Author: Rae

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The Hotel Posada San Agustín, Durango

The Hotel Posada San Agustín, where I stayed for three nights in Durango, is in the heart of Durango’s historic Centro, right on 20 de noviembre, a main thoroughfare through the district, and walking distance to just about everything, including the Plaza de armas, where a lot of tours start from. I have rarely had the privilege of staying in the heart of a tourist zone and really appreciated being able to go back to my room for a break without having to make a huge effort to get there, never mind being in such a beautiful and architecturally interesting building! The neighbourhood was super quiet at night, with my only complaint being that the church right next door rings its bells at 7:00 a.m.!

The hotel is located a block from Zaragoza (all Mexican cities apparently have the same names).

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You enter into the first of two gorgeous courtyards:

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I was greeted warmly and checked in promptly, with my request for a standard room being honoured. They have suites, and I debated upgrading to a ‘junior’ one for a mere $50 more, but decided to stick to my original plan. My most pressing question once I had my key (and remotes for the TV and AC) was what to do with my truck. I was told I’d have to drive around the block and park it in the Palacio lot across from the archeology museum, get a ticket, and then the hotel would stamp my ticket whenever I wanted to take my truck out. The clerk drew me a map to make sure I was understanding her correctly. The lot was super easy to find and quite convenient to the hotel, although I wish I’d dropped my luggage first!

Moya spent the whole weekend parked  here, safe and sound, with 24-hour security:

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Back at the hotel, I crossed the first courtyard and went through the second (That floor! Those arches!):

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My room was upstairs at the back (my request), so I had to climb these lovely stone steps:

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The room was definitely ‘cozy’, but absolutely perfect for my needs. My bed had quite possibly the only comfortable mattress in all of Mexico (Croft thinks I could be right because he’s never encountered one!):

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There was a desk/vanity area:

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I liked that there was a switch for a light in the closet that automatically turned it on and off:

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This was my favourite part of the room, the chair and ottoman! I had something similar in my T or C apartment and is what I wish I had here:

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(BTW, I had that EXACT same carpet in my mobile house in Quebec. I see it a lot in m/hotels in Canada and the U.S. and am beyond amused that it’s also used in Mexico!)

The bathroom was adequate, with good hot water and pressure in the shower! The window opens to the stairwell!

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This fancy working phone by the toilet made me laugh:

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And I loved the phone by the bed!

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What I didn’t like about the room would be easily fixable. Since there is only a tiny window to the outside (above the desk), they put in a glass block wall by the door to let in natural and hallway light. But the hallway light is on all night and the roll down shade doesn’t cover the entire window. I ended up having to use the duvet to fully block the light.

I also didn’t like that there was a family of about 50 people (only mildly exaggerating) staying in the suite next to my room and they were LOUD coming in at night. No concept of indoor and outdoor voices and footsteps, but that’s a Mexico thing. If they hadn’t woken me up every night, I would have slept very well since the room was dark and quiet until 7:00 a.m. and the bed was comfortable!

The hotel wifi was terrible (would work for a while, then quit, then work again), but I needed to use up my Banda Ancha, so that didn’t bother me too much. I would have been disappointed if I needed to work.

I really enjoyed my stay at this hotel. It has a very cozy and homey atmosphere. I liked going down to the front courtyard in the morning to drink their surprisingly decent coffee (and an orange juice) and sit in a comfy chair to read the newspaper. The location was beyond perfect. I rather planned my days in a figure 8-type pattern so I could pop in in the late afternoon and have a rest. Durango taxis are apparently super cheap, but I never needed one.

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Driving the Mazatlán-Durango Cuota

I left home around 9:30 on Thursday, with my ETA in Durango being about 2:30 with the one hour time change. The Road out of Isla took me 28 minutes, but that’s only because I was taking my time. It was in surprisingly good shape!

I stopped for fuel in Villa Union, where there was also, very conveniently, an Oxxo (coffee) and a Panamá (goodies for the road)! I started on Mex 40D (cuota) at about 10:30.

To my surprise, the brand new road was in terrible shape and huge sections were under construction. It was very slow and tedious going. I didn’t take a lot of pictures because there weren’t many places to stop, including on the Guinness Record-holding Baluarte Bridge, which wound up being very underwhelming from the point of view of driving over it. There are tons of spectacular photos of it on the web showing it off from better vantage points than I ever had!

The drive was very, very, very scenic:

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I had plenty of time to admire the scenery:

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I liked how this tunnel is open to the world:

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Sometimes, I felt like I was on top of the world:

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I did not like this super, super, super long tunnel with lots of glaring lights. I drove it almost blind:

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A miniature version of the Baluarte Bridge:

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Here, you can see the tunnel with windows in it:

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Coming to the Baluarte Bridge. Lots of signs saying no stopping, no parking!

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At the end of it, I crossed over into the state of Durango. Another state for my visited Mexican states map!

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Welcome to the state of Durango!

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Weather conditions were perfect, increasingly cool as well as overcast, so I wasn’t baking in my truck:

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Coming into the city of Durango, there was a long downhill stretch. You can see a red stripe in the picture above. It leads to a runaway lane:

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First glimpse of the city of Durango!

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Stopped at a rest area just before the final toll booth and was amused by the bathroom door signage:

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Made it to Durango!

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Considering what a disaster the road is, quality-wise, even all the feats of engineering in the form of tunnels and bridges did not make the $500 I spent in tolls seem reasonable for how tedious this road was to drive. I looked forward to possibly revising that opinion on the road back!

Unlike Mazatlán, Durango believes in street signage, so with the help of my GPS, I found my hotel without a single wrong turn. The parking beside it wasn’t attached to the hotel, though, so I took some street parking to go check in and find out where to stash my truck. When I came back, I had a warning on my windshield that I was in a pay parking zone (metres) and would get a ticket if I didn’t move ASAP. That’s when I knew for sure I was in a very different world from Mazatlán, but more on that later. First, let’s get settled in the hotel!

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Off to Durango At Last!

I’m really glad that my trip to Durango last spring got postponed. I just know that I would not have had as good a time as I did this past weekend back last March, when the budget was so tight and I was only starting to get comfortable in Mexico. But I just finished crunching the numbers for the past weekend and the result is rather funny….

Last spring, I had a fairly strict 300CAD or 3,700MXN budget for the trip. To be honest, I didn’t have a budget for the past weekend. I was overdue for a holiday, Mexico is inexpensive, and as long as I didn’t do a ton of shopping, I wasn’t going to worry about how much I was spending. Well, the trip, including tolls, fuel, and lodging, cost me a grand total of 388CAD or 4,750MXN! I could have afforded this trip last March!

From now on, all prices are in MXN.

Like this past spring, I started by looking for accommodation. Not knowing then that the rest of the trip would be so inexpensive, I had a paltry accommodation budget and could only look at places outside of Centro. This time, I was willing to pay up to $1,000 a night to stay somewhere decent in Centro. Turns out that I didn’t need to spend nearly that much. The Hotel Posada San Agustin, rated four-stars by TripAdvisor reviewers, was right in the heart of Centro and a basic room was a mere $600 a night! Now, I knew I was getting a two-star room in a four-star hotel, but that was perfect for me. I wasn’t going to spend that much time in my room anyway! This hotel also offered free parking, which was very important! I will have pictures in due time. 🙂

That out of the way, I took advantage of not having a proofing shift on Thursday to head out for three nights. The plan was to drive the new toll road to Durango and the old libre back. I decided to do it in this order for a number of reasons, including that the libre takes several hours to drive and you ‘gain’ an hour on the trip back to Maz due to a time zone change, while ‘losing’ one on the way to Durango. I also preferred to do a narrow twisty road that would take who knows how long with home at the other end and I also preferred to coast downhill than burn a ton of gas climbing the switchbacks.

So with all that bla bla bla out of the way, let’s head to Durango!

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Discoveries

I am heading out on a much needed mini-break tomorrow, three nights in the neighbouring city of Durango! This is the trip I postponed last year. I think I will enjoy myself more this year, being more comfortable in Mexico, less concerned about the truck, and not facing snow. I’m losing a shift because of the American Thanksgiving, so I’m taking advantage of that to be able to go have a few days in Durango and still be home (most likely) for riding and my dentist appointment on Monday.

There is a possible big storm incoming, but I’m not too worried about that. The absolute worst case scenario is that the Durango-Maz road will be washed out by mudslides and I won’t be able to get home as planned on Sunday. Solution: alter my plans to include bring my computer (which I otherwise have no intention of looking at all weekend) so that if I do get stuck into the work week, I can just work from wherever I am. The second worst case scenario is that the Isla road could be washed out. Solution: park my truck on the Maz side and take the panga over, then go get my truck when the road is clear. I’m not getting my ‘DON’T GO’ prickly feeling at the back of my neck, so I’m leaving on schedule sometime late tomorrow morning!

I therefore needed to do a withdrawal before heading out. There is actually a Scotiabank right by my hotel in Durango, but I didn’t want to have to look for it upon arrival tomorrow, having only enough cash to cover fuel and tolls to get there, plus spending money, but not enough to pay for the hotel room. So after my shift today, I headed to town. I had just pulled into the Maz-side embarcadero when I suddenly felt unwell and realised that I hadn’t eaten anything since about 7:00! So I got out of the lancha and made a beeline for the pan dulce lady, picking up a tasty bun of some sort for $5, which did the trick.

Normally, I would just walk down Gutiérrez Nájera and turn right on Juan Carrasco, but today I decided to turn right much sooner and meander through a residential neighbourhood. I had a route to get to Ejercito Mexicano, but, of course, that didn’t work out because of no road signage, construction, and landmark closures. No biggie. I just wandered in the generally correct direction. The houses were a mix of what I would consider tenements and really nice structures, making it hard to get a feeling for just what sort of neighbourhood this was, economically speaking (much like Isla). The few people I passed on the street were friendly.

Just as I was bitterly regretting not popping into the last abarrotes I had seen to get a water, I spotted an oasis, a fruit juice stand! That was a pretty good clue that I was very near Juan Carrasco/Ejercito Mexicano. I ordered a small grapefruit juice with ice and was told to pay the ‘special’ price of just $10! Wow! I pay $15 to $18 for a juice in Centro and near the Malecón. Two blocks from there was Ejercito Mexicano, so now I have a juice place that is almost on my route to the bank, big Ley, and big Waldo. Getting misplaced paid off!

I ended up just a couple of blocks from the Scotiabank, so I darted across right away when the traffic cleared. For once, the machine worked perfectly for me. I then went inside to change my $500s for smaller bills, and I’d even written down how many $100s, $50s, and, especially $20s, I needed. The exchange rate is getting worse and worse. November 12th, 4,800 cost me 392.39CAD. November 23rd, they cost me 399.00CAD. Today, they cost me 399.80 CAD. My daily withdrawal limit is just 400CAD, so I cut it really close today!

After I was done at the bank, I debated going up to the big Ley to have lunch at the Chinese place and decided it was too hot to do that extra distance. I headed back towards Gutiérrez Nájera, only this time I walked on the Scotiabank side. It’s amazing the new things you discover when you walk on the other side of the street!

I passed a couple of interesting shops and then a tiny restaurant advertising sushi and Chinese food, a similar setup to the restaurant by the big Ley. I popped in and had a look at the food on display, which appeared very fresh. The exact same meal that I have at the other place was a couple of pesos cheaper and, overall, better! I didn’t like the main quite as much (the chicken was a little mushy versus crispy), but the hibiscus water, rice, and spring roll were tastier. So now, I have a better (and closer!) place to get  Chinese food when I get a craving for it! Never mind the sushi, though. These stores have Mexican-style sushi (very heavy on the cream cheese), which is not to my taste. I prefer to pay more and have it on Olas Altas or in the Golden Zone, where I can get more authentic fare and super inexpensive octopus nigiri.

I passed this hilarious sign in front of a bar on Gutiérrez Nájera:

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Roughly translated:

Husband Daycare
Does it get heavy around the house?
Does he bother you?
Do you need a break?
We have what you’re looking for!
Leave your husband here and pick him up later!
It’s free. Just pay for his drinks!
We have never lost anyone!

(That last bit especially cracked me up.)

So I’m off tomorrow. I don’t know how vocal I’ll be over the weekend since I’ll be avoiding the computer. I will check in on Facebook now and then.