Monterrey Madness with The Johns

Welcome back!

It was time to leave the Copper Canyon area and begin a few wild days with John's cousin, also named John. For the sake of clarity, I'll refer to them as John and Cousin John. Cousin John is a friend of an Aussie/Irish boxer who was coming to Mexico to fight a world championship fight against a Mexican guy. When Cousin John realised we would be comparatively close to Monterrey he invited us to come along. It wasn't hard for us to juggle things around so we decided to do it.

We flew from Chihuahua to Monterrey and couldn't believe the layer of pollution that hung over the city. It was awful!

Cousin John and his friends were staying at a large hotel so we joined them there. It was great to catch up with him and to meet his friends. They were in full party mode so we went out for lunch and dinner and followed dinner up with a bit of a pub crawl. In our last bar we found some live non-Mexican music which was fun! Cousin John and his friends are a tough lot though - they had all just arrived but jetlag didn't stop them!

The next day, Cousin John, John and I headed off on a road trip. Poor John had come down with a rotten cold at this stage and had to drive as well. Luckily the driving wasn't particularly difficult and we found our way to our first destination, a wine region around a town called Parras.

Our first stop was the oldest winery in the Americas. It was established in 1597! The Johns loved the wines here.

We followed it up with a fantastic lunch in a simple but excellent restaurant.

We looked for more wineries in the afternoon but they were either closed or only sold sweet wines, which is not the style the Johns like. (Note from John - there was another one, a famous one, way up the mountain, supposedly with excellent wine, but Hev wouldn't let me drive there. She said I'd already had too much red. Tough girl.)

Our accommodation here was one of the best places we've stayed in - large, spotlessly clean rooms at a great price.

Parras was a pretty colonial town with the usual pastel-coloured buildings. For some reason there were a few cool retro cars in our street.

There was a spectacular church in Parras. It was built at the top of a rocky outcrop. The photo here doesn't do the location justice. The sides you can't see drop away dramatically. It reminded me of the way that Greek churches are often built in hard-to-reach, hilltop locations.

The view from the top was stunning.

We headed north on a surprisingly good road and immediately starting driving through desert-like country backed by stunning rugged mountains.

We stopped for breakfast at a roadside gordita stand. The gorditas were delicious!

Our destination was Cuatrocienegas, known for its amazing Chihuahuan desert park. You have to have a guide with you to visit so we met a guide at the park office and he took us, and a Mexican couple in another car, to the park. There are 800 heactares here of dunes. They're very white because they're formed from gypsum. They were spectacular. Not surprisingly, it was very hot here!

Wind had carved some compacted areas into cool shapes.

One area of sculptured sand was called 'the castle'. 

Meanwhile, the Mexican couple had wandered off on their own. She had a lovely dress and high heels on - so inappropriate for the desert! - and he had a huge camera. It was clear they were here for a photoshoot, not to look at the landscape. The girl was posing everywhere and even climbed the fence around the castle and climbed to the top, despite it obviously being not allowed. They provided plenty of entertainment for us (especially for the Johns!).

Next stop was the famous Blue Pool. I'm not sure what made it so blue. It was a bit underwhelming though.

Due to its ample supply of water in an otherwise barren desert, the park is home to an amazing 70 endemic species, mostly tortoises and fish. It also has primitive organisms called fresh water stromatolites, coral-like structures that are believed to have helped create oxygen that enabled life to be created gazillions of years ago.

Our last stop in the park was at a river where some of these endemic animals could be found. The Johns didn't want to swim but I thought I'd have a dip. As an afterthought I took my snorkel and mask. I'm so glad I did!

I've only ever snorkelled in a river once, and it was really interesting to do it here. To top it off, heaps of small rocky structures were under the water. Are these stromatolites? I've done some research and I'm still not sure if they are or not. I can't believe they would let people swim around them and probably stand on them.

I saw quite a few fish but I have no idea if they were special ones or not. I didn't see any tortoises.

What I did find though were strange, underwater plants that had leaves that looked like a cross between cabbage and oak leaves. They created a lovely, unusual underwater garden.

I've never swam under water lillies before. It was so cool!

There were grass-type plants too.

Afterwards, we found some more wineries but sadly, the wines were still sweet. The wineries were lovely though!

We met a guy at a bar who told us that there was a big event happening in town that night. It was called "In the Clouds". They set up a crane in the town square and people paid 1000 Mexican pesos (a lot of money for many Mexicans) to have a one hour dinner suspended above the square. We went out to watch. It was quite windy and as they lifted the "dining room" up, it started to swing around. Serviettes blew everywhere. They ended up lowering it to about five metres above the ground and people ate their dinner there. Everyone was strapped into their seats.

I went for a walk the next morning and had to laugh at the town sign. They must have taken it down to make room for the crane!

On our way out of town the next day we walked up to a viewpoint. The road stretched out ahead of us for miles into the desert.

They love their statues in Mexico and I love those endless blue skies they stand against.

As we drove through a town a procession was taking place. We simply sat in our car and watched it go by!

I love the background of this photo. The two companies showing are Oxxo, the 7/11-type store that is absolutely everywhere, and Ciel, a mineral water company that I think we kept in business, we drank so much of their water.

As we drove along the road back to Monterrey, the spectacular mountain ranges rose and fell beside us. Weird yukka plants added to the cool landscape.

There were no towns for a long time and we were getting hungry so we stopped at a small roadside cafe. It was in the middle of nowhere and an entire family sat around inside, mostly looking bored. We ordered some sandwiches and could see a number of birds in cages in the cafe. Then John pointed out the birds above us. They were free and were perched on top of the chips and biscuits stands. We began to wonder if we were going to get salmonella poisoning but we survived unscathed!

More spectacular mountains.

Back in our hotel in Monterrey, we met people involved in the boxing. It was the most Aussie accents we'd heard since we left home! I had said I wouldn't go to the match as I assumed it would be a boys' night out but there were a few women going. I started to wish I had said yes! (Another note from John - it was only a World Championship bout - hardly worthy of skipping a chick-flick for.)

I had a night watching movies while John went to the match. They had great seats and it was a great contest with Dennis Hogan, the Irish-Aussie losing by a very small margin.

The first photo below is of Oscar de la Hoya, the famous boxer, who was treated like a god when he showed up.

After the match, Dennis was good enough to spend some time with his fans, including the Johns. He pulled up very well and was as humble as could be.

Cousin John and his friends all left to go home the next day. My John's cold got worse and I soon caught it too. As a result, we saw very little of Monterrey and a lot of the inside of our room. The view outside the hotel was cool though!

Til next time.

Heather