We left “early” from our awesome hostess house around eight. As they left for work we went to Starbucks to feed our coffee addiction and nail down a route, before leaving town. We often only prepare our route the evening before, being on a bike leaves you up to various possibilities of route. We now know that even when the gps guide says 4 hours there is a good possibility that it can take up to 8 hours, between traffic, poor road conditions, hunger, and soreness many short breaks makes for a longer ride and the breaks make the ride far more enjoyable.

And then we were off to Celaya, the drive was quick and relatively painless. We passed some awesome Lava Fields, something I have never seen.

As we neared Celaya the traffic slowed, then we arrived upon a seemingly crazy crash where a semi truck had took out a couple of cars and street sweeper. The semi was laid across the four lane highway. We later found out that there was no one died in the crash only 6 people injured. Some of the crashes we have seen have not ended so well, every time I see a crash and we are riding I think of my own mortality, and how fragile life really is.  The scenery we have experienced is unimaginable, I am so glad we are taking photos, it is like watching a movie on fast forward and hoping to catch some of it.

We met up with Mateo’s cousin, Ale, at a Starbucks in town and followed him to Mateo’s Aunt and Uncle’s house. Brenda was super welcoming along with Irune, and Mia (Mateo’s cousin and her little girl). And Kurt, Mateo’s uncle, was out of town.

The next day we decided it was about time we both got our hair cuts and with a reliable resource to do this we set off to Brenda’s hair shop. I thought maybe just a trim yet my hair was taking too long to dry every time I would shower, a braid was the best way to keep it under my helmet, and hair is a renewable resource. So I chopped it off up to my shoulders! Now my hair drys in a half hour, I use less shampoo and my helmet fits better.Kurt and Brenda are building a house on a couple acres outside of town. Brenda showed us the plans for the structure, it is to include large shipping containers. There has been a delay on the shipping containers or it would of been finished months ago. Irune has been working hard to get her small farm going including chickens, rabbits, vegetables and fruit trees. We joined her almost everyday out to the farm! I really love small farms, it is a dream of mine to have a small farm. 

Mateo and I ventured out to San Miguel de Allende, this is the city where Mateo spent time as a child due to his grand parents owning a house there. San Miguel has a European feel to it. Large towering churches, cobble stone roads, narrow roadways and many alleys lined with colorful buildings that are part home part shop at the street level. We spent an entire day walking around going to many of the Catholic churches. The churches are ornate, some of them you’er not allowed entrée with out proper dress. We were given a tourist map when walking around the street by a sweet old lady attempting to get us to get onto a trolly ride around the city. We declined and took the map. The most exciting Museum we could find was the History of Toys in Mexico Museum. Since Mateo and I are both kids at heart, we loved this museum. I do like looking at art but old toys and culture is so much fun. In addition to the rad toys we saw we also were able to a great view of all of San Miguel.

We then ventured through the city to find our selves in a fine art gallery, it was hidden in a beautiful open air building, since the weather is so temperate here many of the buildings have gorgeous courtyards full of plants. We were meeting Ale at 8 so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner. This happens to us frequently since our Spanish is so poor, confusion while ordering at restaurants. Instead of receiving our guacamole on the side we received and extra side of guacamole. Good for me bad for Mateo, he has an allergic reaction to avocados. Im still figuring out how to compile spanish sentences, that the main subject comes first then the details, so when ordering steak tacos you must first say taco then say what type of tacos. Once in Loreto Mateo needed to use the restroom so I was left to order us dinner, I was trying just a couple of tacos for each of us, fish for me and steak for Mateo. We ended up with a giant steak plate and A couple of tacos. Yes it was tasty, yet it was so much food!

I highly recommend putting San Miguel on your list of places to visit if you end up finding your self in Mexico.

Mateo and I spent many evenings walking down to the central park, playing frisbee and this is where we found our fist churro in Mexico, I don’t think i have ever had a real churro before. They pump the dough straight into a vat of hot frying oil, out of a mechanism that resembles a caulking gun. Churros are typically served rolled in sugar, healthiest way to eat them I’m sure of that. Celaya is famous for this carmel topping called Cojeta, its is a darker carmel than I’m used to and more sweet, and it is made with sweet and condensed milk. It has great flavor and topped our churros nicely, only bad part was they were really sweet.

We both enjoyed and felt really spoiled in Celaya, Breanda and Kurt have maids that have been with their family for 20 years its like they are extended parts of the family, Carmen And Ana, in they new house they will have their own section of the house, and their mother was the maid of Mateo’s grandparents. They are both exceptionally motherly and sweet, making us awesome traditional breakfast everyday and doing our laundry. This time imparticular I really wished I could speak more Spanish to thank them for taking care of us so well. Just super sweet ladies.

We were planning on staying three days in Celaya. So we packed up our bags and took off thursday morning since we arrived on Tuseday. Then moto started up great and we were off to Pachuca where we going to camp for the night. Mateo heard a strange noise coming from the moto, time to pull over.