Kicking off the New Year with a 20 km hike!

But before we get to that, make sure you check out our December and 2019 full year expense report, published only yesterday evening.

And next, we have to back up a little to New Year's Eve! In the morning, Ruth went with the group over to "the castle"... an event center located nearby that has some interesting things to see. Late afternoon, we had wine and cheese happy hour, and then an evening campfire to ring in the new year.

Have a look at some pics...

The RV park across the corn field.

Corn stacks.

First view of "the castle".

Scenery along the way.

Osprey.

Heron.

We have lift off!

Walking up to "the castle".

Hm. Okay then.

"The castle".

There were two beautiful and friendly German Shepherds.

For New Year's Eve, we had wine and cheese happy hour. Everybody brought a nice bottle of wine, and a plate of snacks and a wide variety of  different cheeses. It went over really well. After that, we had a camp fire. Some people stayed up right until midnight! Ruth and I made it to 11:45pm. You would think we could have stayed another 15 minutes, but we were done!

Interesting sky at sunset.

Okay, on to New Year's Day! 

Last year, we were paragliding on New Year's Day! This year, we planned a 20 km (12.4 mile) hike up to El Tigre and then across and down to Mazamitla where we would stop for a late lunch.

Pretty impressive when you consider that 9 of the group started and completed the hike! Roger took his mountain bike and rode along with us the entire way.

Looking down on Valle de Juarez.

In the village of El Tigre.

Our campground is located at 6,300', and the village of El Tigre is about 8,600'. So it was a pretty good climb! After that, we had a little further to climb before topping out at 8,940'. Then, we headed down to Mazamitla for a late lunch. 

The view from 8,940'.

The day had started off sunny, and I didn't think I would need a jacket. But up at that altitude it became windy and overcast. I don't know what the temperature was, but I would guess about 14C (58F). With the wind, it felt colder than that! I was a bit chilly at the top!

Coming back down, we came across Fred Flintstone's house!

Oh look... there's his car!

We made our way to the El Charco restaurant in Mazamitla where I found a taxi to go pick up the rest of our group from the campground so that we could all have a meal together. Again, Mazamitla was really busy and so were the restaurants. It was tough to find a taxi for them, and I even paid the guy in advance to go get them. It all worked out.

Like I said, the restaurants were really busy and the service at El Charco wasn't up to standard. But, we were in no real rush and I think everybody enjoyed their meal.

But when we were done, we had 14 people who had to make their way back to the campground. We went to the taxi stand and there were no taxis to be had. And, there were other people waiting.

So we walked down to the traffic circle and thought maybe we could find a vehicle to take us the 6 kms (3.7 miles) back to the campground. We really didn't want to walk that distance, plus the road is busy and not suitable for walking.

We saw a couple of guys with an empty box truck and I went over to talk to them. I offered them 300 pesos to take the group in the back of his truck, and the driver agreed. Not all of our group was there yet, and they had to wait ten minutes for everybody to show up. I ended up giving them 400 pesos, which is what we would have paid for 4 taxis anyhow.

The group got an authentic Mexican travel experience!

What a great start to a new decade!

Today is a rain day. It started at around midnight and it's supposed to clear up at 2:30pm or so. Not often we see this kind of precipitation while in Mexico at this time of year.

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A Happy New Year targeted deal. Some of you may not see this offer. A wide variety of household products... spend a minimum of fifty dollars and a fifteen dollar discount will be applied at checkout. And, a lot of these products are already on sale!

Spent $50 and take $15 off