Wednesday September 24
Travelled to Queretaro and then San Miguel de Allende. Lovely country. Area around Mexico city for a 50km radius is a high plateau, relatively cool and pleasant.
Time difference is still giving us angst - wide awake at 2.00 am, and dozing at 3.00 pm!
Our driver is very competent, and able to drive safely whilst talking most of the time to give us a great deal of history and politics.
Some comments which made us smile - ¨lemincheque" (let me check) and "get corpse" (I will remove the cork)
The rooms and service are quite varied - some excellent, some completely absent. eg our present shower has no curtain, the basin does not drain, and the door card only works once! Waiters everywhere are amazingly friendly, but one must hold your plate down and also your knife and fork or they disappear before your eyes! Coffee is acceptable, tea ok. Food so far is not too bad, although every meal has beans in it. No trouble with chilli so far, but we must be careful to ensure we check the ingredients before ordering a meal. Garlic chilli mushrooms were the highlight so far. Mexican red wine proved to be acceptable and relatively cheap.
We are staying now at the San Miguel de Allende, where the foyer contains an amazing feature - a well about 100 feet deep, with light globes illuminating the full depth. This was the original well when the city was first operational as a centre to check the transport of silver from south to north.
Note that there is only one passenger train line in Mexico, so people travel by bus and car.
More soon