Yorch Place

I spent the last week of may in Cancun, it used to be a nice beach, with nice malls and nice buildings, but it was attacked by several huracanes, and now it sucks.

I'm though, but it is true, I went to Cancun in 1988, and after that every year until 1996, I saw the city grow, at first it was an affordable place, with the most beautiful clean beaches in the country, white sand, blue water, nice tourists, and an incredible place to buy stuff like perfums.

This year I must say, it sucked, the beach is totally... well there is no beach, the sand is almost gone, the few parts with sand are all dirty, full of garbage, dead fish, beer bottles, glasses, paper, even clothing, you can walk trying to find a nice part and there is nothing on sight.

Also while walking I didn't see many people, maybe because the lousy beach.



The NH Krystal Hotel didn't have a beach at all, the stairs went directly to the sea.

Well the good part is still the nightlife, good clubs, and many to choose, the bad part is, TOO EXPENSIVE!, $60.00 usd just to enter!!! the most expensive nightclub I payed in other city was $30.00 and it hurt me a lot, but it was ladies free, so it was like I payed $15 for each.

Cocobongo, great show, bad service, Dady O's great music, bad service. Planet Hollywood, great place, great service, but no people.

The malls, well Plaza Caracol is dead, Plaza La Isla amazing, Plaza Kukulcan great, Plaza Flamingo very family friendly.

After a few days in Cancun, I never enter the beach, it was really disgusting, no place to seat, no service, no anything, so I went to Playa del Carmen, what a difference!, lots of people, great public beach, there was sand!, and service (food and beverages to your chair), and the 5th Ave, has a lot of restaurants, stores, and a open mall.

The beach so to be is Playa del Carmen, and Cancun is just another ugly Acapulco, lousy beach, dirty with great nightlife, at least Cancun is not full of chilangos (mexico city people).

Last weekend was a friends Bday, and we (the friends and myself) went to her hometown to celebrate, and by a strange but vey convenient coincidence the date of her Bday matches the Day of the Dead, which is a big party in her town.

She has a strange tradition, well we notice it until today, to celebrate her Bday climbing something, last year we went to Bernal, which is a mountain (big rock actually), and last last year we went to Patzcuaro, and Janitzio climbing the island and the monument of Morelos to the top, this year we went to a mountain next to her town, and we, as lazy as we are, decided to use the car, my car, but my poor little car couldn't do it to the top, so like 700m away from the touristic stop we left the car and walk, we saw everything from that height, but there was another half of the mountain to climb, and we used the easy path, the stairs... there are stairs there for the last part of the mountain, 420 steps to be exact, and we climb it, up and down, so EXHAUSTED!!

The doctors said that every step is 5 seconds of more life, but my knees don't feel that way...


This is half the way in the stairs


Too many stairs

The worst stairs I ever climbed in my life where in Michoacan too, they have a facination to those, it was the Tzararacua fall (waterfall), it has over 800 stairs.

Last week I was in the city of "Puebla de Zaragoza" in the state of "Puebla de los Ángeles", this was the second most important city in the viceroyalty, it is one of the biggest cities, and it is probably one of the most "MEXICAN" nature in it, since many mexican dishes where created in this city, it is also home of one of the most beautiful Cathedrals in Latin America, really impressive cathedral.

I was in this city for second time in my life, the first time I had 3 years old, so I don't have any memories of that.

In Puebla the Mole Poblano was invented, is the sauce that is prepared with chocolate, the rompope (mexican egg nog), camotes de frutas (sweet potato candy), talavera (china), chiles en nogada (chiles prepared specially for the emperor Agustin I conmemorating the victory over Spain), chalupas and so many other great things.

I visited the Conventions centre, the church of "San Francisco", the cathedral, the city Zocalo, the municipal palace and goverment palace, I even have a photo taken with the governor of the state, very famous "Gober precioso" (precious gover) he is famous because a recording that show the public how corrupt he is, and very bad mouth, he is like a tourist attraction too.

There so many things to say about Puebla, and so little time, so I will made it short, IT IS BEAUTIFUL and large, and poblanos (people from puebla) love the hunk of the cars, every single time you hear them.

Here some photos.

Acambaro in the neighbor state of Guanajuato is located just one hour away from Queretaro, it is a town of 80,000 people, the town is home of some of my friends, and several people from there study at my college or other colleges in my city, it is also a town really near the home town of my mother's native town Salvatierra.

It is a easy to walk town, since the longest distance you need to walk is like 5km.

Acambaro is famous for it bread, not every bread, only the one with the name of the city "Acambaro" and "Acambaritas" which is a simple looking bread but very tasty and it is great to eat with hot chocolate.

I visited the house of a friend and his mom.

Here some photos.

I went for two days to Zacatecas a mining town in the north of Mexico, it is a neighbor of Aguascalientes and Jalisco, the city of Zacatecas is famous because of its minning activities, it is still (since time of the viceroyalty) the most important mining city in the country, and it is the biggest producer of silver.

Zacatecas as all the minning towns I know is located in the mountains, it's streets have no sense at all, not like the square design of the other colonial cities, like my own, but still it has a better urbanization than Guanajuato or Taxco.

One of the most important sites in the city is the Cathedral, it is barroque and churrigueresca (don't know the translation for this) the Fatima church which is Neo Gotic and a replica of the Fatima church in Portugal, the cable cars (I think is the only city in Mexico with cable car), and many other colonial treasures.

In the downtown there is a hotel named "Quinta Real" which was built using the old bullring of "San Pedro" which makes this hotel unique and give it another reason to charge over $250.00 usd per night.

Next to this hotel there is the old Aqueduct, in its glorious days it was 3 km long, according to the guide, and is not as tall as the one in Queretaro, but is pretty and worth to visit.

Next to the cathedral you can find the goverment buildings, historic masions that once belonged to the spanish viceroyalty goverment.

I took some photos, with my mobile phone, since I'm still cameraless.

Eventhoug the city is located in the middle of the desert, it is very fresh all year long, and even in winter, very cold, that is because of it height, it is located 2,300m over the sea level.

To see more photos go here