El Charco del Ingenio

We had a long drive to do today, but we also had a few things we had to do this morning before we could leave.

Ruth finished up doing the last batch of hand laundry, and we both took advantage of the campground showers. Filled up our fresh water, and emptied the holding tanks. Then, we did the short walk over to the big Mega grocery store and picked up a 10 litre jug of drinking water for 16 pesos ($1.35), and a few apples and vegetables. This is actually expensive drinking water, as you can normally buy a larger jug for about the same money.

By this time it was about 11:00am, and we still had that long drive to do! So we hit the road.

By the time we got to our destination at the el Charco del Ingenio Botanical Gardens, it was almost 11:15am. What a day driving. That 4 kms (2.5 miles) took a lot of effort!

We’ve had several people mention to us that we could probably stay overnight in the parking lot at the botanical gardens just above San Miguel. Plus, the gardens themselves are really well done and they have quite a few walking trails and a small lake on the 220 acre property.

The road leading into the gardens was pretty bumpy!

We paid 40 pesos ($3.40) each to enter the property. We thought it was money well spent! They’ve done a really good job of the trails and there are a lot of descriptive signs in both Spanish and English. We have never seen so many different varieties of cactus.

The only downside was that dogs are not allowed on the property. So we had to walk Whiskey before and after our own walk. But she seemed fine with that.

There are also some ruins on the property. Apparently the small lake was used to feed a mill back in the 1800's.

We asked if we could stay parked overnight, and they said it was no problem at all. It’s actually a really quiet spot and I bet we sleep great! Tomorrow we are heading for the city of Guanajuato.