Valle de Bravo (Day 2) —> CDMX

Thursday, August 18

After our extremely late night on Wednesday, I was dead to the world Thursday morning until after 9 am. Might have been 10- I can’t remember!! Ivan and Ethan were apparently up by 8 am sitting outside.

I felt somewhat like I had been run over by a truck, so I hopped in the shower right away. It helped a lot.

After getting cleaned up for the day, I joined everyone else outside. The kids were playing and his friend’s wife was making chilaquiles and eggs. We also had fresh bread and juice.

I didn’t take a breakfast pic, but we sat outside at a folding table under an umbrella. It was very nice.

After breakfast/brunch, the kids wanted to swim. We moved to the other side of the ranch, to the pool.

Adults sat on lawn chairs and talked while the kids swam. His friend put music on a Bluetooth speaker. It was really warm and sunny out, for the moment.

They tasked Asher with helping the 4 year old improve her swimming skills. 😉

I took this picture from up the hill, to give an idea of how remote this place is! Nothing else too close around.

Group shot:

After maybe an hour at the pool, Ivan’s friend offered to take us on a walk up the hill to see their avocado trees, and to get some refreshments from this little shop on the other side of the hill. I was a bit perplexed as to where there could possibly be a store out here, but I took his word for it.

Walking through the field overlooking the ranch:

We had to walk through a small wooded trail to get to the little itty bitty rural community that was on the other side!

Made it, and found this totally random “store” amid a handful of little homes. I asked, “Who on earth would ever visit this store??” (Being so removed from the main road). I guess just the folks who live in the little neighborhood mostly frequent the store for snacks, soda, beer, etc. There is no shortage of little shops like this in Mexico! It’s so interesting.

We bought a few drinks and sat on a bench to drink them, because it suddenly started to rain. Actually, it was a full blown thunderstorm.

His friend’s wife was nervous, because we had left the kids playing around in their swim suits in the yard… and the girls didn’t have towels or anything! After the worst of it passed, we hustled back- except the trail was all muddy and slippery now.

We were happy (and relieved) that the boys had the common sense to help get the girls (ages 4 and 5) situated with towels. The girls were also savvy enough to get into their own room and get themselves dressed, fortunately.

After a bit, the rain cleared but it remained overcast. We had to get going by late afternoon, but we were planning to grill out there with them first.

YUM this was so good. Steak over a wood fire, nopales, cebollines, beans and fresh tortillas. And salsa. 😋

Sadly, we had to hit the road shortly after. The boys were whining that they wanted to stay another night. They liked this place a lot!

Asher even rode on this horse in the morning:

Before we left, his friend and wife graciously played a little game of 2 v 2 soccer with the boys. They are awesome- soooo nice!

Some goodbye pictures:

Then, back on the road. We had to make it all the way to Mexico City this time, meaning an hour or more to Toluca, and then another hour to Mexico City. It was Ivan’s godfather’s birthday, and we were trying to make the birthday dinner!! No rest for the wicked. 🤪

Of course, the main road out of Valle was under construction of some sort, and then it started to rain. Then we hit a lot of traffic into Mexico City. Not great. It ended up taking quite a bit longer than it should have.

We made it by…. maybe 7:45 p.m. A fiesta was underway with a bunch of family members.

The rest of the night involved “the usual”, lol…. A lot of talking, some drinks (mostly for Ivan and others- I think I did have two small Coronas), a variety of Mexican music played loudly over the speaker, food, and cake.

Someone handed Asher an entire avocado to eat. Ha. He loved avocados.

Not sure what time we even turned in, but it had to be after 1 am. THIS IS SO NOT MY NORM. But you know what… sometimes it’s worth being flexible. Ivan will look over at me and randomly smile, or squeeze my arm, etc.. and that tells me he really appreciates that I’m not only there with his family, but really trying to partake in it all. It would be easy to just say “good night all!” and turn in super early, and I don’t think he would fault me if I did that, but I know he appreciates my (active) presence a lot. Life is short… I can sleep later. HA!

At one point his godmother took me up on the enclosed roof to meet their Belgian Shepherd dog (who was staying up out of the way during the party)… the views from up there of Mexico City were super cool.

We stayed overnight right there at their house.

And that was Thursday! The days keep ticking by.. at this point we were down to 4 days left on our trip.

Jumping ahead to real time, it is now Monday evening, 6:52 p.m. Our flight home is tomorrow afternoon at ~2:30 pm. It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 weeks!! I am about ready to go home now, though it’s been a fantastic trip. By the end of vacation I always start to miss “my” life/ routines/ stuff, and I am starting to get a little family-ed out. Lol. Looking forward to a bit more alone time in the days to come!!! But exceptionally grateful for a wonderful 2 weeks. The boys have experienced so much- culturally, linguistically! And more.

Friday- Monday consisted of a lot of family time- no other big tourist adventures. I’m hoping I can squish those remaining days into a single post tomorrow to wrap up these vacations posts! I hope you’ve enjoyed following along. 🙂

P.S. “CDMX” from the title is the well known abbreviation for “Ciudad de México”, or Mexico City.