The Silver City

Our wake-up call came at 8am.  We just aren't so much morning people on vacation (Although, my family I'm sure would insert here that that's no different from real life.  I have to disagree.  My professional life has made me quite the morning person; just give me my 25 minute ride to school and then I'll be ready to speak!).

Reed had told me I'd need to light the pilot light to get the hot water heater going.  I have a fear of gas tanks and fire, so we thought we'd wait til morning.

Well, then we decided we'd just prolong showering.  For one, we were about to travel; no need to get clean to do that since we could do it when we got back.  For two, since they had been traveling for the week and a half before, too, the house (mostly the bathroom) had been occupied by some bugs.  The ones in the bathroom were really gross and took me back to my Lipscomb bathroom cleaning days!  They're the kind that just spread and then hover when you turn the water on.

I digress.

We got dressed, left the apartment and grabbed a cab to do to the bus station.  Reed had left directions for getting there by bus, but we figured the last thing we wanted was to be late, so we didn't chance it.

We got to the bus station in time to get our tickets for the 9:25 departure.  I knew I'd be hungry, so we ran up to the Oxxo to get some water and breakfast bars.  

The bus was your typical charter bus, which is sometimes nice.  Through the winding roads it isn't always great because sometimes they close the curtains and you can't see the road.  BAD NEWS for someone like me.  Nice because if it's a longish trip, there's usually a movie...

Here's the embarrassing part to the story: The movie playing was AirBuddies.  It's the sequel (or maybe the third in a trilogy?) to AirBud, about a golden retriever that becomes a town's basketball star.  I obviously never saw AirBud.  And I laughed (maybe even audibly) when the screen said AirBuddies (AirBud and the neighbor dog have puppies).  Of course it would be an animal movie- a kid animal movie at that!

Okay, none of that I suppose is particularly embarrassing.  But this is: we enjoyed it!  We watched every second of the movie and really enjoyed it.  I must make some commentary here. 

1- The dog acting ability was way better than the adult acting.

2- I always love a good kids' movie in Spanish because it's easy to follow.

3- I really liked the movie and I'm totally embarrassed by that fact.

AND- sit down.  This is me talking now, May 6.  I can't stop thinking about golden retrievers.  I kinda want a puppy when I get back.

WHO AM I?!

Moving on.

The road to Taxco is super windy and mountainous.  Luckily, we had Airbuddies to distract us from that fact.  As we got closer, the views were breathtaking.  It's a really pretty town on top of a mountain.  We pulled into the bus stop and didn't know where to go.  We grabbed a taxi and it turns out you keep going UP to the main square.  The dominant figure on the square is the pink church seen below.

Let the pursuit of silver begin.  I had mad intentions of completing the female side of my Christmas list.  Unfortunately, there was nothing that stood out to me for anyone.  I realize that's disappointing, and I'm sorry!  It's hard to buy jewelry for others.  I had a ring picked out about ten different times for Grandmother, but how do you buy a ring for someone else?!

I fell in love with tea sets.  I wanted one for me.  That is, until I saw the price tags!  The weight of silver determines the price.  Earrings, quite obviously, typically don't weigh very much.  Bracelets on the other hand, do.  I always want bracelets as gifts when in Cozumel, but they always cost so much that I decline.  Same happened with these tea sets.  I had to defer my dream for when I come back to Mexico as a richer, older person.

We made our way through a market and bought a few things, but mostly made our mental list of things we wanted before leaving.  

All that thinking, pricing, listing sure made us hungry.  We couldn't make a decision about lunch based on our tour book or based on the restaurants we saw.  Luckily, a vendor must've read our minds and pointed us in the direction of this place called "El Fondito" that had homemade tortillas.  Of course, when we wanted a picture of the woman patting them out, she was gone...
We saw the family at the table next to ours eating what looked like some yummy enchiladas.  We asked what they were having (the meat choice on the menu of the day) and we were told chicken.  My gut told me enchiladas, but who's to argue with the waitress?  Well, our plates came out with chicken.  Like with the bones.  It looked delicious, but it wasn't what we had wanted.  She had misunderstood which plate we were referring to on the other table.  Luckily, because Mexico is such a great place, she took it back and replaced it, worried only that we'd have to wait a bit longer while our enchiladas were fixed.  We had each already had a soup/pasta plate.  Then we had our big plate of food, and I mean big.  Then we got desserts- we weren't crazy about them: a gelatin and arroz con leche.  No worries; we had seen a churros man in the square earlier.

We returned to the square and our man was gone.  But we passed the time in a great Spanish teacher store.  It was kinda upscale compared to the silver markets, but it also had things besides silver.  I went CRAZY!  I bought a beautiful corn husk doll (made completely out of corn products- ever her hair was made from the silks) dressed like the dancers we had seen on Sunday at the ballet folklórico.  The colors were amazing and I just loved her.  She'll make a great addition in my classroom.  I also found some really cute skeletons for Day of the Dead.  Finally, there was a tiny little Sinaloa doll.  Of course the dolls from other states had cuter clothes (I mean, what were they gonna do?  Dress Miss Sinaloa up in sequins, tight shirts and jeans with heels?), but Sinaloa was obviously the one that meant the most to me.

After dropping quite a few bucks in that store, we went back on our silver mission.  On our way was the churro man again.  He was a complete let down.  The churros were too crispy, not hot, and came only with condensed milk instead of caramel.  Boo.

After my mad spending spree in the teacher store, we bought silver rings, bracelets, and earrings to our heart's content.  

We had read in my Mexico book that there was a hotel that sold some "Special" silver designed by some woman, but that was sold to Neiman Marcus.  After we had worn ourselves out debating about our silver purchases, we grabbed a 15 peso cab to this hotel.  Joke's on us.  It was about 10 steps from where we were.  Due to the one way streets (or else to our cabby's attempt to confuse us), we went around the square, down one street, and around the block.  We just had to laugh when we got out of the cab.  The driver shoulda just said, "Give me your 15 pesos, it's right there."

We were sorely disappointed with the selection.  I guess when there are markets going on next door, it's hard to sell the fancy stuff.  The hotel was neat, but that was about it.

On our taxi ride around the block, we saw another market of sorts.  It was the typical Mexican stuff (blankets, hammocks, ceramics), but no silver.  We got sucked in.  There were some serious deals!

Damage for the day: 2 rings, 2 bracelets, 1 pair of earrings, a ceramic vase and little pot, blanket, 2 paintings, bookmark.

GET ME OUT OF THIS CITY!

We made our way back to the bus station (see the first picture of us waiting for our bus) and did a quick rundown of what we had bought.  We were actually surprised at how little silver we had walked away with...  It was almost regretful.  But we had been happy with our purchases.  No need to rethink it...