slowly she turned

First off, it’s pronounced kay-REE-tah-roh. I had to practice this a lot after weeks of saying qwair-ee-TAH-roh. It’s a big modern city with a Spanish colonial heart that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We flew there on Saturday, May 6.

I found a flight that our miles mostly covered that got us there in one day that stopped in Chicago and Houston. I’ve been using United Airlines and their Mileage Plus program for a couple of years now and I like United. The staff have been generous and helpful and competent. “Fly the Friendly Skies!” I didn’t choose them for a while because they aren’t the least expensive airline out there, but I’ve learned that some of these cheap airlines aren’t worth the headaches. Now that I collect miles and have the credit card, I use it for almost everything and I’ve found that they have better deals for customers in the miles program.

Anyway, part of the deal is that I get two United Club passes per year. I didn’t use those passes last year because I wasn’t on a flight that had a long enough layover, but this time we had four hours in O’Hare, so we went to the United Club lounge. And man, I will never neglect to use my passes again. There was a buffet with good food and drinks and a bar and everything was free. Comfortable seating as well.

As we came down for a landing at the airport in Querétaro, the plane was in the worst prolonged turbulence I’ve ever experienced. My motion sickness is so sensitive that I can’t ride in the back seat of a car and I’ve even gotten sick on a swing. We were already an hour late at the end of a very long day and I just cried and held my barf bag ready, but somehow I didn’t throw up. I could hear someone else throwing up. I will come to the point of implosion before I will puke.

I was communicating with the driver who was scheduled to pick us up at the airport with updates and of course we had to go through immigration and bag check. I was flipping back and forth between Google Translate and WhatsApp, a trick I started to get used to, since we don’t speak Spanish and our hotel hosts and drivers didn’t speak English. I thought that we were two hours late because of the time zone that my phone updated to, but the phone was wrong! So the driver was very confused because I paid him nearly double, since I thought he had come out to pick us up twice. Gas is expensive and it was a fairly long ride, so I wanted to award him for his patience. Turned out he was confused because he had made one trip and didn’t have to wait that long for us.

It turns out that Mexico has a very fluid relationship with daylight savings time, but I wouldn’t figure this out for two days.

Our room was in a cute little boutique hotel close to the Centro Historico. You would never know how lovely it was from the street. I knew that it would not be air conditioned, but I figured in May we could deal with it. (May is actually the hottest month of the year in Central Mexico.) It was a bit tough on the first night and day because it was so humid, but the next two days and nights were fine. It was decorated in a kind of shabby chic way, with bicycles and kitchen utensils and gardening tools around. It was a bit too hot to hang out on the roof terrace, but there was a pretty good view.

On Sunday morning I did my usual thing of getting my Google Maps directions turned around and we walked in the opposite direction than we meant to go, which meant that we did see a bit of the “real” street life and part of the modern area with its chain restaurants and a metro train. We ate a sandwich in a little coffee shop and drank the first of many, many lemonades and fruit juices.

Walking back I got oriented to the map in real life and the next foray out was a bit better when we went to the Alameda Hidalgo and strolled along the paths. Birds that I couldn’t see were rivaling our mockingbirds for crazy songs and noises in the trees. Finally I saw one on the ground and it was solid black with a tail that fanned out in the opposite way that most crows’ tails do. Turned out to be a great-tailed grackle, a very common bird, but one that fascinated me the whole time I was in Mexico. I never could get a good photo, though.

We wandered in and out of little shops and streets filled with vendors hawking tourist tchotchkes, stopping often for lemonade and bottled water. Outside of the Centro Historico, people were selling snacks and drinks and produce on the sidewalks. One place that I would have liked to have spent more time at was the Galería Libertad. It was showing huge prints and relief blocks by Victor Lopez and I was allowed to take a few photos.

After that we had dinner and mojitos at 1810 Restaurante and sat outside under umbrellas and a covering. Another big storm came up but we were okay where we were and just sat there people watching and chatted with the waiter.