Fiesta Montetaxco

Well, after another nice long bus ride (made longer by the many-hour delay at the border, for no apparent reason), we arrived in Monterrey. Our main goal here was simply to break the bus ride from Houston to Mexico City into two more managable parts, by arriving here in the morning, exploring, and leaving again in the evening. And it worked -- we left our bags in the luggage storage in the bus station and went exploring for ...

The whole stay here has just been strange. The first morning here I preached in a church - in spanish! First time since 2006! Even though I took out my guages and put in clear spacers, they asked me to take them out, as well as my eyebrow ring. They said I need to be "all things to all men" although that is not what it is talking about. The ministry gave us a nice little apartment for 5 days (full of cockroaches) in a ...

I am sitting here in the middle of Monterrey, Mexico. There is an air conditioner to my right and a clock ticking away to my left. All I can think about at this time is, "This is not what we came here for".
Rob is downstairs, having a meeting with the ministry whose base we are currently staying on. We arrived to the border of Mexico on Saturday morning. Starting at the Brownsville border, we bussed four and a half ...

... one of the lines to get the bus to Taxco. Some Mexican guy on the metro was telling his friends about the footy I had on me. He knew we were Australian and spoke a little english. We gave him the footy and he showed his mates how we handball and that we kick it! He asked about what we were doing in Mexico and wished us a safe trip. Another good experience with a Mexican! Once we got to the bus station we had a two hour wait for our bus to Taxco. We managed to ...

... Plenty of Irish ballads and music pumping from the car helped along with Packies singing! We stayed with friends of my uncles' called the Garzas for two nights. They also showed us around the city and surrounding areas, brought us out for dinner and generally gave us an amazing time! We went to the beautiful lake town of Santiago where Ever has a summer house and ...

... TOP END

Hostal Villa San Francisco, Estacadas No. 2, Tel: 01 (762) 622 - 7458, Web: www.hvsftaxco.com . This would be my pick of places to stay in Taxco. The hotel is only a year old and all rooms are well worthy of the price tag for what is on offer. Their current rates are 500, 650 + 750 peso for 2, 3 or 4 persons. They offer everything that you would expect from a top end hotel, including spa and pool.

Hotel Mi Casita, Altos ...

... nice day, please come again," and they both laughed. The woman doing the teasing had lived in LA for 12 years but recently returned to Mexico to help with her parents' business, as they were getting old. She was charming. She also told us that this town was one of the centers for the Day of the Dead celebration, and tourists come from all over the world to be part of it here... But then we had to hit the ...

... at 8pm until cancun....bad, very bad...Monterrey is pretty much 1000 km away, we check the other flights of the other companies...nothing...we check rental cars for one way....very expensive....

finally we make the mexican way: get in Miguel's car, buy 2 six packs and drive ahead as fast as possible...in the truth that was very cool to drive this landscapes, i could shot the train photo that i really like (see ...

... like and arrid in most parts with green cultivatable land in the valleys. One of my favorite parts of the trip was the bus driver (s). I sat up front and these guys have some sort of system of hand signals and waves that David Letterman needs to know about. There are lots and lots of long haul buses in Mexico and so there were many waves in both directions. It was great fun to watch and ...

... people from the USA are Gingos because when the US first came down to Mexico in their green army uniforms all the mexicans could say was `green-go` green-go!` So that is where the name originated. Me 1 - 0 mexican. All in all i have found Mexicans to be very nice people and i havent had any trouble or seen any trouble in all my 3 weeks here. Lets hope it stays that way. Next stop........Puebla. To stay with Mabel and her familia.