July 20, 2016 trip to Ochumicho and Zamora and back alive

July 20, 2016 trip to Ochumicho and Zamora and back alive

We watched the end of the stage of the Tour de France.  A Russian Katushka rider named Salkin? Won the stage but the thrilling element of the race was the attempt by Richie Porte to whittle down Chris Froome’s lead.  Porte jumped out into a lead on the last ascent of the day and Froome followed and made up the gap.  No one else followed so every one of the other leaders like Quintana lost about 20 seconds.

Chris tailed Porte to the finish not helping at all and added a kick at the end to finish with the same time.  After the race Froome said Porte was the better rider,but Froome had the better team support; a generous gesture to the man that carried Froome up the mountains in years past.

We then ate breakfast.  Suzette made an omelet with the PPI beef and vegetables from our dinner several night ago.  As we were leaving to drive to Ocumicho, I stopped across the street for a fresh orange and carrot juice on our way out of town for 14 pesos.  

We drove to Ocumicho in about two and 1/2 hours. The GPS sort of got us lost and we ended up making detours on less than ideal roads.

Rural Mexico is still a third world country. Rudimentary facilities we take for granted like, water, sewer, and an interstate highway system, are luxuries that rarely exist.  Except for the newest and most important roads connecting the largest towns by cults (toll roads) there are few maintained roads, which means traveling miles on pot hole strewn roads or worse, where they have given out and by passes on rutted older dirt roads are used while maintenance is done to renew the more modern failed roads.

We were going cross country by GPS, which favors directness over quality of road, so we soon realized that the shortest distance between two points was by the best road, which,due to our lack of knowledge, became a guessing game.  We finally chugged into Ochomicho, a hillside the bvillage with a labyrinth of streets.  

Soon we discovered that we did not have to find the artisans, they found us and soon we were on a guided tour of four or five of the local artisans for a couple of hours.  Suzette bought several painted wooden masks and six small painted clay masks.  I bought an interesting bowl with Saint Miquel/George holding the scales of justice weighing good and evil and slaying a dragon that represented evil.

We the drove to Zamora for dinner at the Pink Panther Restaurant, recommended by Ann.  The Pink Panther specializes in one dish, carne asado en su jugo (grilled thinly sliced beef, chopped and cooked in a beef broth, served with cooked beans in their broth and garnished with chopped cilantro and onion.  It sounds awful but it is a delicious soupy stew.  We requested no chili.  We also ordered queso fundido (baked melted cheese), which we ordered with grilled small onions and is one of our favorites, especially when served with the fresh warmed tortillas being made in the entrance to the restaurant by a crew of three or four young ladies. We tried the chongas for dessert, but they were terrible.

After dinner we walked around  Zamora a bit to see its tallest church steeple in the Americas.  Here is a photo.

We finished dinner and left Zamora at 6:30 after being warned by our waiter to not drive at night.  We are foreigners in a land we do not know and a culture we barely understand, as we soon found out.  The road system in Mexico links small towns and villages.  Soon after we left Zamora we drove through a small village celebrating some festival which caused the closure of the National highway.  Although there were a mass of people, it  soon seemed to me to be a rouse to extract money because taxi drivers moved their cars from one of the blocked two lanes and readily picked up revelers seeking transportation and we were told that for $10.00 they would help us get through.  Suzette, who was driving, would have none of it.  Said, “This is a national highway. You can not block a national highway.”  But block it they did, so she backed a quarter mile in the only open lane and turned around and re-routed us around the blocked route.  Soon we saw a Federal Police car  driving at high speed toward the blockages it hits lights flashing, but we had already decided to divert our route, which our GPS said would take us 2 ½ hours to return to Patzcuaro..

Unfortunately, the new route turned out to be across a network of smaller unmaintained roads and dirt diversions.  Every small town one passes through has topes (speed humps in the road) to slow traffic to protect pedestrians while they cross the highway. The more urban the town the more topes; think each school and bus stop plus every urbanized neighborhood.  At night you must be particularly vigilant.  Perhaps that is why Mexicans say to not drive at night, besides due to the fact that horses and cows are often open ranging on highways and dogs are every where. So our 2 ½ hour return turned into  a 5 ½ hour trip.  We arrived back at the casita at 11:30.  One good thing is that the Mexicans take their own advice and rarely drive at night, so we had the freedom to use the entire narrow two lanes roads without much traffic, which was helpful as we were forced to swerve around pot holes.  I drove us back after dark because my night vision is better than Suzette’s. Luckily I kept the car on the road (there are no aprons that would allow one to pull off the road) and slowed for most of the topes.  The 71 mile return to Patzcuaro was an exhilarating driving experience  that I shall not soon forget and hope not to repeat.  I actually felt quite courageous and brave and lucky to have made it back with the car in one piece.  In the entire 71 miles, we probably only met about ten cars.

Bon Appetit