Hi everyone! Glad to be back of this great adventure, I traveled with my friend Lalo Zedillo who is another fruit hunter at 71 and years old, we took the plane from Puerto Vallarta at 7 pm last Thursday to arrive México city at 8:30 then we moved to bus station to take the midnight one to Cd. Altamirano, we arrived at 7 in the morning and head up to the Market, for our great complacency as soon as we arrived saw the streets full of ilama vendors, they have them on a carpet on the floor or in baskets or buckets, different shapes from smooth skin all the way to the rarest things with spikes longer than Bíriba or Squamosa, colors white, pink, red, white & pink, some purple, average size 500 grams with some big ones of about 1 kilo, my friend has never tried them so we purchased one and he said was worth the trip, mentioned that taste between ice cream and cotton candy, there was also another race fruits I have never seen in the market, and a large selection of different types of beans, after this we took a taxi to the university Tecnológico Cd Altamirano,the taxi driver told us about the cartel people who they control everything in the city, they have the gun guys camping in the hills and "halcones" (hawks) in the city, young teenagers who are on the pay rol for low money who do nothing other than sit in the corners watching for the army passing by or a victim to kidnapped all they do is a call and these gunners come down to pick somebody who in some cases never comes back even if the family pays the rescue money, every single bussiness has to pay them "derecho de piso" other wise they take them to the hills.. Even taxi drivers has to come up with the fee, the taxi driver said people or bussiness man are leaving and no investers had come for obvious reasons, after 15 minutes we arrived to university where for our surprise there were no classes because of the earthquake two days before, the only one was the security guard, he said because the buildings construction have to be inspected against damage before students go back, after talking to him for 45 minutes about trivial topics, he offered to call someone who can help us, after two hours and talking with another two people who ask for ten minutes every time we finally met the right person Agronomy Dr. Gustavo Valladares from Colombia living in that area for the last 20 years, and the co-writter of the e-book "ilamas de tierra caliente" very knowledgeable person and expert in ilamas he took us back to the Market were we had "menudo" (beef stomach soup) for breakfast, after that we sample the most appealing fruit types were I selected 4 types with outstanding flavor and very meaty, after that he took us to the Orchard were they have 160 varieties with three trees of each making almost 500 trees, we arrived at the end of the season because of that we could only tried around 40 types, after collecting the fruit because it was late and we missed the bus we have to Stay overnight in a modest hotel where I in my paranoia take off one by one the glass pieces of my room just in case I have to look for an emergency exit, fortunately I didn't have to scape and taxi pick us at 5,25 am to take us to the bus, in general a very nice experience counting with favor of the circunstances, would I go back?
Don't know.....
Glad to hear you and your family are safe!!