Our good friends, Bob and Darlene Spriggs flew down to join us for a week and after getting them settled in after a 4 hour bus ride from Puerto Vallarta, we went on a road trip the next morning to Colima which is the state capital of the state of Colima inland from Manzanillo. We were met at the marina by our driver and tour conductor, Eddy, who has an incredible local knowledge of this area. We departed at 8:00AM and it was 2 hour's to Colima which is about 3,000 feet elevation so we were starting to get a change of scenery. We arrived at the town square and parked the car and Eddy took us to the Museum of Pre Hispanic artifacts. It was a fascinating tour and the artifacts were very well preserved as they come from underground tombs so they are not broken. There are a lot of statues of dogs as they believed the dog carried your soul to the afterlife. After that we toured the Government office building and saw the governor's office but being a Saturday he wasn't in to greet us. It was late morning so we adjourned to a coffee shop for some coffee and breakfast before going to the bank to get our weekly allotment of cash.
Then we headed up to the mountains to view the two volcanoes which are still live and one was smoking for us. Along the way we stopped at some ruins that had been discovered that dated to pre-Columbian times and were interesting and the Mexican government is doing a good job of preserving and protecting them although money is in short supply to continue the excavation. Then we proceeded up the mountain to view the volcanoes and we were at an elevation of about 8,000 feet so we started seeing pine trees. The volcano s are about 13,000 feet high and quite impressive. After the viewing we proceed down and stopped at a coffee plantation and roasting plant. Eddy gave us a tour of the plant and he was very knowledgeable about the workings of the operation. It was dormant at the time but there were a few bags of non roasted and roasted coffee to see the difference. Then we went to the coffee shop and tried the coffee. It was pretty good and Bob had a double espresso and I had a frappucino and Penny had an espresso.
Eddy said that we could stop for dinner or in a town called Comala for drinks and botanas and we choose Comala. We sat down outside a restaurant that was packed and we were the only gringos there however we went unnoticed. The deal was that you ordered a drink and they brought botanas and kept bringing different food until you told them enough. We each had a couple of drinks and there were plates of quesadillas, rolled tacos, tostitos with ceviche, small tacos, and chips. We filled up and headed home and I think we all had a nice snooze on the way back. We arrived at the boat at 8:00PM for a wonderful and interesting 12 hour tour of inland Mexico.
A plug for Eddy as we would highly recommend his services. Servicos Turisticos Barra de Navidad, Eduardo Pena, Cell (045) 314 357 0860. He speaks perfect English and is very knowledgeable and likable. He also has a cab service to Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, and Manzanillo airports. Bob and Darlene will have him take them to the PV airport when they leave.