Back from Mexico!

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We made it back from Mexico unscathed! We braved the food, water, insane drivers and managed to not get sick and didn't run in to any troubles on the road (either literally or figuratively speaking). What a grand time we had!

It took us over four full days to drive from Oakland to Manzanillo, where we stayed for 9 days. On the way down we stopped in several coastal towns, including Mazatlan and our favorite, Puerto Vallarta. Our main purpose in Manzanillo was to attend our friends' wedding, and Brian performed the ceremony for them - he's an ordained minister, didn't you know?! They had a beautiful wedding right beside the ocean, and everyone had a great time. Our other activities in the area included fishing, snorkeling, driving ATVs around the beach and hills, riding a zip-line about 1500 feet and just general sightseeing.

From Manzanillo, we headed northward for our return leg and stopped in Guadalajara (Mexico's 2nd largest city) for 3 nights. We stayed just outside the city in an area called Tonala, where the majority of all the great manufactured artisinal goods are produced. There are all kinds of workshops within about a 10 x 10 block area, which produce pottery, glassware, metalwork, textiles and jewelry and all sorts of art. We went in to the Guadalajara city center and spent time in a massive marketplace which spanned about 4 whole city blocks - just about anything you can imagine is for sale there, and shopping is the sole reason why many people travel to Guadalajara. It was a bit overwhelming, particularly because "gringos" aka "gueros" are vigorously targeted by all the shopkeepers since they see light-skinned people as great targets for sales. We were savvy shoppers however and came away with some great bargains, and saw many beautiful areas of the downtown area as well.

Continuing northward, we went through the town of Tequila in Jalisco where mezcal or tequila production began. We toured an amazing old factory which still produces tequila in the traditional method after almost 150 years in production. We stayed in San Blas, where we took a boat ride through mangrove forests and saw many crocodiles and majestic herons, egrits and other waterfowl. We revisited Mazatlan on the way back up and were left less than impressed by that city overall, mainly because of the scale that "Americanization" has occurred. Our final night in Mexico was spent in a "resort" hotel in San Carlos which was falling in to a state of disrepair. We were able to book an oceanfront room for $60USD and were 2 of probably a dozen guests in total who stayed that night -- the once 4-star resort had over 200 rooms but was obviously struggling to bring in business. San Carlos is a beautiful sleepy coastal town and seems to understandably be a popular retirement spot for Americans and Canadians. Unfortunately, our digital camera broke that night so we made use of our 35mm film camera the rest of the way.

After 18 days in Mexico, we crossed back over the heavily fortified border in Nogales, AZ and headed to Death Valley for a couple days of re-acclimitization of sorts. We stayed in Phoenix for a night and found a great little authentic Italian restaurant where we ordered a pizza which was about 6 square feet worth of pizza. We were expecting leftovers when we ordered the "metro" size, but we didnt expect to be eating pizza for 4 meals straight. It was really darn good though, and we felt like we were in college again waking up and eating nothing but leftover pizza for a whole day.

Death Valley is a special place to us and we were fortunate to be passing through during a better-than-average year for wildflowers. During our one whole day there, we drove from -196 feet sea level up to 6800 feet to the Charcoal Kilns which were built around 1870. From there we hiked up past 9000 feet to Wildrose Summit where we had panoramic views of the valley and even Mount Whitney. We were both feeling the effects of the altitude by the time we reached the summit so we made a brief stop and descended. After two nights in the valley we made the long 500 mile drive back to Oakland. Our Subaru was quite happy to have completed the 5200 mile trip, and we were all grateful to have made it back the same shape we left in!

While in Mexico, we ate all kinds of wonderful food, the best of which was generally $10 or less for the two of us to eat a full meal. We most enjoyed all the different types of salsas/moles and the seafood was excellent. The vast majority of people were extremely nice and went out of their way to help us find our way or to supply us with whatever we required. We saw little to no signs of the drug war that we have heard so much about in the press, but we certainly heard plenty on the news about the conflicts going on in the bad areas. We came away from this trip with a much greater appreciation of all the dynamic relationships that "Americans" have with Mexicans, and also an immense desire to learn more about their vast country.