At the convent in Guadalajara!

After staying on the beach in Mazatlan for 3 days, we felt very relaxed. The downside of being relaxed is we were somewhat mentally unprepared for driving to Guadalajara.

As we ventured inland, we started climbing into the highland of Mexico. Almost all of the large cities here are at 2000m above sea level. The heat was overwhelming and the van was starting to overheat as we climbed. After climbing over 1000m we had to turn on the heater to keep the engine temperature down. The temp inside the van was approaching 40 degrees. Naomi was only wearing a diaper and Emilie was wiping a wet cloth on her. Maia was in her underwear and looking very hot with her red cheeks. We stopped in Tepic to fill up and took our time licking popsicles in an effort to cool off.

The popsicles gave us all some frozen liquid courage and we continued going uphill. After climbing 2000m we finally reached a plateau and as soon as we did.......it began to rain. The clouds were waiting for us and we left the windows down and stuck our hands our the window.

Guadalajara is a town of four million. It is huge. We arrived at 5pm, just in time for rush hour. The drive seemed endless to get downtown and when we finally did, we entered into a tunnel that whisked us past our hotel. We drove three blocks past the only hotel in the area with parking so Emilie popped a uturn on a six lane road and headed back to the hotel. When we finally got to the right street we found it was a one-way so we circled the blocked and pulled into a very fancy hotel. The 3 or 4 bellboys were a little surprised to see a 24 year old van pull into like an old ironhorse, the steam slowly rising from its roof.

The hotel was fantanstic and was a refurbished catholic convent. By the time we ate, the pool was closed and it was time for the girls to go to bed. The hardest part about this day was that we drove all the way downtown and we didn´t have time to check out the city. We hadn´t left early enough in the morning.

Once the girls were sleeping, Emilie and I broke out the maps and the monocles and started planning for the next day. We decided to drive to Toluca and we would be leaving a 6am. By leaving earlier we will miss the hottest parts of the day and we can do some adventuring when we arrive at our destination. With the spirits of the nuns watching over us, we went to bed.

Emilie here...we are at an internet cafe now in Toluca, so we had to switch off writting the blog.
We managed to get up at 5 am, and we started driving at 6. We made it to our destination at noon. Our plan was to get a hotel on the outskirts of town, so that we could have an easy entry and departure in Toluca, then we could leave early the next day to hit Mexico city before 6:oo am.

Toluca is a small (500 000 pop) city in Mexico that is right outside of Mexico city. We are too chicken to drive in there. When we arrived, we were reminded once again that Mexico is unpredictable. We spent three hours looking for a hotel on the outskirts...van started overheating again...Maia was getting cranky...so we headed into the town centre. Exactly what we had planned on not doing!

At any rate, there is a silver lining to this cloud. We found a hotel, thanks to Adam and his amazing hawk-like vision. He spotted a parking garage that was hidden almost underground. We found a great cheap hotel, that is right in the thick of things. Toluca is a surprisingly great city. Lots of "plaza" culture. We had dinner at a chocolateria. It had wonderful hot chocolate (freshly crushed cocoa), of course, and churros and sweet bread, and something else that was made with chicken that Adam ate. We are not able to upload the pictures here, but we will try again next time.

We have to get back to the hotel now and put the girls to bed. We will try and plan our day again tomorrow. Who knows if this will help, but we will try at least.

Oh yeah...Sorry about the lame eighties reference in the last title. It just had to be done.

Love you!

The Coyle-Browns