Misión San Gil Querétaro, Mexico

 Over those 12 years of consulting for Monteblanco in México, we sure have seen a lot of the country.

As such we also ended up at a wonderful hacienda Misión San Gil Querétaro.

Pieter, Agustín and me on March 7, 2002 at breakfast in Misión San Gil Querétaro, after our 2 nights here in room 108.

We'd been already for 10 days in México, at different locations.

We had flown in on Sunday, February 24, from Altanta/USA non-stop to Monterrey/Mexico in the northern part.

On February 26, right after breakfast on our way to one of their mushroom farms, I was with Juan Carlos Fuentes (the ex bull fighter!) in his car, ahead of Pieter and Agustín's car.

We were almost crushed to the concrete edge by a wide load truck... Juan Carlos immediately braked as a super-fast reflex! The smoke went off his car's tires, Pieter said, as he was driving with Agustín behind us. 

Tires almost bald from braking. If he hadn't been such a well-trained, fast acting person, I could never have recounted this.

Upon our arrival here on the 5th of March, without Agustín, both of us had a good meal in the beautiful restaurant and I also bought the Spanish language magazine ' VANIDADES' with the new Dutch Queen Máxima (Su Alteza Real = Her Royal Highness) on the cover and more photos with good reporting about their royal wedding inside.

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This is where we sat for breakfast in top photo, hotel Misión San Gil Querétaro click and click through for viewing more photos.

We only used our video camera for capturing the white and colored peacocks in the garden at that time.

Even one we saw flutter onto the roof.

This was called Restaurant Bar Los Arcos (The Arches) at hotel Misión San Gil Querétaro, where we both had dinner...

A very bad screenshot from our video... but clearly showing those Arches.

Another bad screenshot from our video from the outside of Restaurant Bar Los Arcos 

Hotel Misión San Gil Querétaro seems to have changed 'color'...

Interesting is that Hotel Misión San Gil is actually only 7 km away from Hacienda Galindo where we've stayed several times before!

This photo shows clearly how the Spaniards at that time used the water available for irrigating the fields.

A rather fertile region.

On March 9, we departed from the Camino Real hotel to the airport with a taxi, for our flight to Cancun to have 3 days of vacation AFTER our consulting job. As per Pieter's request. I'd asked him if he wanted those 3 days before or afterwards.

A lot of things went wrong this trip...

At the Camino Hotel, my clothes (that I kept separate for Cancun!) got stolen from the drawer in our room. Usually we never took expensive clothes but this was meant to wear on vacation after work in Cancun. 

It was a very sad experience and with our insurance we have a US $ 1,000.00 deductible and Camino Real was not very willing to cover the loss.

We got an offer for a special rate during 40 nights...

That would not yield much, as we only were there at the hotel a few nights, alternated with hotels at all other locations in different states.

SAD and of course, due to one 'rotten apple' a good name can get tainted, but we were the victim of it all.

I trashed all the paperwork, because those were only negative reminders of something terrible and bad that happened to us.

We know that losing things is not the end of the world but it hurts when you're not a rich person and have built up a nice wardrobe over more than ten years, after quitting the job in Indonesia (living there I mean!).

More and more we stayed home for getting dressed from our closet, rather than from the suitcase. 

So for that reason, we took nice things to the Hyatt Regency in Cancun via the Camino Real...

😞

Oh, and Cancun at the Hyatt Regency was not a good thing...

Haha, after work for finally being able to RELAX, as was Pieter's idea.

BUT it was SPRING BREAK...!!!

So noisy and so crowded, we could not believe our ears and yes above all, the enormous consumption of alcohol at the pool.

Not a happy trip in all, aside from the pleasant work together with the staff from Monteblanco and nice stays at all hotels!

Maybe once in all those years; still not bad.

But I did not want to hide this fact...

Related links:

Hotel Mision San Gil en San Juan del Río | short 1:18 min video showing this elegant hacienda

Working Alongside a Retired Portuguese Style Bull Fighter... in Mexico | his super-fast reflex saved his and my live!

Mansión Galindo in San Juan del Río, Querétaro in México | where we stayed before and only 7 km away