Michoacan report

I'm back from vacation! I went to Michoacan, more specfically the cities of Morelia, Patzacuaro, Janitzio, Quiroga, Tzintzuntzan, and Uruapan.

 But first, I went to the last show at the DAM Haus, which these rather terrible photos attempt to capture.

 Fine Steps were super good and SUPER LOUD.  Really kind of uncalled-for loud.

 I didn't get to see more than a couple of songs from the Ganglians and none of Ty Segall because the show was running late and some sort of raucous drum thing went on and on in the living room foreverrrrr.

 I had a plane to catch, a red eye to Guadalajara.  Stupid Aeromexico was delayed by an hour when I got there, so they said I could either catch the next plane tomorrow or wait in the airport in Mexico City for 13 hours!! I was all like, "nuh uh, girlfriend, what's your other offer?"  Long story short, I made it to Morelia on time.  Oh yeah, I forgot I can do "after the jump" to not make this too long.   So...there's more after the jump

 Everybody loves airplane photos, right?

 This is Mexico City

 Here's the outskirts of Morelia.  Look how green!

 It was rainy and overcast (but nice) almost every day I was there.  It would rain just a little every day.  I didn't pack right and I had to wear the same sweatshirt every day.

 Morelia is a beautiful, colonial city with almost all original buildings in the downtown area.

 They are famous for their ice cream!  I ate lots, but should have eaten even more.

 This is pinon flavor, or pine nut, it was fruity and kind of coconut-y.  Not my favorite I tried.

 Neat brick work.

 This is the main cathedral.  There are buttloads of nice looking churches everywhere.

 Chilaquiles!

 Groovy statue.

 Morelia is know for this fruit thing called "gaspacho", which is your choice of fruit mixed with onions and jalapeno, with orange juice squeezed in, and chili and cheese sprinkled on top!  I got mine with melon and mango.  The onion was weird, but I liked it.

 Morelia has an aqueduct still standing, they're really proud of it.

 This was a squash blossom quesadilla.  Our hotel was kind of on quesadilla row.  This cost like a buck fifty.

 This place had a tiny kitchen (just behind that metal counter on the right) but a huge menu! Everything from a variety of breakfasts, to tacos, to tamales, to ribs and arrachera and fish.  I don't know how they do it all.

 They are constantly rolling out tortillas and frying them up at the front to entice passersby.

 Here's all the quesadilla fillings.  Chorizo, rajas, even some kind of braised green that I never got around to.

 One of the days we took an all-day tour to the region of Lake Patzacuaro, the second biggest lake in Mexico.  It's ringed by over 20 villages.

Quiroga, which was on the way but is not one of the towns on the lake,  has a sick church in it.

 This Christ looks super bummed.  Once a year they haul him out and put him up on the cross.  I saw a picture and it looks creepy.

 Here's a more suave Christ.

 I don't know what the balloons are for.

  Look at the size of those chicharrones!  P.S. that's what she said.

 Quiroga claims to be the world capital of carnitas!  My kind of town!  If you click on the picture above you can see that there's an entire town square filled with carnitas booths.

Quiroga carnitas are really different than what we know.  They seem to just be roasted, and the meat can be kind of dry, but the whole thing is fattened up with the inclusion of  pig skin and even little bits of pig liver.

 Nice market too.

 So many millions of scruffy dogs in Mexico, just roamin' around.

 This guy was working at the Carmelo Carnitas booth.  It turns out about half the carnitas places are called Carmelo.  It's like Ray's Pizza in New York.  As soon as I got close he just handed me a carnitas taco as an enticement.

 Yum!  They were really good.  I'll have more posts about the trip later.