Finally, out for a hike!

Barb and Sal arrived back from Chicago late Friday afternoon and so we are absolved of our campground responsibilities. This means that we can now feel free to go out and do little day trips and hikes like we've been wanting to do. So yesterday afternoon we climbed a nearby hill.

But first, because it was Saturday we had to go into town and do our grocery shopping. We love Saturday grocery shopping! Of course we got our weekly supply of fruits and veggies, and then went to the carneceria (butcher) and bought our supply of chicken and meat.

In the afternoon, we asked all of the campers if anybody wanted to go on our hike with us, but only fellow camper Don agreed to join us. Peter and Barbara (the couple from Germany) would have gone but they only just finished walking back from town. We've organized a group hike for this morning, so we'll see how many people are feeling ambitious enough to get some exercise.

We've done the walk up this hill before, and the best time to do it is in the afternoon because the sun is in the right direction for pictures looking back at the valley.

Middle of the afternoon. It was actually a bit of a cloudy day.

Zoomed in on our nearby town of Valle de Juarez.

This is the area where we will be going for a walk this morning.

Beautiful countryside.

This is as far as we went, and then we turned around.

It was only a short hike, but it was good to get out and explore. Today, we'll go a little further but it's a route we've never done before so who knows where we'll end up?!

Looks like we've made a decision to go to San Miguel de Allende on Monday, December 17th. We're staying with fellow couchsurfers Wanda and Irwin who invited us to visit. And we'll hopefully meet up with friends Les, and Paula and Jerry, who are all there. We'll stay until Friday the 21st when we'll head back here to Hacienda Contreras. It's about 330 kms (205 miles) each way from here to San Miguel.