Side Streets and a Trolley Ride

Quiet Streets and a Rock and Roll Breakfast

This morning we woke up early to see if we could take photos of side streets without cars interfering in our view. What we discovered was more traffic than ever as people hurried to work early in the morning.  We walked to the town square and went beyond the San Miguel Arcangel Church and discovered several quiet streets.  Since it was early, nothing was opened.  We happened upon the street again on Thursday and enjoyed it a lot more and found some great buys and even some better photos!  Here are pictures of what we found on Tuesday:

We walked back up the street quickly to look for the money exchange or casas de cambio and finally have some pesos.  No problems this time as we had our passports. We were hungry and I remembered a restaurant which faced the park. It was just up the street.  We sat at the open windows that looked out on the plaza. We ordered scrambled eggs.  When Shawn’s egg arrived, it looked fine.  When my eggs arrived, the whole plate was awash in a putrid grey color.  Evidently, they put so many mushrooms in the eggs that the color overpowered everything.  I said it looked awful so they offered to do it over with fewer mushrooms. The second plate was much nicer!  It was fun looking out and watching the people go by.  It was peaceful and quiet until a guitarist barged in and started playing and singing rock and roll music.  We were happy to leave after about 20 minutes of that noise. But before we left, the guitarist asked for money.  I guess we had to pay him for destroying the ambiance. We wandered around and took a few more photos before going back to our hotel.

Trolley Ride to Nowhere Special

We finally got back to the hotel.  We asked where to catch the trolley.  For not much money, we could ride through the winding streets and end up at one of the highest points to see a magnificent view of the city, or so the trip adviser said. It was another walk back toward the town square, but not as far.  We found the trolley and bought our tickets.  We thought we would get on as we had to wait 20 minutes, but wanted to sit where we could take photos.  We sat in the back which was a kind of separate area from the other people.  A good place to take photos, if we could have taken any on the bumpy cobblestone streets.  We did get a few.  There was tourist guide but she only spoke Spanish, and sitting where we were, I couldn’t really hear much.  She didn’t seem to acknowledge anyone who spoke English.  We stopped in one place where there was a huge palm tree in a small plaza.  She had everyone get out and she talked with the group. Shawn and I wandered around.  We met another American from Wisconsin. She was coming from Mexico City where she was studying Spanish for the summer.

After staying there about 20 minutes we got back on the trolley.  The trolley headed back the way it came from, so Shawn and I were afraid we were not going to see the city view called El Mirador.  But we headed uphill and came to the overlook point.  We thought we were going to have some time taking photos of the city, but they rushed the whole group off to a sweet shop ,where supposedly, the monks were the originators of the sweets we were given to sample.  I ended up buying a mango jam which was a bit on the spicy side. Shawn bought an icy pineapple drink with gum drops on top.  He got to keep the mug. I had a feeling this was a kickback situation, as the trolley driver was very interested in pushing the merchandise. We were there about a half an hour and then went to take photos of the view but only managed one or two before we were hurried back on the trolley.  We actually found a better view when we went for tapas on a hotel rooftop. We were missing one person so the driver had to get out and look for him.  The driver found him buying a drink at the sweet shop ,and finally,we were once more on our way.  This time back to the starting point.

This is a long tale so will finish in the next episode.