Friday, November 21, 2008

Summer 2007 Car Trip - 28

The guided tour of Patzcuaro was a hoot. We were the only tourists on the bus and our guide did not speak any English. Yet we signed up for the English language tour. They graciously explained that the tour guide was not available and offered us a 50% discount on the tour! We did not bother to tell them that we would probably be able to understand the Spanish one as well!



Since we were the only two tourists on the tour, the tour guide insisted that we sit right behind the driver of the mini bus so that we could hear her better. She needn't have worried. Amazingly, and much to our dislike, she used a microphone loudspeaker system within the bus that about broke our eardrums! Never mind. She had given us tour sheets in English explaining everything we saw. We did our best to tune her out, read our badly translated sheets and enjoy what we seeing. Guess what? I did not take any notes of the tour and don't remember a single thing that we saw!



Tour over, we returned to the hotel to gather L for a somewhat early dinner. Around 7PM. We decided to go to one of the fancier, more upscale restaurants listed in the Lonely Planet. We needed a good meal and did not want to take any chances of L getting sick again.



We were escorted to a table by the waiter. The table was covered with a cloth tablecloth and the requisite hurricane lamp with a candle lit in it. The opulence of the restaurant stopped there. I don't remember what I had to eat, but it was not noteworthy. In fact, none of us enjoyed our meal at this place. (why do I never remember to write down the names of restaurants!) Besides the food being expensive and BAD, we were served wine out of glasses with chips on the rim, the china was cheap and did not match and also had chips. And we were given paper napkins! Before you think I am a snob, know that I use paper napkins in my own home. But I do not serve nor eat from plates and glasses with chips in them. For the price they charged for food, I would have thought they could have gotten their shit together a bit better.



We left the restaurant feeling cheated and underfed. We crossed the park and each had a vendor cart taco and then went to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day of visiting the surrounding area.

No comments: