Saturday, October 18, 2008

Patzcuaro, Michoacan

October 16, 2008 Thursday

Photo left: Flooded town on the way to Patzcuaro due to Norberta and other Pacific storms. Below, numberous wetland fowl.


From Valle de Santiago we drove to Patzcuaro, a small village in the mountains of the state Michoacan. Patzcuaro is more than 7000 feet above sea level and is known to have a small foreign community. It has several markets, jardins, agriculture, and Native ruins close by, as well as being on a lake with other Native Indian communities.
The drive from Santiago took us around the outer edge of Morelia, a large urban area with more than 1 million inhabitants and some of the thickest pollution we’ve seen, per Bruce, since Denver where you can actually drive through the haze. We heard this city has a fabulous colonial center but at this point we met our quota of colonial plazas. We’re ready to move on to more remote places.


The habitants of Patzcuaro number about 100K and the town sits on the south side of Lake Patzcuaro. Some streets are curvy, some steep, but most flat. Almost all buildings are painted white with the lower half painted red. The markets are complete with all you can ask for. There are several restaurants, hardware and electronic stores also. Patzcuaro has a small town feel in the setting of quasi desert and forest flora. The temp was cool and it rained on and off during our brief visit.
Photo above: Outer edge of Morelia, note brown fog that you can see, smell and taste. Left: Lake on the way to Patzcuaro.

We easily found our choice of several 4-5 star hotels for 50-70 USDs; in the US these rooms would have cost 300-400USDs! We did the reality-PriceLine on foot. Being the low season almost all hotels were empty and we had our choice of rooms and price. We transformed into Bargaining-Power-Rangers. Hotel Parroquia was exceptional and we had the 3rd floor to ourselves for 585 pesos! There was also Hotel Grande and Hotel Refugio that were spectacular but Parroquia wanted our business more. All were outstanding classy hotels and I would have settled for any.

Photos below: Hotel Parroquia courtyard and right street market.

Below: My morning cafe.

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