As we were leaving Mexico City on Tuesday morning the valet who brought our car up from the Sheraton's garage told us that on Tuesdays cars with license plates ending in 7 or 8 are not allowed to circulate in the city. We thought about our options and decided to make a run for it. Luckily traffic was light leaving the city and we made it out without being stopped by the police!
We drove to Teotihuacan which is only 50 kilometers northeast of the city.Teotihuacan was Mexico's biggest ancient city. They think it had 125,000 people at its height between 250 and 600 AD.
Teotihuacan has two very large pyramids that you see from a long way away as you approach the site. The biggest, the pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world. Only the largest pyrmid in Egypt and one other pyramid in Mexico are bigger.
The site is 20 square kilometers. We walked up the mile long Avenue of the Dead and climbed the Pyramid of the Sun which is 230 feet tall. I was huffing and puffing when I got to the top but the view was worth it!
From Teotihuacan we drove to Queretaro to spend the night. A lot of important events in Mexican
history happened in Queretaro. It is a really pretty colonial city that is a Unesco World Heritage Site. We walked around the historic center, went to the art museum which is in a beautiful former Monastery and sampled the gorditas for which Queretaro is famous.
Wednesday morning we drove from Queretaro through Guadalajara to Tequila. We thought that getting through Guadalajara might be difficult because of traffic on the city streets but it was a surprisingly quick drive on good roads. We arrived in Tequila and checked into the same hotel on the town square that we stayed in four and a half years ago when we were in Mexico. We have a room overlooking the square. This is the view from our room.
We really enjoyed the Mundo Cuervo tour last time so we took it again. It was interesting to taste the roasted agave that is squeezed to get the juice. We also got a lesson on how to taste and evaluate tequila and a margarita at the end of the tour. I didn't realize that Cuervo means crow. They have a crow named Jose in a big cage in one courtyard and a statue of a crow in the entry courtyard. This is a picture of the agave pinas as they are delivered to the distillery.
Today we awoke with a thirst for more tequila so we went exploring. There are many working distilleries in Teqilla and the ruins of many more. We went on the 1:00 tour of the Perseveranda Distillery which makes Sousa Taquila. It was a very interesting tour. Our guide was great. We sampled some more tequila and a different mixed drink with tejin on the rim of the glass.
While we were sitting on the porch of the Hacienda were the founder used to live, sipping and chatting with our bartender, it started to rain very hard. We had to stay at the bar and continue to evaluate and help with some quality control of the various tequilas produced at Souza. When we finally left (it took some time to find the exit) it had ceased raining, but the streets had turned into rivers. We made it back to our hotel and took a siesta, as is the custom here.
For supper we had tacos from a stand in front of the market, we had tacos of tripe, beef, tongue, chorizo, and pork. Dinner came to a total of $2.95 for the two of us. Later we shared an ear of roasted corn from a stand in the plaza.
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