Pythagorean Dreams

Our friend Jimi has been playing and building various sized Pythagorean harps for years.  While staying in our little room in Tepoztlan, we are lucky to hear him playing it in the morning, the soft melodious sounds wafting through the bamboo screen.  Connie fell in love with the instrument and we started thinking about how to bring one back to the states with us. It turns out that Jimi's friend Mandrake, lives just out of town and has one that Jimi built for him a couple of years ago.  Mandrake has moved on to building hand drums and playing the Peruvian flute, and kindly offered us his Pythagorian harp.  We jumped into a taxi and drove out to see him at his studio full of instruments. We blessed him with some pesos and he blessed us with a beautiful harp.  Happy Birthday Connie!

Later that day Connie joined Jimi's jazz band at a local venue and scatted her way through a few sets, being joined by another singer, Estucia, and ended up with a packed house and way too much fun! 

Connie, Scott, and our Tepoztlan globe trotting friend Nancy

I had a car rental lined up for about a week so we went to Cuernavaca to pick it up.  The online deal was an amazing $5 per day... similar to a deal we got from Dollar at the Cabo San Lucas Airport three years ago.  On arrival, the agent pulled the bait and switch, telling us that we had to buy additional insurance at $20/day.  Not wanting to cancel our planned road trip to Puebla, we bit the bullet and paid the man.

In the morning we headed east for a scenic drive up and over the pass between the two volcanoes, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl. (17,159 and 17,801 ft)  Two days later Popocateptl erupted while we were in Puebla for four days.  Puebla was a a good break from Tepoztlan, a beautiful cultural city with many cathedrals and restaurants.  Our AirBnB had a KING size bed that was so very comfortable.  We slept and slept.

After getting bit with the extra charges on the car rental in Cuernavaca, we were concerned about our upcoming car reservation in Guadalajara so we made some calls and could not get anyone to assure us that the same would not happen again at that airport.  So we cancelled our 20 day car rental reservation then set about cancelling all our travel plans that involved us visiting places via car. AirBnB and Booking.com refunds flooded back into our credit card and PayPal accounts.  Sitting on the big king size bed we concocted a completely different travel plan for the next three weeks.

On the way back to Tepoztlan we saw plumes of smoke at the peak of Popacateptl. With one more day on the car rental, we were able to do a day trip to Tlayacapan where we wandered, saw a Quincera ceremony (15 /yo girl coming out), and had our first Carnitas (pork tacos) in a long while.

The car rental guy in Cuernavaca seemed pleased that we returned the car in one piece.  We didn't hold a grudge and everyone was nice.  We took the bus back to Tepoztlan and started packing our bags. 


Mexico offers old folks like us (Over 60) an INAPAM Credencial, which is a card that gives you half price on all medium and long distance buses in Mexico, so we picked up two of those cards to help reduce our bus ticket costs.  After a sad farewell to our new friends at Mason Amanda we grabbed the bus back to the Mexico City airport and took our flight to Guadalajara, buying an extra seat for our new Pythagorean harp.  When flying as a person, the musical instrument must take a window seat to 1. enjoy the view, and 2. not be an obstacle in case of emergency.

Carolina's family welcomed us to Tlaqauepaque

In Guadalajara we taxied to our next accommodation in San Pedro Tlaquepaque to stay with our host Carolina in a pretty place just blocks from the Mercado and town square.  We went for a nice stroll, found a bottle of wine and a wine tool, then had a lovely pizza before bedtime. Carolina let us stash some cold weather clothing and the Pythagorean harp at her place so we could travel a little bit lighter. (Only bringing one accordion and one ukulele, along with our luggage and a laptop.)

Another big soft bed and a great night's sleep welcomed us to the next day and an Uber to the ETN bus station where we boarded the most deluxe bus on the planet.  Sitting right up front, above the driver we watched the high plateau turn into salt flats then plunge through steep canyons down to the sea at Manzanillo, Colima.







From there the bus ran north along the coast to Barra de Navidad, a place we'd been to often on our sailboat Traveler.  We stepped off the bus into 80 degrees and 80% humidity and grabbed a taxi to the Cabo Blanco Hotel just in time for a quick swim in the pool before going out to dinner.

We found our old favorite place, El Manglito, with its thatch roof dining area on pilings over the water of the lagoon.  We split a bottle of "fancy" Carlo Rossi white wine that went well with our shrimp dishes.  How lucky could we be!  There was live music!  A large Mexican family was celebrating at an adjoining table with a hired 9 piece Mariachi band. Welcome back to Barra.....

Was there air conditioning at the Cabo Blanco Hotel?  Yes.  Did we turn it on?  You betcha Ya!

Next up:  The Costalegre - Boats and the beach.