Hacienda Contreras to Morelia

Originally planned on leaving at 10:00am yesterday morning, but it was almost 11:30am by the time we finally headed out. Said goodbye to some people, sorry we missed most of you! Had we stuck around to say goodbye to everyone it would have been another half hour!

We have done most of this route before in the motorhome, so we were somewhat familiar with the roads. Our destination was 239 kms (148 miles) away so we still had lots of time to get there.

Scenery along the way.

They grow a lot of strawberries and raspberries in this area.

There is a huge Driscoll's packaging plant here. Note that the strawberries you buy from Driscoll's in the U.S. can be bought at a roadside stand here for about 60 cents!

More scenery.

Lots of places that make furniture in this area as well.

Mucho traffico!

Our route took us north of Lake Patzcuaro.

Made it to the outskirts of Morelia at around 4:00pm. We had only stopped for about 20 minutes to have some lunch, and the highway takes you through a few small towns so it was pretty slow going. No worries because we were in no rush. Found our way to our couchsurfing hosts David and Pili. Their house is on the outskirts of the eastern edge of Morelia so we didn't have to enter the city yet. We were a little worried because we had sent them an email after we had received confirmation from them and hadn't heard back, and they missed a digit in their phone number so we couldn't contact them. Originally we had told them we would arrive on Wednesday, so we were lucky they were home. They're pretty easy to get along with and said it doesn't matter and that we can just as easily stay Thursday and Friday instead of Wednesday and Thursday.

David and Pili are a young couple, 30 and 26, married for two years. David works in Morelia as a pharmaceutical chemist and is in the process of opening his own lab. He's a smart guy and speaks Spanish, English, German, and Italian! He was born here, but Pili is from Torreon in northern Mexico. David knows the city really well, and they said that if we are only here for two nights we had better see the city, so they suggested that they take us down to the central area to see the city at night.

They took us downtown in their car and parked on the outskirts of the central area and we walked in.

The entire central area of Morelia is another UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Lots of stone walls and old wooden doors.

Fountain and plaza.

The cathedral is huge!

And beautiful. We'll head back there for some daylight and interior photos today. 

We shared a cup of Gaspachos. This Morelian specialty is a chopped up salad of mango, pineapple and jicama, in orange and lime juice topped with chili pepper and cheese! Quite a combination, and quite delicious!

The Fuente Las Tarascas fountain with the aqueduct in the background. The aqueduct runs for several kilometers and was built between 1785 and 1788. There are 253 arches!

We walked down the Avenue of Romance. Popular with couples, and a lot of marriage proposals have been made here!

Cool last night, but the sun is shining this morning and we're headed back downtown sometime this morning. David and Pili have gone off to work, so we're taking the local bus into the central area.

Valle de Bravo tomorrow!