Pátzcuaro, Mexico, with Muriel & Don

I flew to Houston a day early and spent a leisurely night at the airport Marriott in a room so familiar it might have been in my home. Muriel and Don Stauffer were to fly in from Philadelphia the next day, arriving with an hour to make their connection to our flight to Guadalajara.

I checked into the airport the required two hours early. Muriel and Don still had not arrived at the boarding gate when our flight was called. I was frantic. Finally, on one of my desperate visual scans of the area, I saw them arriving, Muriel in a walker. We made our flight, much to my surprised relief.

 

Guadalajara was a dizzying montage. Muriel eased herself gratefully into a waiting wheelchair. Its attendant took charge of the three of us, rushing us to the front of waiting lines at Immigration, baggage claim, and Customs. The Hertz agency took over the next thirty or forty minutes with delays in documentation, car delivery, and car exchange.

By the time we left the Hertz compound, Don was cursing at the car, which had the requested stick shift, but an unwelcome lack of power steering. We had a long drive to Pátzcuaro, so returning the car to Hertz was not an option.

The drive over excellent highways, double carriageway most of the distance, was pleasant but long. The land gradually rose to low hills, then large uplifted plateaus ringed by gentle mountains. Don commented on how dry and yellowed everything was. The higher we went, the greener fields became. The Stauffers apologized to me for once again delivering me to our hotel after dark. They know I prefer daytime arrivals. I assured them that I had realized in advance that we could not avoid being late.

We circled unfamiliar streets in Pátzcuaro for another thirty minutes before locating our hotel. Every time Don stopped the car, I was delegated to get out and corral the nearest Pátzcuaran to ask for directions. The third lot of directions delivered us to the Hotel Posada de la Basílica at the top of a hill.

The night receptionist expected us. Don was directed to the adjacent parking area, protected by high doors. As he turned into it, the car’s “out-of-gas” signal alerted him to our precarious situation. The clerk rushed us to our rooms. Without bothering to settle, we met for a brief celebratory Scotch before adjourning to the dining room for a gratifyingly good dinner.

 

The next morning, we staked out our usual table in the corner of the delightful dining room. Uninterrupted windows made up two sides of the room. The view from our hilltop out across the towns’ red tile rooftops was charming. Not far away, a cat slid off a shed roof down onto a simple walled roof decorated with long flower boxes and the family laundry.

Our rooms were interesting. The Stauffer’s room was notable for a spiral iron stairway in one corner, apparently leading to a loft they neither wanted nor intended to explore. The room had the corner chiminea (fireplace) I had requested, but a king size bed instead of the two beds I had specified for them. The walls of the generous bathroom, obviously recently remodeled, displayed a dizzyingly large checkerboard pattern in red and white tiles.

In the room next door I had two beds, a chiminea, and a large bathroom with a smaller, thank goodness, red-and-white tile checkerboard. An old fashioned claw-foot bathtub gleamed whitely in the corner of the room, parallel with my beds. As I gasped at it in wonder, I realized that it was a private spa with mirrors on the walls above the two sides of the tub and a curving wooden shelf displaying votive candles set in random holes. A floral arrangement at the end of the shelf completed the spa picture.

We all had unpacked when the young lady from the front desk appeared, obviously frantic about something. I took over with my imperfect Spanish and learned that we had been given “suites” by accident the night before. Those rooms had been promised to other people for the weekend. I calmed her down, assuring her that we would be happy to move, as long as we could have rooms with fireplaces. The relieved young lady led me down to the corner of the patio outside our rooms and showed me the two rooms that had been reserved for us.

The rooms were of gracious size with great, dark ceiling beams. They had some features we liked better than those of the fancy suites. The Stauffers had their twin beds. Both of us had chimineas. Wooden blinds in both rooms opened on French doors leading to small balconies overlooking the Basílica for which the Posada was named. We all were delighted with our new rooms.

 

Our first project after resettling was to get Mexican pesos. Muriel insisted she could come with Don and me—until she saw the hill we had to walk down.

“What goes down, has to come up,” she declared as she said she would wait for us in the Basílica.

Don and I walked down to the bank, exchanged money, and slowly trudged back up to our street and to the church to join Muriel. We strolled between informal mercado (market) stalls lining each side of the wide walkway back to the street. I was bemused at the sales stands extending in both directions on the lawn of the Basílica. Daily from our balconies we saw the stands dismantled each evening and reassembled and restocked early each morning.

We returned to the hotel. It was very cold. We spent the morning huddled around the fire in the Stauffers’ room. The Posada staff kept us well supplied with firewood, kindling, and “lightwood” sticks, which could be lighted with a match and used to start fires.

 

Around noon when the sun had warmed the outside air, we made a Pemex run. Don said he knew why we had run out of gas. “The tank holds only eight gallons!” he explained. Obviously the car also had very good mileage on our four-hour trip.

Exploring mid-town Pátzcuaro was an adventure. The traffic was the most undisciplined, erratic, boisterous I remember anywhere, including Mexico City and Paris. The several plazas were fairly ordinary—not that we could find a parking place so we could explore them afoot. How Don maneuvered through the traffic without ever touching another vehicle or, more likely, being bashed by one, I’ll never know.

We drove to the restaurant in the Hotel Don Vasco, on the edge of town, for lunch. We had eaten there when we passed through Pátzcuaro on an earlier trip to Mexico. The restaurant now was in an indoor patio with a fountain that attracted all pint-sized patrons. The food was as good as we remembered.

That night we ventured across the street from our hotel to a restaurant we had noticed earlier. The outside was nondescript. I went ahead to make sure it was someplace we would like. One quick look was ample to impress me, but the American owner met me and solidified my fine impression of the Cha-Cha. Muriel stalwartly came across the street with her walker as Don checked the street for traffic. We all had excellent dinners and decided that the Cha-Cha would see us again.

 

Muriel and I, both dedicated mercado aficionadas, were delighted at having what we considered our own personal market across from our hotel on the front lawn of the Basílica. After returning the car to its garage, we crossed over to the market. We walked slowly past each booth. To no one’s surprise, we pleased the vendors as we bought both gifts to take home and things we could not live without.

 

Little needs to be said about my Friday nighttime fall that hurt, without damaging, me. Blame questionable balance. A multicolored bruise on my forehead, a deep, 3-Band-Aid-wide scrape on my arm, and an aching shoulder were minimum inconveniences. I learned far more than I ever wanted to know about the difficulty of tracking down Band Aids in Mexican pharmacies.

 

Sunday Don suggested that we visit the Mayan ruins near Uruapan. The receptionist marked a map for him. We followed roads of decreasing size until we were bumping over a rocky trail with stones too high to get over and too large to avoid. We all decided we did not need to see any more ruins. Don laboriously turned the car around. The direct steering was giving him stevedores’ arm muscles. He never stopped cursing the lack of power steering in the car.

A roughly dressed elderly Mexican came up to the car. I took over my usual job of interpreter, though I had trouble understanding him. I decided he was urging us to turn back around because the ruins were just a bit farther on. We thanked him and gradually convinced him that the conversation was at an end. As we left, Muriel exclaimed with dismay that she should have taken his picture.

We returned to the last good road we had deserted for the rocky trail and drove on through several typical villages. We returned to Pátzcuaro on the autopista (divided highway).

 

On the Monday, we decided to drive around the large adjacent lake, Lago Pátzcuaro. Our immediate destination was the town of Tzintzuntzán. Muriel and I had vivid, happy memories of stopping at the market there on an earlier trip. My memory may be hazy, but when we reached it, the town appeared to have expanded from the mercado, modernizing it as it went. We all wandered through the improved market, finding this and that to buy, of course.

We continued around the lake, through a succession of small towns and colorful villages. Travel was slow because of topes—“sleeping policemen”—speed bumps that seemed to be a maximum of ten feet apart the entire way.

Noon came and went. Where was a decent restaurant? Nowhere we could see, though we went up and down streets in each town. Eventually we found one, its entire side open to the street. It was bright and clean, and we had surprisingly good lunches after a stormy beginning.

When I arrived at the table, Muriel and Don were arguing with the waitress in their limited Spanish, insisting that they wanted to order a beer and then would order lunch as soon as I arrived. The waitress, who spoke no English, was equally determined that they could not have a beer until they ordered lunch. Fortunately I was able to solve the impasse. We all ordered and, almost to our surprise, our cervezas arrived before lunch, as requested. Apparently our waitress was diligently upholding an ordinance designed to keep casual drinkers from taking up space in restaurants.

It was 3:30 pm by the time we returned to Pátzcuaro. Don left me at the Posada and took Muriel to the beauty shop. The hotel receptionist had assured Muriel she did not need an afternoon appointment. The shop was closed. So were two other beauty shops in the same block.

Later when Muriel complained to the hotel receptionist, she was told that all salons closed at 3:00 pm and reopened at night.

 

Next morning we waited until 10:00 am, then set out to find Muriel a beauty shop. All the shops they had checked the preceding afternoon still were closed. Muriel was not happy. She explained that she had not brought her hair dryer this trip because hotels all have them nowadays. She forgot we were going to Mexico. Actually, our first “suites” had hair dryers. The suites now were empty. I decided mentally to ask the hotel if we might borrow the hair dryer from one of the now-empty suites so that Muriel could do her own hair.

About the time I figured out a solution to the problem, Muriel let out a shout. We had passed an open beauty shop.

Don parked. I went in with Muriel to act as translator, if necessary. It was.

The pretty, plump beautician understood “shampoo” but “blow dry” defeated her. I finally mimed it and she nodded understanding. However, I could not see a blow dryer anywhere in the tiny shop. I asked where she kept the “machine” (the only applicable word I could think of). She opened a drawer and displayed several. Thinking all had been settled, I asked how long Muriel’s hair would take. Twenty minutes, the beautician declared, then repeated at my obvious disbelief. I left Muriel in her hands and returned to the car.

Don drove from one plaza to the other, fixing in his mind shops Muriel said she wanted to visit. Twenty minutes later, we parked again in front of the beauty shop. I went in. Muriel was in mid-shampoo. She told me that the girl had to heat the water before she could start. That obviously did not count toward the twenty minutes.

I decided to stay. It was a good thing I did. The girl’s blow-drying was a disaster. I made her discard her big brush and showed her how to encourage shape in the hair with her fingers as she blow-dried it.

Then we got to the curling iron. Timing was vital. I stood over her, showing her how to give the hair form without burning it. Muriel had an expression somewhere between hysterical amusement and sheer terror. Finally Muriel had a clean head of hair with something approaching normal styling.

Muriel thanked the young beautician extravagantly as she paid her. As we left the shop, Don called that he wanted to take Muriel’s picture in the doorway, under the sign. He took one shot then Muriel went back in and begged the beautician to join the two of us in a group picture. The girl was embarrassed, but obviously pleased.

 

Wednesday we checked out of the Posada. A long-time friend of Don’s insisted on driving from nearby Morelia to Pátzcuaro to take us to lunch. Fredo was an attractive young businessman. He seemed sure he had met me. We finally discovered that we had sat together on a bus to a large party in Tokyo some years earlier.

After lunch, we said goodbye to Fredo and drove to Guadalajara. We checked into the resort El Tapatío, where we had stayed on an earlier visit. There was a slight contretemps at the reception desk when Don discovered that their room had only one large bed. Instead of simply switching rooms with me so the Stauffers could have my twin beds, the frazzled clerk found another room for them far down the open passageway.

Our rooms again were enormous and beautifully appointed. I joined Muriel and Don in their room for Happy Hour. As we left the security of our building to walk a short distance to the dining room, a torrential rain squall hit. Muriel had her plastic head covering. I had my umbrella and offered to share it with Don. He refused and arrived at the dining wing soaked. We were seated in an unfamiliar, informal room. A few moments’ conference with the obliging waiter established that we were in the cafeteria when what we wanted was the formal dining room.

We made our way to the room we remembered happily from our first stay. As usual, we ate earlier than most people, so we had an unnerving number of waiters hovering over us. The supercilious manner of our principal waiter warmed slightly as he tossed shrimp in tequila sauce over an open flame at our tableside. Muriel and I were sure he was overcooking the shrimp, but the finished dish was superb.

 

Next morning we were off to the nearby airport early to catch our flight back to Houston, where we connected with our separate flights to Philadelphia and Belize.