Road Trippin’ Baby!!!

Nice, we’re done with not taking Iti’s ID picture at her university, and hitting the road for our first road trip since I got here. On deck: a weekend in Patzcuaro and Morelia, a town and a city (respectively) in Michoacan which is a state I haven’t yet visited. We get out on the road a little before lunch, with plans to stop for food in this one smaller city on the way. When we get there we called Iti’s dad for recommendations. He tries to hook us up with the best tortas in the whole wide world. Tortas are a particular type of Mexican sandwich; the type of bread is mostly what makes it a torta. They’re very yummy, you should definitely try one.

Well, when we called him we had passed the torta joint already, so settled for a nice restaurant downtown. But, we missed the exit so screwed that up nicely. We get out of town and Iti asks the toll collector where to go to eat: “My dad says always ask the toll people, they know the best restaurants”. Well they’re both right: the lady sends us to a taco restaurant just down the road.

I was stunned at how nice the place was. We’re literally out in the middle of NOWHERE, and there’s a row of little places for travelers. We get to this place, and it’s HUGE, and totally awesome! Very cool brick building, huge dining room inside, great rustic tile work, fancy wood chairs and tables, a fountain and sweet plants by the bathrooms, VERY nice bathrooms (a rarity out in the middle of nowhere in Mexico, let me tell you).

We sit down to get a menu and order, and the waitress brings out a couple barbacoa tacos as a little appetizer. Barbacoa is a traditional type of meat, usually goat meat, cooked a certain way with particular spices and such. We wind up in a barbacoa restaurant, in a region specializing in barbacoa. The menu was:

Barbacoa tacos
Barbacoa quesadillas
Alambre of barbacoa (basically a big pile of the meat with tortillas on the side)
Goat soup

A little tough to find fare for our resident vegetarian, my lovely wife. They did have quesadillas with rajas (mild chili pepper). We each got one (mine with cheese), and I got the soup and ate the “appetizer”. I discovered that I’m not a huge fan of barbacoa. But whatever, the place totally rocked! We ate our lunch then had some tunas (prickly pear cactus fruit) for dessert sitting under a tree outside on an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day.

The drive was just spectacular, and I mean SPECTACULAR. The mountains in that region are just breathtaking. Much larger, craggier, and more dramatic than the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, but much greener and lusher than the Colorado Rockies. The drive reminded me of the trip from Fort Collins to Steamboat in the summer, between Cameron Pass and Rabbit Ears Pass, but much nicer plants. And the FLOWERS! Oh my God. Brilliant wild flowers were growing everywhere along the side of the road. Corn fields had wild flowers springing up in their midst; the farmers probably hate the flowers, but I couldn’t get over how unbelievably pretty they made a corn field. There were stretches with really interesting trees, cool cacti in tons of varieties, gorgeous red cliffs (not sure if it was sandstone or what), and other cool rock formations: I’m telling you, just the drive would have made for a great trip. Between the views and the many cool tunes inspired by the scenery, not to mention that there’s rarely that much traffic on the toll roads, it was just the perfect road trip.

On to Patzcuaro!

A Chicago Gringo in Mexico