Janitzio, Mexico

Our bellboy told us places we should see, and Janitzio is one of them. There were these "busvans" (as I called them) that just went all around the city for pennies. So we hopped on one to Lago (Lake) Patzcuaro. From there, we bought a boat ticket to go to the Isla (Island) Janitzio. (I had to steal this photo because for some reason I didn't downsize one of the ones I took).

(Yes, those are houses and people live on this island.)

Janitzio (hah-NEET-zee-oh) is very interesting. We start with the boat ride which is nice and slow across the lake. You can admire all the egrets and I spied a hawk on the lookout atop a skinny tree. The boat takes us all around the lake and comes to a stop. The fishermen show us how they use the butterfly nets to catch the pescado blanco (white fish), and the little fish are fried (called charales) and sold in bags with hot sauce.

The island has famous statue of Jose Maria Morelos, and it was built from 1500 concrete blocks that were brought from Morelia (a larger city east of Patzcuaro). He was a famous hero in the Mexican Independance. You have to hike all the way up the island to the statue. It was quite steep, and filled with vendors selling everything from trinkets to t-shirts to snacks.

So we paid our 6 pesos each (12 pesos was about $1usd) and checked it out. The inside of the statue has a staircase spiraling all the way to his "wrist". All the way up are detailed murals of Mexico's history. No flash photos were allowed, so I didn't take any inside. My vertigo was held at bay while the stairs became very narrow at the top.

After we hiked back down, we didn't see a boat to go back. This was a great opportunity to check out one of the little restaurants and have a beer. There were two burrachos in the back corner at 10am. They were hilarious! He kept changing the radio station to see if we liked the music. There was also a young lady making tortillas and frying them. This is what you usually see at the food vendor spots. Sometimes wood is used, but she had propane. You can see the charales in the cup in the lower right.

Of course the place was decorated for Christmas.

No boats had showed up yet, so we ventured down to the dock. Someone told us the departing boats where at a different dock. Short story long, we made it back across the lago and caught a busvan back to town to have lunch.