Cusco
I began with 4 wonderful days in Cusco, wandering, taking a cooking class, and attempting to acclimate to 3400m elevation. My adventure began with an adventure. LatAm airlines bumped me off my flight from Lima to Cusco! They put me on a later flight and gave me a food voucher, but it meant that I would miss the tour to 4 Inca ruins sites. 😭 I thought about crying, but instead contacted the tour operator, explained my situation, and they…
🎼🎶 On the Road Again 🎶
It has been nearly a year. A lot has changed, and yet much is the same. But now I’m headed off for another sola adventure. This is a “life list” adventure to Peru. I’ll be hiking the Inca Trail – 40km over 4 days, crossing multiple peaks, including “Dead Woman Pass”, a 4200m (~14,000ft) peak, and ending at the citadel of Machu Picchu. Then I will spend a week in Manu National Park in the Peruvian Amazon basin. And I…
20 months and 3 days (611 days)
That is the length of time it took from the Basha’s death until I had a valid and correct Mexican death certificate for him. But it is done! A lot of time and money for something that should have taken only a week. (Mexican law says the death certificate has to be issued within a week of the death.) There were small problems, one after the other, but each one blew up into a tempest (in a teapot!). The first…
Toluca diablitos – I guess I have a team
The drive from Angangueo to Mexico City is about 120 miles and takes about 4 hours. I had 2 more days before meeting my friend, CY, in Mexico City, and I did not want to have to leave at oh-dark-thirty to meet her flight at noon. I looked at places in between and chose Toluca, the capital city of the state of Mexico. My choice was made when I read about a place called the Cosmovitral, a converted Art nouveau…
Magical Monarchs
The main reason for choosing Michoacán was to visit the monarch butterfly sanctuaries. The season is November to March. I have vivid memories from my childhood of monarch butterflies and their caterpillar larvae feeding on milkweed. I think butterflies are magical, a feeling I shared with the Basha, who was like a gentle child around them. The town of Angangueo is the gateway to two of the sanctuaries. I booked a hotel in a neighboring town, Zitácuaro, that said it…
Uruapan and the Volcano
oo-roo-AH-pan not how I thought it was pronounced when I first saw it. Live and learn. The drive from Pátzcuaro to Uruapan was relatively short, so I scheduled in a side trip to Santa Clara del Cobre – a town known for their copper mining and copper art. While in town I also ate the most AMAZING carnitas tacos! I ordered one ($50 pesos) but it came with 3 tortillas and made 3 huge, tasty, filling tacos. YUM! The city…
Pátzcuaro: Adventures and Food
The drive to Pátzcuaro started the adventure! Road closures, traffic diversions, and Google maps sending me into town on practical cart paths. Cobble stone alleys with axel-breaker speed bumps (topes). I am sure that at least 2 of the “streets” Google sent me on were one way, and not the way I was going! 😂 The middle of town, where my hotel was located, was a complete zoo of cars, horses, tour busses, motorcycles, and scooters. There was a HUGE…
Pod people and Morelia
As I begin my next sola adventure, I am both excited and apprehensive. I think this is a good thing, yet I hope the apprehension doesn’t follow me forever. The lead-up to departure was as hectic as always. House construction, visiting with friends, holiday craziness, and trying to pack efficiently. OY! The flight to CDMX was easy, but delayed due to weather. We had RAIN in BCS, and there were storms in CDMX. I arrived late and had to find…
Still so difficult…
It has been 7 months. Getting out of bed has gotten easier, but other things have not. There are many “administrative” items that I haven’t been able to face yet. Luckily for me, many of them can be put off for a long time before they HAVE to be addressed. Today I started wading through the credit cards. Over the years, most of the credit cards ended up in his name, with me as a secondary card member. It was…
Amsterdam v.2.0
Final Installment for this trip. Last stop – Amsterdam, again. I stayed in the same hotel as last time – Hotel Abba. It is a nice, small hotel near Museumplein with lots of public transit connections and only a 30 minute walk to Dam square. Reasonable price, comfortable rooms – the first stay I had a single with shared bath and a balcony, the second a double with a private bath and a balcony. They are friendly, will let you…