I have to admit, I was a little nervous. Twice.

We knew that we could park overnight at the Botanical Garden near San Miguel de Allende, so that's the direction that we were headed. But instead of taking the busy highway between Queretaro and San Miguel, we decided to take the back roads and perhaps we would come across another overnight spot along the way.

I checked out the road on Google Streetview, and the paved section looked quite nice...but there was a 7 km (4 mile) stretch of unpaved road. That particular section doesn't even show up in our Guia Roji Mexico Map Book, but it is there on Google maps.

So, how bad could it be, right?

You win some, you lose some...

We're pretty good at finding decent (and sometimes great!) overnight spots when we're traveling in the motorhome. But ocassionally things just don't work out. Of course when we end up in a spot that's less than stellar, it's always only for one night.

We like to check out different possibilities though, and we had read about a hotel north of Queretaro that had an RV parking area. In fact, at one time, the Juriquilla Inn had space and hookups available for up to 70 RVs!

Only one problem...

Only 7 kms (4 miles) away from the historical central area of the city of Queretaro is a 2,000 year old pyramid. With the remains of a 140 year old house sitting on top of it!

We figured out which local bus would drop us off nearby, and paid the 8 pesos (65 cents CAD) each for the bus fare. We got off, still on the main road, and walked the rest of the way.

Considering this pyramid is not very well known, it's a fairly impressive sight!

First impressions

We've been in Queretaro for over a week now, and it seems first impressions rang true again. We seem to be able to get a feel for a city on the very first day. Here it is a week later, and we still think that Queretaro is a nice city.

And it helps with beautiful sunny days. We decided to go for a walk yesterday morning, and we first headed down to the big Almeda Hidalgo park which had been closed when we tried to go there the other day.

What can you buy for one peso?

First of all, we were originally planning to stay here in Queretaro for one week. That week would have been up this morning. But we're not quite feeling ready to leave yet! And it's still almost three weeks before we have to be in Guanajuato which is not that far away.

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.

Great views from the highest freestanding piece of rock in the world!

Peña de Bernal (The Bernal Rock) is officially the highest monolith in the world. This freestanding piece of rock rises 433 meters (1,421 ft) above the town of Bernal in state of Queretaro about 60 kms (36 miles) west of the city of Queretaro.

So yesterday morning, we took the local bus from the hotel where the motorhome is parked to the main bus terminal. It cost 8 pesos ($0.66 CAD) each for the local bus ride. Then, 44 pesos ($3.60 CAD) each to cover the long distance bus to Bernal.

A good day with new friends!

Long time blog readers Peter and Shelagh are from Vancouver, Canada but they are renting a house in nearby San Miguel de Allende and we invited them to come visit us here in Queretaro. So yesterday morning, they hopped on a bus and came to say hello!

While they were on the bus, we walked over to the bus station to meet them. But the Queretaro bus station is not that close to downtown...it's actually on the eastern outskirts, so we had a good five km (3 mile) walk to start off our day!

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

We woke up to rain yesterday morning and simply stayed in the motorhome. Ruth made a big pot of pea soup and we had that for lunch before going out. By that time, the rain had stopped, but it was still overcast and fairly cool for the rest of the day.

Ruth had a list of buildings that she wanted to see, so off we went.

New curtains for Sherman

Back at the end of September while still in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada we had bought new front curtains for Sherman. Just the material though...which still needed to be sewen into curtains.

The old curtains are just that...old. Twenty years old! Plus, they let through too much light, both when the sun is shining in, or when we are inside at night you can tell from the outside when there is a light on inside. This new material we bought is specifically made to block the light.

Yesterday, we set out to find somebody to make the curtains for us. Easier said than done!

Good first impressions of Queretaro

Beautiful blue sky sunny day yesterday, with a high around 23C (73F). Pretty much perfect.

Queretero (pop 800,000) has to be one of the cleanest Mexican cities we have visited. And apparently it's also one of the safest, as we have read in several publications. That probably has something to do with the fact that there are a lot of good jobs here, with a lot of international companies, and a more educated population.

Arrived in the city of Queretaro

Got up a little earlier than normal yesterday morning because we promised the caretaker at the university that we would be gone by 9:00am. He had said that he would be back to open the gate at 7:00am, but I kept checking and the gate was still closed. Eventually, around 9:00am I went looking for somebody to open the gate, and there was the caretaker on his way to do exactly that.

I asked him where he learned his English and he said that he had lived in Texas for about five years when he was younger, and that he probably hadn't spoken English in about 10 years!

Another adventure in Mexico!

We woke up to fog yesterday morning and had wanted to get an early start. But we decided to wait it out, and so it was almost 9:30am by the time it burned off and turned into a beautiful blue sky.

We crawled our way out the three kilometers or so back to the main highway, and heading in our direction the road soon turned into a construction zone.

I wonder where we'll end up tonight?

Sure enough, we decided to stay put, relax, and just enjoy the view from where we are parked. We're in no rush to get anywhere, so when we have a nice beautiful spot like this we might as well enjoy it. But, we are heading out this morning...don't want to overstay our welcome.

We did go for a walk for an hour yesterday though. Beautiful area.

Another great overnight spot...

We got off to a bit of a late start yesterday and it was almost 10:30am by the time we left our spot at the marina near Valle deBravo. Not a problem, because although we didn't know exactly where we would be overnighting, we knew we weren't going far. The goal is always to plan to be parked up by 2:00pm. That way, if you have problems you have lots of daylight hours left to fix them.

And so we began the steep climb out of the valley. The road out goes from 1,750 meters (5,750 ft) to 2,600 meters (8,500 ft) in about 50 kms (30 miles).

Time to move on...

We've enjoyed the past three weeks here at Valle de Bravo. It's one of our favorite places in Mexico. But, Mexico is a big country and we like  to explore and see what else is out there! So today, it's time to move on.

No idea where we're going to end up tonight. We're heading towards the city of Queretaro, which is only about 250 kms (155 miles) away, but we're taking the back roads and we don't know what we're going to come across.