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Dolores Hidalgo makes a great day trip from San Miguel de Allende. It is a Pueblo Mágico and the reasons are not hard to see. Not only does the town have an amazing history, the town is ground zero for most of the tile and pottery that is made in Mexico.
This small town was were the cry for Mexican independence began. Originally known as “Dolores” until Father Miguel Hidalgo uttered his famous cry for the “Grito de Dolores” in the early hours of September 16, 1810. After Mexico achieved independence, the town was renamed Dolores Hidalgo.
Today the ceramic industry provides income for over half the town’s people.The products are sold throughout much of Latin America and the United States. Driving through the town, there is shop after shop stuffed with pottery and tile.
Another fun and quirky think about Dolores Hidalgo is their home made ice cream. It’s not so much that they make ice cream, it’s the flavours of ice cream they make. Everything from mole to shrimp to beer or even tequila ice cream. The vendors are more than happy to let you try a sample before you buy. A must-eat treat while you stroll through the tile shops.
Cholula to San Miguel de Allende
From Cholula we head to San Miguel de Allende. Much of the drive is on a new toll road called the Autopista Arco Norte which is very expensive, but totally worth it. The Arco Norte takes you around Mexico City and it is good fast moving highway. Before the toll road was put in, it used to take us 6 hours to drive what now takes 2.5 hours. The cost for a truck and trailer is $595mxn ($46usd).
La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel
I first fell in love with San Miguel through Tony Cohan’s book “On Mexican Time”. This book should come with a warning: “may want to make you move to Mexico”. San Miguel has the art, people, architecture and history that first made me want to live in this country.
During the 1960’s, the likes of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Ken Kesey and Bob Dylan were said to hang out in this town which oozes with as much cool and charisma as they did. Every turn you make, every street you walk down is a photo op.
San Miguel de Allende has a large number of expats living in the community, which makes for an interesting mix of historic, modern and rural.
We have friends in this lovely city, so we always enjoy going back. We currently park at the Hotel San Ramon for $250mxn ($19usd)/night. This includes full hookups and WiFi. It is located just outside of town, a great jumping off point for exploring the city. We spent 3 days wandering around the city enjoy the amazing views.
This trip we celebrated Rob’s 50th Birthday there. Thanks to the New York Times: 36 Hours in San Miguel de Allende (why anyone would only want to spend 36 hours there, I will never know) we found a great little lounge with 2 for 1 wine, overlooking the city. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
Many people have never heard of Cholula. It’s now a bedroom community to Puebla, having been surrounded by the growing city. It is best known for the Great Pyramid of Cholula also known as Tlachihualtepetl (artificial mountain) with a church built on top by the Spaniards. For thousands of years it was believed that the church was just on a large hill, but upon closer examination it was found that the Nuestra Señora de los Remedios Church had been built on top of not one, but three or more pyramids.
The first pyramids were built in the pre-classic era. Then they were rebuilt six more times on top of itself. The Giant Pyramid is thought to be the largest pyramid in the Americas.
Nuestra Señora de los Remedios Church
By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the pyramid had become overgrown. With hopes of crushing the spirit of the native people the Spanish built Nuestra Señora de los Remedios Church on top of the hill containing the historic ruins. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that the pyramids were rediscovered and the excavation began.
Today Cholua is a bustling community with a near perfect climate and rich surrounding farmland. The local markets, steeped in Mexican tradition, are filled with local cuisine, fresh vegetables and beautiful flowers.
We camp at a hotel/RV park in Cholula on the outskirts of Puebla. Full hookups and some WiFi for $250mxn ($19usd)/night.
Mofles Aguilar
Our first order of business is to get the pipe leading to the muffler fixed. We know one has broken for sure, the roar of our truck is a dead giveaway. We also suspect that there may be a second break on the right side of the truck. We Google muffler shops and there are many close by. The first one we go to is Mofles Aguilar, they are busy, but not too busy. We meet Oscar who crawls under the truck. He says he can fix it, but it will take about 4 hours. Fine by us, that gives us the day to go into downtown Puebla. Four hours later we get a call from Oscar, there is another problem with the right side of the exhaust system, but he can fix it. It will take another 4 hours. At the end of the day we return to find the work on our truck completed. Total price $2000mxn ($155usd). Our truck is purring like a kitten again.
Catedral Basilica de Puebla
An $80mxn ($6usd) taxi ride through heavy traffic and 30 minutes later we are in downtown Puebla, enjoying the sites of this amazing city. Filled with art, history and architecture there is always lots to see and do here.
Puebla is known for is it’s Talavera pottery and tile.
They may take decorating with tile to an extreme. There are many factories and artisans making the wonderful, but expensive pottery in the area. A great city to wander the streets. We enjoy spending the day, just exploring the sites of the city.
We found this lovely staircase in a back alley.
Barrio Del Artista is filled with painters, usually painting what they know best, their city.
Just a side note, the VW plant is here and you can tour the plant if you make reservations in advance. We have done this in the past and it is an amazing tour (although they don’t allow pictures). Contact their marketing department a few months in advance to arrange for a look inside.
If I was going to guess at a day where things would go wrong, this is always it. To start with, the very expensive toll road between Villahermosa and the turn to Veracruz is never great. We left our campsite at 9:25am. All went fine until just before noon when we hit some rough road. First the truck started making some load noise on the passenger side. We knew right away that is was a pipe connecting to the manifold which we had just had fixed. It wasn’t too bad, so we continued on. Just after noon we hit a very rough stretch of road and suddenly BANG! The truck started to roar. We quickly pulled to the side of the road to find a break in the exhaust pipe leading to the muffler on the other side of the truck. Nothing was hanging down so we continued on to the next Pemex where Rob crawled under the truck and wired the broken pipe up to be safe. We were heading for Puebla, where they make auto parts for the entire country, our best bet was to continue on and get the problem fixed there. The truck was so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves speak and we had 5 hours of travel to go.
We had only lost about 25 minutes so we were still in good shape to make it to Puebla before nightfall until we hit construction. We waited in a 2 km line of traffic not knowing how long this would take and how far it would put us behind. Last November we hit two of these delays, the first was 4 hours and the second was 3 hours. These delays made us miss our target campground forcing us to park at Pemex for two additional nights. This delay turned out to be only 40 minutes.
In the end we made it, half deaf, to our campsite by 6:50PM. With only two stops for gas we covered 646km (401 Miles) in 9.5 hours. Also in this time we went from 37C (99F) to 13C (55F) and from -6 meters (-20 feet) in altitude to 2616 meters (8583 feet). A crazy day overall.
Next post…. How to get a muffler fixed in Mexico
Day two we hit the road to Villahermosa, possible the lowest point in all of Mexico. The city itself is below sea level in several places and frequently floods.
We camp at a place called El Gordo y San Pancho, which translates to The Fatty and Saint Pancho a balneario (swimming resort) with RV spaces for $250mxp ($19usd)/night.
The best thing about this place is that we usually arrive right as they are closing and they let us sneak into the pool after everyone else is gone. That means we get this giant swimming pool all to ourselves. It is great!
The one drawback in the spring is that we you park under a mango tree, which is ripe with fruit. Great for breakfast, not so great for sleeping as the fruit drops from the tree onto your trailer in the middle of the night.
The one thing you don’t want to miss in Villahermosa is Parque La Venta. This fascinating outdoor museum which was created in 1958. It features over six foot tall Olmec heads, that weigh more than a ton, from the settlement of La Venta in western Tabasco.
It also has a small zoo which showcases the local animals.
Of course you can’t touch the heads.
Parque La Venta features La Venta (the sites) most significant finds.
Day one is never an early or easy day for us. Packing up your life for the next six months takes a lot of time, co-ordination and work. It is late afternoon before we get out. We drive straight through Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
We only try to make it as far as Bacalar, 4 hours south of us, which puts us very close to the Belize border. We spent the night tucked away in front of our pal Jimmy’s place (a big Thank You!) in this quiet, little lake side community.
It is always nice to see a friendly face on the road and even better to have a kitty that curls up on your lap.
It always feels good to get on the road, but we will miss our little town.
Hasta Pronto Puerto Morelos.
Many people ask us about our drive from through Mexico, so I thought I would share the route we take. This is not the shortest route, going straight up the coast through Tampico is about 200 kilometers (120 miles) shorter, but it is a much more scenic route with much better highways and nicer stops. This will be our 12th return trip (that’s 24 trips up and back for those of you that are bad at math), so I would like to say that we have become experts on the trip, but you never become an expert at driving in Mexico. We have encountered so many shocking “road hazards” in our travels that I couldn’t even begin to write them all down.
Everything from trucks and horses….
…to driving beside this guy!
So off we go! We are starting our 2,745km (1704 miles) journey, and that’s just to the US border, we will keep you posted and go into more detail about our trip from the road. Be sure to check back here to follow along.
If you haven’t been to the ruin of Ek Balam you are missing out on one of the Yucatan’s great wonders. Located just 20 minutes north of Valladolid or 51km from Chichen Itza, Ek Balam (which means Black Jaguar in Mayan) is still relatively unknown to tourists. Restoration of this site only began in 1997. 
The city was at the height of it’s importance between 600-900AD, the Late Classic period. The site was abandoned for reasons unknown after which it the jungle took over the site burring it under thick foliage. As with all sites in the Yucatan, it was first thought to be hills until explores starting digging down to find the treasure below.
Much of the site is still being uncovered, but what you can see is amazing. It houses one of the last pyramids, Acropolis, in the area which you can still climb. It also has many exquisite examples of detailed glyphs and frescoes.
Currently it is one of the least crowded sites in the area, but it is quickly becoming popular with tourists.
If you are looking for the complete Mayan experience you can spend the night in the local village of Ek Balam. There fellow Calgarian, Lee Christie has the lovely echo hotel, Genesis. She offers classes in traditional Maya cooking, tours of the artisans in the area and nature trips to caves and cenotes in the area.
Convent of San Francisco in Kikil, Yucatan
We are constantly amazed at the structures we come across while traveling through Mexico.
This is the former Convent of San Francisco located in Kikil, Yucatan. Kikil is a small village just north of Tizimín with a population of 85 men and 78 women at last count. You have to love a place that you can count the men and the woman with ease.
This amazing church is not one of a kind in the Yucatan, there are many of them thanks to the Caste Wars. We recommend reading “Caste Wars of the Yucatan” for more information on the shocking history of the area.
As for this church, it hasn’t been used in hundreds of years. As it stands right now, it might be kind of nice to spend time in a church were you can really look up to the heavens.
