Tempus Fugit Or So They Say: Saltillo 9/18-9/20

I landed in Monterrey MX Thursday afternoon. I was able to quickly get through customs and into a taxi to Saltillo within 15 minutes of being off the plan. Had a nice ride with some views of Monterrey and some mountains known as Huasteca. My limited Spanish and my drivers seemingly limited English made for a quiet ride. I made it to the hotel in Saltillo which is nice (Quinta Dorada) about 5 minutes by taxi to downtown. David met me and we had a late lunch/early dinner....of Sushi! Very Mexican of course. We went downtown for a walk around an I saw Plaza de Armas (the main square) which still had some decorations from Independence Day on 9/16. We also walked around the big park called Parque del Alameda. It was really nice and I commented to David how clean the city was and he said it was known as one of the cleanest in Mexico! It was a lot of fun walking around the city. We also went to Cerdo Babel which is David's favorite bar and a nice time (although I didn't like his favorite drink there, sort of a Bloody Mary type drink but with beer instead of vodka and some spicy salt around the rim. But I tried and will try again!

Friday we had a great brunch at Los Compadres where I had Gorditas (1 with barbacoa meat and 1 with chicharron). Very tasty! I also had an omelet with beans. It was all great and if I lived here I think I would live on Gorditas! After brunch we went to Museo del Desierto. It is a Natural History type museum that was really nice and I learned! Also had some live animals (black bears, turtles, rams, birds, tortoises, snakes and lizards). And a lot of varieties of cactus which was really cool to see. And of octopuses dinosaurs! Had a lot of fun there. After that, off to Museo de Katrina. It is all about Katrina who is a representation of death (muerte). The tour was all in Spanish and David was doing some translation for me, so I probably didn't get quite the whole gist, but enough to understand. It was a really neat place, and I would think unique to Saltillo.

After the Museum and another quick visit to Plaza de Armas for some daytime photos a sneak peek into Cathedral de Santiago we met up for dinner and drinks with some of David's friends and one of his brothers at Pizza Rock. A pizza place that is focused around rock music. It was a lot of fun and awesome to meet some of David's friends and his brother. I definitely need to work on my Spanish though!

This morning off to Monterrey, more to follow.

Plaza de Armas