Ario de Rosales y Uruapan

Today, we actually went to a town at the top of the mountain called Ario de Rosales. This town is much bigger than La Huacana and here is where I got my first taste of Mexican life. When we got to the town we had to drive around a lot before actually finding the square. It was in the morning and there were so many people out preparing their stores for the day. There was so much commotion everywhere and the people truly are a working people, even the elderly people were hauling carts and setting up tables. It made me with the elderly in the United States were more active, it makes for a much healthier life. But, back to the town. We finally arrived in the plaza and started walking around (this was actually the day that me and Ulises both got sick in the car and while we were in Ario, but I will fast forward to the part where we were feeling better). While we were walking around I noticed that people noticed me a lot less here than they did in La Huacana, I would assume its because it is a bigger city and they may have seen more tourists before. Even if they were looking though, I was too busy looking at anything and everything. There were so many people and shops around and the smell of food was in the air. I hadn't had a restaurant or food stand meal yet and I was very excited. Unfortunately I would have to wait because my stomach was still a little upset and all of the chile in the food might have upset it again. So, me and Ulises got some lime ice cream and sat on some stairs and just people watched for a while. The lime ice cream was seriously the best ice cream I have ever had. After eating the ice cream we went to eat a a taco stand that the family eats at every time they come to Ario. They were chopped beef or pork (I'm not sure) with tomatoes, onions, and you squeeze lime all over them. These easily became my second favorite (maybe even 1st) food from the entire trip. These were the most flavorful tacos that I had ever eaten and I now understood what real Mexican food was, Tex-mex would never be the same to me.

It seemed that todays purpose was to eat all kinds of food and then just hang around the square. We didn't really go into any shops or anything but I was completely happy with just eating because the food was amazing!

The next day we visited the city of Uruapan, it is an even larger city located about an hour and a half from La Huacana. It is a city of about 250,000 people, so it has been the largest city we have actually visited so far! When we got there we actually ended up eating at a McDonalds. It actually wasn't good at all and it was very strange to see Ulises's Grandparents eating that food because they are used to eating traditional home cooked Mexican food. I was wondering if they had ever even eaten at a McDonalds before. We then drove into the town square and parked for the day. The first place we went was the mercado. Just think of it as being the biggest flea market you have ever seen. It is divided into a male and female section and sells everything from clothing to spices. I actually really enjoyed this market because they had a lot of really nice clothing and things that were very inexpensive. I wish that I would have tried some of the snacks there...they had fruit in a cup and chicharones...mmm

After we left the mercado we went out to the town square to look around at the shops and buildings. They had a variety of clothing stores that I bought some really nice clothing for! I was really excited to see the prices were so cheap. Ulises said that clothing is so inexpensive in Mexico because a lot of the factories (especially jeans) are located there and don't have to be shipped out. They had mostly clothing and music shops out in the plaza and we spent a lot of our time just looking around there. After walking around the town square we were all very tired but decided to go the parque nacional Eduardo Ruiz. This park is a rainforest national park located right off of the plaza in Uruapan. It was probably the closest I will ever get to the rain forest! I can't really even describe it, I will post some pictures of it down at the end of this post. It was really wonderful to see and was a very peaceful area.