Michael

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Within miles of leaving Creel on a bus to Chihuahua, the countryside dramatically changed. It was easy to tell that we had left the canyon country. Don’t get me wrong. There were still beautiful vistas, mountains, strange rocks, pine forests and dryness but the canyon was south of us now.

Our flight out of Chihuahua didn’t leave until 7:00 p.m., so we had a lot of time to get there. As we traveled northeast, the mountains and pine forests faded away to be replaced by wide expanses of grasslands, small shrubs and several varieties of cacti.

Approaching the town of Cuauhtemoc, we began to see miles and miles of heavy agriculture; wheat and fruit orchards mostly plus a lot of cattle ranches. Cuauhtemoc has a large population of Mennonites; around 50,000, who speak a German dialet called “Plattdeutsch.” We only had time to tour the area around the square and eat some lunch so Erica and I didn’t see any Mennonites.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the bus, exchanging contact information and talking about future visits. It took the bus quite some time to get through the city of Chihuahua, population over 700,000, as the airport was on the other side from where we entered the city.

Erica and I flew with the group to Toluca and then hopped on a cab for a fast, over 1 hour, ride to Mexico City International Airport where we would be staying at a hotel for just a few hours until leaving for Dallas, TX. All we saw of Toluca was from the window of a cab at 10:30 p.m.

We awoke after about 5 hours of sleep and headed to Mexico City International Airport. I couldn’t believe the size of Mexico City. As we gained altitude in the plane heading in a slightly northeast direction, Erica said, “Aren’t those pyramids down there?”. I looked out and saw the pyramid complex of Teotihuacan.

Wow!!! What a nice way to end our fabulous trip to Mexico. I have to come back now and tour the ancient sites around Mexico City and the Yucatan.

The rest of the day was long but uneventful. Time for rest.

Michael