draft text notes Zactecas-Bermejillo

>Guanajuato to Zacatecas, Bermejillo, Chihuahua

The road from Guanajuato to Zacatecas was excellent, we made good time with a relaxing drive. Except! The periferico around Aguas Calientes was in absolutely terrible shape. At one point Art realised that the right side mirror was being vibrated inwards, to the point that vision to the right was being hindered. At the first opportunity he pulled off onto the lateral and stopped, dragged out the tool box and the Allen wrench, realigned the mirror and re-tightened the set screw then we returned to the washboard. Before long we were on the highway again, enroute to Zacatecas.

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We stayed at the Hotel Hacienda del Bosque, where we have stayed before, though it took some finding. There has been so much road improvement in this area since we were last here we mistook a new interchange for the one we wanted and found ourselves on the road to Guadalajara! We turned around then pulled off the road to enter the hotel coordinates into the GPS. A car stopped and asked what we were looking for and immediately gave us directions—we should have carried on straight instead of turning, we were still quite a distance away. Within a kilometer or so we recognised the route and were soon at the hotel entrance.

This is a five star hotel: indoor heated pool, steam room, restaurant, restrooms and showers for the RV park users and, rare in Mexico, a few spaces with 50 Amp service. This would give us hot water, the heat pump, battery charging—more than enough electric power for our needs. Positively decadent.

We dined in the hotel restaurant that night which turned out to be spectacularly mediocre. As we perused the menu we asked for the wine list. The waiter asked if we wanted red or white, we asked again what he had, so he wandered off to bring we thought, the wine list. Before he returned we had pretty much decided on what we were having, Gillian choosing the New York steak and Art the steak with mushroom and wine sauce.

The waiter returned and we struggled hard to not laugh out loud: He was carrying in his arms 6 wine bottles—it appears their entire cellar! We selected an Australian Merlot and ordered our dinner, cooked medium rare.

The food soon arrived, cooked to perfection but as Gillian said “that steak has never seen New York!”--it was twice as big length and width but was no more than three eighths of an inch thick! Accompanied by a reasonable serving of veg—mostly cauliflower and broccoli with a few carrots and a huge baked potato it made a reasonable meal—just not quite up to the standard of the rest of the hotel.

Unfortunately we had again not brought the camera so Art went back in the morning for a few pics.

pics

Zacatecas is a beautiful historical city which we have visited several times before and will visit again, but this time we were just passing through.

We did have a wireless connection here though they switched it off in the evening when the management went home for the night and did not reappear until after 8:00 AM.

Zacatecas, Bermejillo

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