Tuesday, April 07, 2009

What goes around, comes around


Morelia's eastern and northeastern areas are less familiar to us than the southern and southwestern areas where we normally shop.
"The city is the biggest in the state, and the population of the conurbated area was 642,319 people (608,049 in the city of Morelia), according to the census of 2005..."
(wikipedia.org)

We know how to get to the Airport by the western peripheral highway, past the Bus Station, or up the more direct but often traffic clogged Calzada La Huerta-Héroes de Nocupetaro-Avenida Morelos Norte.

We left the MLM Airport yesterday morning, and with hopes for a simpler route, took the new toll road "Short cut" east of the city. It which turned out to be not so short. It debouched (no, not debauched) us into a major construction zone, where a huge trench, The Excavation From Hell, lay at the key city street intersection to where we'd really wanted to go. At that point my mental GPS crashed, and after at least one fruitless loop, we ended up taking an unplanned serial circuit back around the north side of the city. Fortunately, the traffic wasn't too bad once we emerged from the construction zone.
(General Confusion Fault Zone on this zoomable, draggable map.)

This meant that we had to skip the breakfast at Bisquets Obregón (not a major disappointment), and at it also seemed our shopping at Costco was doomed.

(enter sheepish pun area)
But what goes around, comes around, and nowhere does it apply better than to peripheral highways. We completed about two-thirds of the giant loop of the north side, and eventually found a parking spot near "Barbacoa de Borrego José Luis", about a 1/2 mile from Costco. The specialty there (and not much more than this) is pit-steamed mutton, wrapped in pencas de maguey (leaves of the agave plant), cooked for hours, until the meat is fork-less tender and a delicious consomé is produced. You can make your own tacos with the fresh, hot tortillas they bring you, or put the meat in the bowl of consomé, or order "montalayo", which we didn't, a sort of Mexican "haggis" of spiced, chopped sheeps's innards, usually eaten as tacos. All parts of the sheep are put to ewes. It's really delicious, if you're innardly oriented.
(exit sheepish
pun area)

From Costco, well-known territory for us, it was no big deal to get home. Our route had been lengthy, but at least we hadn't looped back to the Airport.

I posted our plight on the Michoacan_Net Yahoo Group, and got advice from a poster who often uses the short cut road. But I've yet to unravel his advice, because he knows where he's coming from and where he's going, so his easy reference to places unfamiliar to me does. not. compute.

2 comments:

Steve Cotton said...

Ah, the joys of change. I really recognized myself in your post. If I can understand what is expected of me, I can always meet my mission's goal. But I felt the way you described simply trying to open a bank account in a new environment. It will be good training for me SOB.

Don Cuevas said...

Steve? Listen: yesterday was easy compared to opening a Mexican bank account.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Saludos,
Don Cuevas.