A pillow menu

As soon as she heard that the Quinta Real Hotel had Pillow Menus Marilyn wanted to spend a night in the beautiful and unique hotel - it is built into an old bull fight plaza.

After one night of incredible luxury we were back to normal on a dirty local bus to a hotel next to the bus station that smelt of drains

Feria de Zacatacas

Zacatacas is a wonderful place that feels more like an Italian than Mexican town. Its 3 week fair in September is massive with 2 fairgrounds, a bull fighting ring, a 5000 seat cock fighting stadium, a rodeo stadium, a casino, 30 restaurants and night clubs, live stages, 100s of booze and food stalls and mad Mexican partying and noise. There are 10s of thousands of people partying every and all night.

In the centre of all this several brass bands with lots of drums compete to build a crowd of on-lookers and dancers. The noise is deafening.

There are no nasty drunks, no police presence, no security and no bouncers - just people enjoying themselves.

We had a great night, up to the point when at 2am chocolate and strawberry margaritas seemed a good idea We went back during the day. The cock fight tickets went from $20 to $70 (to put this in perspective you can get a good hotel room for $15 a night) so we went to the rodeo which was a bit boring. Marilyn has strong principles about cruelty to animals and refused to go to the bull fight but her principles were overcome by a litre of Margareta
In the town at weekends Mexican brass bands wander around the streets like Pied Pipers until they collect a decent crowd. Then the dancing starts and the whole party moves around the town. Anyone with something to celebrate brings along a large plastic bottle of tequila and small pottery cups and shares with the crowd. Often there is also a donkey to carry the tequilia. We were going back to the feria on Saturday night but got caught up in one of the impromtu parties - given a pot and tequilla (and whiskey) and pulled in to dance with the crowd

Cowboy Town

Durango´s claim to fame is the number of major Westerns made here, taking advantage of the perfect light and landscapes. We travelled out of town to see a village where people live in the old film sets and a film set that has been turned into a theme park

We wanted to walk the mile or so between the two. Our guide book and the tourist office warned us about packs of dogs, deadly snakes and the Durango White Scorpion that has a lethal sting. Now I am afraid of dogs, snakes and probably scorpions, so I have stout shoes, thick socks and long trousers tucked into the socks. I am walking as if on glass. Marilyn on the other hand has shorts, pink shoes and is prancing about as if she is in a English meadow. Suddenly with a screeching noise something jumps out of the scrub straight at us. I think it is possibly a pack of snakes riden by scorpions and almost jump into Marilyn´s arms. It was actually a pair of Mexican Partridges protecting their nest.
All worth the journey but it was hot waiting for a bus back.

Durango Chapaderos
Originally uploaded by tonypbarrett

The road to Durango

Travelling south down the Sierras takes us away from the small dusty towns to some of Mexico´s colonel gems. More often than not we are the only guests in quite large hotels and the only customers the bars and restuarants. Its difficult to see how these places make money outside of fiesta times.

There was a tremendous lightning storm as we passed over the Sierra on the way to Durango. Suddenly we stopped with lots of flashing lights ahead. A lorry had lost it on a corner and shed its massive load of apples. He was blocking the road and it looked as if we were there for the night because even some small trucks couldn´t get through and the traffic was rapidly building up. However, our heroic bus driver sent the conductor out onto the rain and inched his way past the wreck, graunching his coach in the process. We had to go off the road and right next to what might have been a sheer drop but all we could see in the dark the lights of cars way below. It was very strange watching this drama while the Transformers film played in the bus

Everyone is very friendly. In South America when someone speaks to you they have a scam, want to sell you something or rob you. In Mexico they are genuinely happy that you are visiting their country. Typical encounters involve people buying us drinks and the sober guy we bumbed into at 11pm who, having found out we were English, insisted we sang Beatles songs with him.

The food is great, although its all on a similar theme, every place serves up different salsas and the food tastes fresh and wholesome, so very different from the Texmex stuff we get at home.

This house belonged to the silver mine owner. He was well liked by his workers but like his contemporaries used indigenous people as slaves to support his very lavish lifestyle. Legend has it that one of the churches in Durango was built by an indigenous person who got rich by finding a gold mine. When the authorities heard this they tortured him to death but he never revealed his secret and the mine has never been found

When we were in Creel our bar friend, Ramone, found us the next day full of apologies. Apparently he got so pissed that after driving home (!) it took him most if the next day to recover and remember his promise. He took us to the hot springs and to the site of the new international airport where his job is to spend a year taking weather readings.

Marilyn´s men II

Idependence night in the bar with our new singing friend

Mexican Independence day and snake enounters

Strange day in morning everything went wrong but we ended up having a brilliant day.

Wasted 2 hours waiting for our new friend Ramon who we had meet in a bar and had promised to take us out in his truck, the `´famous´´ coffee house only a Nescafe, another one closed as we approached, we couldn't find a way into the Canyon, they cleared away the tables as we were about to sit down with our meal and when I say cleared away they took the put them on a truck. Stuck in Creel we took a taxi out of town so as to walk back the 6 miles and got lost

But it was at this point when we were trying to get a lift to the Valley of the Monks that we were picked up by a Mexican couple. The rocks were wonderful, the couple were great company, he had brilliant voice and they gave us beer. Walking around the rocks I startled a snake that did a sort of hiss and mini rattle and fled one way while I, making a scared girly noise went the other. I was told later that it probably was a deadly Coral Snake. The next day a massive Rattle Snake crossed our path

In the evening the Independence Day celebrations started with fireworks, fire crackers, speeches and shouts of Viva Mexico. Back to the bar at 11pm and the singing and music went on until 3am when we were all kicked out. We even managed to drink them out of Margareta

There is a 15 minute walk down a dark dirt road to our hotel dodging packs of dogs and strange people appearing out of the darkness. We did this for 3 nights and each time the dogs got bolder. Eventually one of them went right up to Marilyn´s legs - I always kept her between me and the dogs!. The picture is of one of the dogs having a well earned rest during the day