burned at the stake, and most of the population left the area. The Spanish resettled it and built a monastery in the 16th and 17th century, using most of the stones from the pyramids. It was a nice walk around the HUGE structure (430 meters by 240 meters) and the grounds. Here is a link to some more information if you are interested. We headed back to the truck and headed out to find some camping.
We stopped and had lunch at a little cocina; me chewing on the carne asada and the grilled nopalas (cactus) greens and Kathy having some fried shrimp and a horrible margarita. We settled at a spot at the local town boat launch beneath some huge trees. It was a Saturday night and we expected to have some visitors later in the evening with stereos, but only one showed up around 9:30 and left soon after. It was hard to tell if his bass was louder than his truck with it’s missing muffler. We slept pretty well and of course the pups got their nightly and morning walks that ensure they deserve the 18-20 hours of sleep they get every day. LOL.
