[a few things before i start: 1. we drove. 2000 kilometers from peñasco to león, guanajuato, and then a bus to mexico city. that's a long way. 2. the day we were supposed to leave, my grandfather (dad's dad), died. so i went down to león and then took a flight up to california for 3 days to be with my family and to go to his memorial service. 3. before we left on vacation, i apparently had a UTI and completely ignored it. it made me quite miserable for this first section of the trip - thus, didn't see much of DF, and took barely any photos for this first part. flesson learned - don't avoid doctor's so much.]
i was, to begin with, fairly anti-driving. sonora is a massive state, and the center of mexico is really far away from here. but in the end, i was convinced, and although it was quite a long time in the car, it was actually really nice to have a car, and to see the change in the scenery as we moved south.
this, for example, is what it looks like when you leave peñasco:
and this is what sinaloa looks like:
ahhhhh green! i mean, even tucson looks green to me after peñasco, it's soooo brown here. and, we had excellent timing, because the end of august in peñasco is miserable. hot and ridiculously humid. in the center, the days are quite warm and the nights are fairly cool. so we escaped the misery for a nicer climate as well.
the first stop was mazatlan, where iván went to college. (on the way down, we were in a bit of a rush, so we just spent the night there with some friends, but on the way back, we stopped for a few days, so i'll write about and put pictures up of mazatlan on the return trip.) nice drive in - really pretty view and sunset.
and then it was on to jalisco, where i failed miserably because we did NOT stop in the town of tequila. nor did we stop to take a picture of the sign for the town of tequila. nor did i even drink tequila at all while we were traveling due to the very strong antibiotics they put me on in mexico city after i went to the hospital. i feel like i sort-of failed at a trip to mexico. [sidenote: the reason we did not stop is because by this point we were sick of driving and just wanted to get to león and thought we'd stop on the way back. and then we drove back a different way]
but. i did take a number of pictures of agave fields out of the window. because how fun is that. fields of agave in order to make tequila. like little tequila farms. i love it.
[the blue patches are the agaves. sorry for bad quality. this is what happens when you take pictures while driving.]
and then we finally arrived in león, in the state of guanajuato, where iván is from. this is where i really began to feel truly awful, so i'm afraid that we didn't do much. we did see a movie (yay! i miss movie theatres), and wander through the historic downtown, and chat with his family and friends. and we went to a soccer game, which was a blast.
yes, those are people climbing up the fence. there's also a great cheering section which was right behind us, singing and dancing and playing instruments. i doubt that they actually see any of the game. and then one of my favorite parts was that they actually serve plates of food in the stands. like it comes with a fork. haha.
historical león is really nice. we were there on a sunday, so it was full of people wandering around, enjoying their day off.
[the first of many, many cathedrals and churches]
from león, i hopped on a bus to mexico city, then a flight up to california. returned and met iván in DF a few days later. stay tuned for part 2 :)
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