We left Creel and headed towards Zacetecas. We had heard that it was a lovely city to visit and that we should not miss it. Our first stop was the city of Hildago Parral. We spent a lot of time riding around to find a cheap place to stay, but the cheapest we could find was Hotel Turista on the round-about for $US35/night. It was very clean, had secure parking and cable TV, but the decor was very very 70´s!

The next place we stopped was Parras. A 420 year old wine producing town. They made some very nice ports that we were able to sample, perhaps 10:00 in the morning was a little too early. We stayed there for a few days in a very nice little hotel.

There, a man tried to 'pick up' Jules while she was reading in the courtyard and Grant took a nap. He kept saying how beautiful she was and his room was down stairs. She used her old faithful saying 'No entendo' (I don´t understand), but he would not let up until Grant appeared. The he jumped up at break neck speed and introduced himself to Grant and disappeared for the rest of our time there.

On one of our many walks around Parras we found a very neat and tidy machine shop with several beautifully maintained lathes and tools by the hundreds. Parked outside the workshop was this little bike.

Parras was a nice place to visit and walk around, we enjoyed our time there immensley. We also found out that there was to be a Horizons Unlimited meeting in Creel (where we had just come from) and decided that we would go as far as Zacatecas and then go back for the meeting.

After leaving Parras we attempted to find Real de Catorce. We found a lovely little green church in the dying town of Los Muchachos, and took a 50km detour down the wrong way to Estacion Catorce before turning around and heading back to the main road.

100kms later we made it to Mathuala where we stopped for the night before heading to Real de Catorce.

Real de Catroce is a very cool place to visit. If you have seen the film 'The Mexican' with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, the town in Mexcio they go to is this one. It is an old silver mining town with a history of ghosts and fortunes gained and lost. You need to drive for about 30km on cobble stones...

...then through a 2km one way tunnel to get there...

Once there you are greeted by an over look of the city where you can park your vehicle and walk to the town, however we chose to attemt and navigate the one way streets. This probably would not have too much of a problem except we had arrived on the weekend of a pilgrimage. The town was full of market stalls and Grant had to navigate through them and the people shopping at them. He started out saying, in polite Spanish, 'Disculpe' and 'Perdon' and finshed with yelling 'LOOK OUT!'

We returned to Mathuala and headed to Zacetecas.

We arrived in Zaceteca, another Mexican town filled with one way streets, and found the hostel recomended to us, Hostal Villa Colonial(corner Primero de Mayo and Cjon Mono Prierto). Victor greeted us and made us feel very welcome.

Ernesto, the owner, was very helpful and gave us lots of information on local attractions, festvals, language schools - you want to know it - Ernesto´s your man!

We had two big surprises in Creel the first one was that Kelly, who we met in Creel, was staying there.

She had been on an excursion form the hostal to Real de Catorce the night before and saw us go past. So we had crossed paths and not even known it.

Whilst staying at the hostel we met Andy (from Italy) and Lee (from Sydney). They had been travelling together for six months through Central America.

We took turns in cooking for each other and who ever else was at the hostal and wanted a feed.

Our second big surprise was when Brenda and Frank (who we also met in Creel)arrived. We stayed an extra couple of nights to spend time with our lovely friends.

Time to go back to Creel!