Cinco de Mayo:  Our first night in day in Mexico did not define laid back.  We found ourselves looking for a hotel at 11 at night, and reasonable places in Monterrey were full due to a festival.  After a dispute resolved in favor of avoiding big cities, we settled on the clean but bland Hotel Nova outside of town.  Fortunate, because we moved on from there to the "magical" city of Santiago, avoiding the coast for now for the majestic mountains outside of Monterrey.  We parked ourselves at Posada de Colores, where we were the only guests in the hostel dorm room.

The odyssey finally began in earnest when we met Sylvia and Hugo Segovia, now good friends.  Hugo is an emerging star in Mexico, well received at the SXSW festival in Austin.  Check out his music on YouTube or Spotify.  Bill gave them hotsauce in return for a delightful recital, and Hugo recommended places to stay in dicey but "wonderful" Oaxaca.  Into the mountains today, where the canyon river tour attracts me, but we have  to remember we are not kids anymore.  Things are going well, and we will probably return tonight to our warm and welcoming Posada and Santiago, a tourist town for Mexicans, but few visible foreign tourists.