So we've decided to hang out here for another couple of days or so. The only drawback is that it's cutting into our overnight budget. At 250 pesos ($20.75 CAD) per night, we won't be here that much longer!
We were scheduled to pick up our new curtains yesterday at 1:00pm, so we couldn't stray too far.
We walked over to the Cerro de las Campana park. This is a small hill overlooking the city where Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, (originally from Austria) was executed by firing squad in 1867. I bet you didn't know that Mexico was ruled by an Emperor. The only monarch of Mexico ruled from 1864-1867. Apparently they had a hard time filling the position after that.
We walked around the exterior of the park looking for a way in. Nice wall!
It turned out that the park is completely walled and gated. There are four or five entranceways, but they were all locked...until we got to the one in the very front. There is a charge to enter the park...one whole peso! (About 8 cents CAD, or 6 cents USD). You can't buy much for a peso. But you can get yourself into this park.
It must cost them at least a peso to print up the numbered entrance tickets!
It's a beautiful, well manicured park.
The stairs in the photo above lead to a chapel that was built in 1907 by the Austrian government to honor their fallen Emperor.
It's only a small hill, but it must have had a nice view of the area at one time. Now, the trees have grown so much that there is no view. You can still get to the top though, where you find a huge statue of Benito Juarez who was the President of Mexico (and who went into exile) at the time of the French occupation that instilled the Emperor.
Ruth, in front of the huge statue.
In the park. There's hardly anybody around, possibly because of the one peso entrance fee? All of the other parks in the city are free.
We were sitting in the park when Ruth spotted a parakeet of some kind. Then, we spotted more of them and we noticed they were nesting high up in a nearby tree.
Pretty green birds.
The lighting wasn't great, and they were pretty high up.
There's the nests.
Aren't these things supposed to be living in cages? It seems that in the wild, they live in condos!
We went back to the motorhome for lunch and then over to pick up our new front curtains.
Old curtain. You can see how much outside light shines through, and of course at night you can see the interior lights from outside the motorhome. We didn't like that.
So the new material is supposedly "light blocking", and it does do a much better job.
The guy who made them did a nice enough job, but we can't figure why he made the lower hem so big. And they're almost not long enough, but that's not his fault...we asked for them to be the same size as the old ones, and they are. Maybe Ruth will lower the hem when we get back to Saskatchewan.
The finished product. Much better than what we had.
We hadn't gone for a walk downtown at night yet, and so we figured that Saturday night would be a good time to do it. Just grabbed the little camera, so the pics aren't great. Quite a few people out, although not as many as we expected. Perhaps because it was a little cooler than normal.
Lots of lights.
A side street.
Another lit up church.
A couple of classic VW's.
The car on the right is a rare Volkswagon SP2. They were produced in Brazil from 1972-1976 and there were only about 10,000 made.
People out in downtown Queretaro.
Another plaza lit up.
We even have lights and fountains here at our hotel!
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I found out a few years ago that the 12v dash outlet in our motorhome is actually run by our house batteries, not the engine battery. So I find it handy to have one of these little plug in digital readouts to see exacty where our batteries are at!
And at Amazon.ca, for our Canadian readers...a fantastic deal on good quality luggage...
Nice curtains.
ReplyDeleteOur solar controller gives us a constant readout of our house batteries.
So does ours, but it's not in the most convenient location. This way, I just have to glance over at it. This one is also more accurate because the readout is 100ths of a volt instead of just 10ths.
DeleteI recall seeing the coffin of Maximilian the First in with all the other Austrian Royalty in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. You feel compelled to learn a bit more about history, whether you're a history buff or not.
ReplyDeleteNice night photos.
Yep, that's the guy. The coffin and his body were shipped back to Austria after he was put to death.
DeleteMexico needs to do away with the 1 peso coin, like in Canada where we got rid of the penny. It would save them a bunch. Perhaps they should only charge tourists 5 pesos and be done with the 1 peso charge :)
ReplyDeleteNo, I think the 1 peso coin is still useful in Mexico. Remember, it's still worth 8 cents Canadian. It's the 50 centavos coin they need to get rid of.
DeleteNot to mention the 10 centavo! We occasionally would get one of those in change in Mexico. When we were leaving the country, I gave all my peso coins as a tip in our last restaurant (along with bills) to make sure I didn't have to haul them back to the US!
DeleteYes, you are right about the 10 centavo coin. I forget about them because we hadn't seen any for a few years.
DeleteToo bad the curtains aren't longer!
ReplyDeleteThe curtains are the same length that the original ones were but we should have asked to have had them made a little longer. It is alright though because the hem is huge so I will just lower it, very carefully of course.
DeleteI'd say visiting the park was worth every penny! :- )
ReplyDeleteYes, it definitely was. It is very well looked after. Too bad there wasn't a good view of the city from there anymore.
DeleteThank you both for the pictures of the tree, I did want to see it lit up, so when are you heading to our neck of the woods?????
ReplyDeleteI reminded Kevin that you wanted a picture of the tree light up at night. The metal stars hanging from it look beautiful all lit up.
DeleteWe should be there sometime in the next week or two, depends on want we find on our way up there.
I think your night pictures are wonderful. And I actually like the way the deep hem on the curtains looks. Mexico has got one up on the US. I don't think there is anything that can be purchased for 1 cent here. Of course I know one peso is not one cent but still. What can you buy in this country for 6 cents?
ReplyDeleteThank you Sherry, they aren't as crisp as we would like them to be but still not too bad. They need to be longer so I am going to let the hem down a bit. It will still have a deep hem because they folded it up three times, which I think was unnecessary but it will work out fine in the end.
DeleteHere in Mexico the 1 pesos gets used a lot just not normally for one item. They have a 50 centavos that they could get rid of though. Remember the U.S. still has the 1 cent coin, now that they could get rid of just like Canada did.
The Parrots you see are call Quaker parrots There are very inexpensive bird to purchase and the majority of the time if they escaped They've been known to thrive in some northern American cities but mostly they prefer the warmer climate where there's plenty to eat They're not a very colorful bird but they do breed in large flocks In southern Florida there is common as pigeons
ReplyDeleteThe proper name is Monk parakeets but another name they can be called is Quaker parrots and yes, in the States, Europe and some Asian countries if you see them in the wild then are normally feral ones but they most likely aren't feral here in Mexico as they are native to these parts. We thought they were colourful enough but they sure are noisy.
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