Where are we going?

Ken has been in Mexico before but I have not. So, when this trip was proposed, he suggested I choose the destinations. He did want to stop in Querétaro, however, so that gave one data point for me. At first my imagination wandered all over, but when I actually asked Google Maps for directions from Tempe to Querétaro, I realized Mexico is much bigger than I thought. It is 1300+ miles and would take us at least three days of hard driving just to get there! And we were allowing only a bit over two weeks. Much of the time would therefore be spent traveling. Ah well, the whole point was to practice our Spanish. It didn’t really matter too much what we saw.

Luckily, there is a whole lot to see in the vicinity of Mexico City (Querétaro is a bit north of Mexico City). Ken didn’t want to venture into the city itself – said it was a nightmare to drive in – but I figured we could just circle around it (as much as the roads allow) and head back home via the coast. With a bit of searching, I was easily able to come up with three other destinations that interested me greatly: the ruins at Teotihuacan and Cacaxtla and the Monarch butterfly wintering grounds. I figured that was enough to keep us busy but not exhausted. A hand waving 2 days per stop comes to 8 days for the “destination” portion of the trip. With another 5-6 days along the coast on the way back home, the trip would end up being 16+ days. Close enough to the original two week time frame. Details to be worked out as we go. (It’s Ken’s job to do the actual logistics, so I’m not getting into that.)

That’s where we stood for much of the fall. Then Ken suggested adding a week of Intensive Spanish at the Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca – a city on our route between Puebla (our probable night base for Cacaxtla) and Angangueo (butterflies). I was agreeable and so now we are at three weeks. It doesn’t really matter, I just get to evade more snow in Michigan.

Here’s a map for the trip planned so far. The stops down and back are pretty likely, but I only put the scenic sights around Mexico City. I don’t know where we plan on spending the nights as we circle around.

As I said, this is just the current plan. The up-to-the-minute plan and actual route is at Mexico 2012. (The link is also given in the Links tab.)