Patzcauro - Pastors, Peaks and Parkas

With Mexico experiencing a trucker strike, we settled into a motel's RV park in the historic mountain town of Patzcauro for four nights. We had the place all to ourselves, the only gringos for miles - even the Mexicans were hesitant to risk getting stuck inland.

Stone carving typical of the area, this one embedded in our motel wall

Our motel pool with its statue and glorious garden

Close up of the statue, with our communal cabin behind. There's our van in the distance

The wooden fairy bridge we had to cross to go to the bathrooms at the RV park - even a toilet trip was magical

Patzcauro was by far my favourite town in Mexico when we were here last, and I was so happy to see that the place has hardly changed. Then again, it hasn't changed much since the Mexican Revolution, when it was first preserved, according to most reports.

Founded some time around 1320, the village is one of Mexico's first "Peublos Magicos" and is unique in that it still maintains a strong indigenous presence despite the years of colonial rule. Plus, the gardens! Don't even get me started on the gardens.

So as not to bore people with the essays I could write on my favourite Mexican town (so far), below are our top 5 experiences in Patzcauro:

1. Patzcauro Chic

The town walls and signs are all maintained in a unique, unified style that immediately lets you know where you are. Some of the stores (and some of the clothes) might make you question what century you are in, but the aesthetic lends a feeling of earth and straw, mud and sky, wood and water - all set against the smell of charcoal grills and pastor tacos turning on spits. Walking the cobblestone streets takes you back centuries.

Typical store signage with red and black letters

A typical tienda

Another tienda, still decorated for day of the dead

Typical ceramics

Inside a Patzcauro indoor patio

Patzcauro courtyard

Templo del Sandtuario

2. Cerro del Estribo Grande

Despite being really high up - so high up I had to don my puffy jacket at night - we ran up or hiked up a mountain pretty much every day, often stopping at the top to use the Mexican exercise equipment, which pretty much consisted of one rusty bike, a sit up bench, and some weird, retro "waist whittler" called the FLZ Body Twister. Don't knock that thing - I felt sore in my waist for days afterwards!

Our favourite hike was the Cerro del Estribo Grande, which takes you up 422 steps, then across a steep ridge overlooking the city. We climbed those suckers twice (stopping midway each time to bend over double and catch my breath) - that's how much I loved that hike.

Estribo Grande hike along the cliffs

Autumn flowers on top of the cliff

Our van, looking out at Lake Patzcauro

3. Janitzio Island

See that island in the middle of the last picture? That's Janitzio, an island that is covered, every inch, by houses. Once, the island housed fishermen specialized in "butterfly fishing". (Watch a 15-minute 1937 documentary film, "Primitive Patzcauro" on it here.) They only do it for the tourists now, and it does look like it was a lot of hard work for some very tiny fish, to be honest, so I get why they don't fish that way anymore.

Now the island is full of people selling boob mugs and ypenis mugs. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a picture of them and they are not available online, so here's the closest  (cleaned-up) approximation to what lines the historic steps of Janitzio. 

There isn't a stairwell that isn't packed, but still, it's pretty amazing to see how they fit a high school gym in the middle of those labyrinthine streets, along with a graveyard. The highlight was the boat ride with a mariachi band, and climbing up into the statue's wrist to look out across Lake Patzcauro, You follow a twisting, steep, not-for-the-afraid-of-heights-crowd staircase to the "wrist view". All the way up are these graphic paintings of the life of local hero José María Morelos, one of which has a guy getting decapitated and the final mural (gigantic) is Morelos getting shot by firing squad. Dramatic and mesmerizing all at the same time.

Approaching Janitzio

Almost there!

At the top, ready to climb Jose

Stepping down. Carefully.

View from Jose's wrist

4. $15 Peso Pastor: While we did eat in the expensive tourist restaurants around the town square, the best food we had was the cheap eats at the bus stop where locals ate before going to work. We're talking $15 pesos ($1.15 CAD) pastor tacos with all the toppings. Top foods were street tacos, artisanal pizzas, "pasta" nieve (Patzcauro ice cream), and michelados.

Special of the day: 4 Tacos el Pastor and a Mexican Torta (sandwich) with a drink for $110 pesos (~$8 CAD)

The $15 Peso Taco. Never to be forgotten.

Michelados, three for one special!. Ooey, gooey, sticky chamoy on the glass' edge, embedded with crushed peanuts. Inside: beer, lime, lemon, Worcester sauce and other choices, such as shrimp, gummy worms and other tasty treats.

5. Fire in the Hearth: My final favourite memory of Patzcauro is having a wood fire in their ancient clay hearth in our campsite's tiny, shared cabin while we watched the sky darken over the nearby pond. Because it doesn't get better than that.

Fire in the hearth

But after a three nights of toques and puffies, it was time to head back to the sun and sand to warm up, refresh the rapidly fading tans and make our way to our favourite beach haunt, Peurto Escondito.

Hope you are all keeping well, and warm, and sending some Mexican fire your way!

A Tale of Two Breakdowns - Tepic to Tequila

 

Making our way inland, we first hit the town of Tepic, the capital of Nayarit state. We parked in a grassy field behind a suburban mall. We were at the edge of the city, but tucked in a tiny field-like enclosure with full grown trees and charcoal grills. We got excited about the idea of BBQ'ing, but just as we were getting ready to shop, we  discovered our first van problem: a flat tire.

Hard to believe it but this is camping in the city, Tepic-style

We pumped the tire then inched our way carefully  to the closest Llantera, which is a Mexican tire shop. The one we'd found on google maps was for motorbikes, so a kind gentleman in a stationary store (yes! they still have those here, pens, pads and all!) guided us to the end of the street to a tiny corner lot. 

Ivan pulled the van in and hopped out while pointing to the tire. His feet had barely touched the asphalt when, without a word spoken, a fifteen-year old boy pulled a red jack out of the shop and had the van propped. Grandfather offered me a tree stump to sit on. I'd barely sat down before father and son had pulled off the tire, fixed the leak, and sent us on our way. It  took all of seven minutes- and $7 CAD - before we were back on the road. 

Our Llantera team - granddad, son, father

The next day we toured Tepic museums and outlet malls. The streets and markets were crowded, and an international food festival was taking place. My personal highlight was eating a gourmet chef's (actually two gourmet chefs') menu at a renowned Tepic restaurant called Emiliano's with Mexican wine pairing. For the foodies among you, menu attached.

Braised Mexican rib, carrot puree and yogurt crema, served in tortillas

Inside courtyard of Emiliano's

Statue at the Tepic Modern Art Museum

Giant paper-mache hummingbird at the People's Museum

Food festival menu and pairings

From Tepic we went to a place we'd been eyeing for some time: Tequila! After navigating some tourist-filled bar wagons shaped like curing barrels, dodging cowboys on horseback, and rattling our way over cobblestone streets, we arrived at an old artisanal tequila farm called Distilador Puntual.  Puntual in Spanish is like punctual, but means more "right time", as opposed to "on time".

Our host, Jose, told us that his farm was handed down from his great-grandfather, to his grandfather, to his father and then to him. When asked who would take it over now, Jose, the father of two daughters, wasn't sure. But then he pulled a prize certificate from behind the bar, noting that it was his youngest daughter's; she'd just won a prize in a tequila sommelier competition sat the age of 17. So it looks like the farm may continue in the family for some time still.

Old iron gates of the distillery

The agave fields at sundown

The pool with its resident pet duck

Jose in the agave fields

As part of our stay at the farm, Jose took us on a tour of the agave fields. He stressed that unlike a lot of the big players, his farm was focused on small-batch tequila made the old fashioned way. This meant no pesticides or fertilizers - instead he relied on cows and horses to circulate the rows between the plants.

One of the animals "working" on the farm who demonstrated "natural fertilization while Jose talked

 Our host had been mayor of Tequila back when Mexico first ran democratic elections (in the 1990s) while he was still in his twenties. He was one of the younger generation farmers proud to have the area protected as an Appellation of Origin, meaning that only Tequila made from Tequila agave in Tequila can technically be called Tequila.

From the fields we went to the factory, where Jose walked us through the distillation process from "pina" (the harvested bulb of the agave) to curing barrel. 

Then came the best part: tequila tasting. Jose explained that there are four main types of Tequila, depending on the aging process:

Blanco: Also called Silver or Plata, this tequila is unaged or aged for a maximum of 60 days.

Reposado: Aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two months and up to one year. .
 
Añejo: Aged in oak barrels for one to three years.

Extra Añejo: Aged in oak barrels for a minimum of three years (Jose's was aged 10).

There is also Joven (Gold), a blend of Blanco with aged or unaged tequila, sometimes with added coloring or flavorings like caramel, but I don't think Jose considers that a REAL tequila. Likewise, he explained that there is liquor of tequila and other blends. But again, he does not recommend. Ivan, however, disagrees and says a jug of tequila for $20 pesos isn't so bad. Just don't try the eye test with this one (see below).

The type of tequila Jose recommends NOT buying from a street stall in Tequila.

We were joined by a German couple on a year's tour of America and two Belgian couples, one with children, who were driving through the Americas and blogging about their journey. All three groups, once they knew we were from Canada, agreed on one thing: they had spent way too long in Canada ("Why did we have to make it so big,", they wondered aloud to us, with the French adding, "and with so little in it?".) I agree that Ontario may be a wee bit too big, but I disagree on the "nothing" part.

Anyway, the Germans were great company and the Belgians asked good questions and insisted on half glasses. Which left more for us. It was all fun once the fourth (full for me, Ivan and the Germans, thanks!) glass of tequila was shared. 

Cool things we learned:

1. The Eye Test: To test the quality of a liquor - any liquor - do the "eye test". Or the "morning after headache gauge", as I prefer to call it. Put your eye in the glass (not the other way around, Jose clarifies). If your eyeball burns, there's methanol in there, which means that the liquor's fermentation was chemically accelerated and you will have a terrible headache the next day. If your eyeball doesn't burn, you have a pure liquor that has been naturally fermented and your headache is slightly less. 

Ivan trying the eye test

2. Harvesting cannot be mechanized. Tequila is made from the bulb of the plant. It usually takes 7 - 9 years to grow before it's harvested. A man who harvests agave, called a jimador, can pluck that bulb out in roughly 8 minutes, whereas it would take most normal people a day. When an agricultural company tried to create a machine to harvest the plants so as to make the process more efficient, they could never get it to work because of the size variety of agaves and the skill required. So it is still harvested by hand today, by men and women whose job security, they can be certain, is not yet threatened by AI. Watch the process of harvesting here 

Pina in the cooker - cooks at high heat and pressure for several days before being processed

Close-up on the pina

 3. The Agave fruit is delicious. As a palette cleanser between tastings, we were given a single agave fruit cut into fourths. It tastes something between a barely-ripe green apple and a slightly citrusy feijoa. Turns out that the lime and salt chasers we Canadians know from our tequila shot days are not traditional. Traditional in Mexico are sangritas, mixes of fruit juices with chili. Our German friends told us that Germans do the lime and salt for tequila blanco, but for aged tequila they use an orange slice and powdered cinnamon. Jose said he's heard of people using unsweetened chocolate as well. So many options. 

Tequila shot with agave fruit for palette cleanser

The next day wasn't too bad a hangover (thanks, natural fermentation) and we had to hit the road. Only when Ivan checked under the car, he noticed that the roads and the infamous "topes" - Mexican speed bumps that are rarely signed, often almost invisible, and remarkably jarring - had taken their toll. Our muffler was barely hanging on. 

Cracked muffler

There was nowhere to fix the car in Tequila, so Ivan patched the muffler with tape and we drove onwards.

Taped muffler

On Jose's recommendation, we drove to a small, and I mean tiny village, called Santa Elena. There we stayed at a Swiss expat's place called Charly's RV Park and Restaurant. 

In the town of Santa Elena, there was a church, a square, two convenience stores selling local tortillas that appeared blessed at the local church, and a chicken place that we had thought would sell us fried or grilled chickens but instead sold frozen chicken pieces across a plastic picnic table. And that was all it sold.

Territorial terrier on the roof

In our walk to town, we encountered our first (but not last) watch dog barking from the roof (they seem to put the aggressive ones up there to teach them boundaries) and got caught in the afternoon "rush hour" traffic of cows taking themselves home through the cobbled street to be milked.

One of several cows we had to wait to pass before continuing on our way back to camp

But the RV park was lovely, and we were able to have wine, real wine for once, and Swiss food for a change. Plus we got to explore the incredible gardens.

Our camp site among the gardens

Just one of the spectacular gardens!

The best part was that one of the owners, Denise, got us a mechanic in town. We were due for a service, and so arranged to head to a nearby almost-but-not-quite-so-small town for a quick service (or so we thought) and maybe some advice on our muffler.

When we arrived, there was no one but chickens, a horny rooster, some skinny dogs and a lot of dead cars. Not that promising. After a lot of misunderstood Spanish exchanged with a kindly neighbour, and much What's App'ing, the mechanic drove in from his roadside stop on his Vespa with his black sheep dog at his feet. This dog went everywhere on that scooter, apparently. Once he arrived, more Spanish, confusion, calls back to the RV park, failed attempts at Google Translate, and it turns out that our van, being diesel, took oil he didn't have and, well, this would take time. All in all, it was five hours for an oil change. We gave up on muffler advice and are still riding with our muffler in a cast as we speak.

Vanny in the Mexican mechanic's

I could stay here forever, but ...

By Sunday, the rumours had started: a trucker strike was coming on Monday. Already the semi's were lining the highways. The Campesinos would be joining them this time, and the roads would be shut down for God-knows-how-long. We could be stuck for days. In a town with three shops, one of them selling only chicken pieces. Flashbacks to the Ottawa occupation started to come back...

We had to move on, despite the offer of a Tuesday lasagna with our camp mates, so that if we were stuck, at least it would be in one of my favourite places in the world: Patzcauro. More on that the next post!

Hope you are all well and managing through the cold. We think of you all often!