MTY - DAY - 2

Today I went on a tour around Monterrey with Diana and Raul (the people I hung out with the previous night.) After a little bit of confusion what I thought was a full day tour of a number of sites that would be visited (and the Spaniard's confusion as well) was an all day excursion to one of the listed trips via Tours In Monterrey. Each tour was more or less in a different direction and with traffic not humanly possible to hit all the points of interest.

So with the recommendation of the guide we picked an all day excursion to Grutas de Garcia AKA Garcia's Caves, which included stops to

• Parque Grutas de García
• Casa de Rosa Museo de Arte Popular
• Lunch -- Restaurante Icamole
  
• Museo el Ojo
  
• Panadería

The Caves had a 2km guided route consisting of ~175 stairs (I don't recall the exact count), and a number of highlighted stalactite and stalagmite formations, a few mineral stains, and a couple of lighted formations for effect. Of course since the cave was discovered by a priest, a number of the highlighted formations had a religious theme. I wish I had my tripod and a few days and some lighting to really spend time playing with the texture and colours of the formations, but alas it was over far too quickly.

Next was Casa de Rosa Museo de Arte Popular, was a modern Mexican folk art gallery featuring a wide variety of techniques and materials, including

• Paper maché 
• Glass 
• Wood 
• Bird feathers 
• Textiles 
• Stone 
• Ceramics 

In the little court yard, I saw my first ever pomegranate tree. We booked it for lunch in a quaint little restaurant (Restaurante Icamole). Had hand cut corn tortilla chips with refritos and veneno, as an appetizer, a little bowl of menudo, and Asado de Puerco ( a fried pork in a yummy red chili sauce) which was the recommended regional dish of choice served with more refritos (refried beans) and arroz (rice) and a mix of corn and flour tortillas. Raul had arrachera, and Diana had a rib-eye. Our guide also had the asado de puerco.

Our next stop was a privately funded museum that was a converted estate Museo el Ojo. Again a wide variety of folk art from various regions of Mexico, but also a look at a historical estate house with stables etc.

Final stop, was a Panadería, with an old wood oven and a nice variety of taste treats and breads. The baker put a couple of trays back in the oven and let people pose with the peel. I tried avoiding participating in the pose for the camera moments, but Diana and Raul talked me into it. Me being a smartass though and having experience working with a peel popped the trays back out for the baker and he jokingly offered me a job. I graciously declined. After all I don't do mornings (even though I have worked as a baker's helper at it's-far-to-early-to-be-doing-this-o'clock) and it's too freakin' hot (even though I've worked on asphalt crews in Southern Alberta in the middle of summer.)

Returned back to the hotel exhausted. Headed back to my friend's place, but it's stagette night for the girls. Isaac, Raul and I hit Sierra Madre Brewing Company behind the hotel, and have a snack and probe their wares. Once the restaurant closed, Raul had a stash of assorted bevies, we hung-out on the patio, so the Spaniards could smoke and enjoyed the evening, until the señoritas returned.

More Later...
G

PS... the photos of the day are over on my flickr site