Come on, Vamonos!

Well the big day that had been circled in red Sharpie on the family calendar finally arrived. Norm had spent the previous four weeks curling and drinking his way around Scotland. And according to him - having as much fun as he did on his curling tour is hard work. (Poor boy). And after a hectic few months of over-scheduled activities and the challenges that come with the kids changing school - we were all looking forward to the luxury of spending the next few months together with no obligations.

We woke at 4am and drove to the Toronto Airport where Grandma Cable dropped us off. I often say we are a very lucky family, and wouldn't you know it... we were upgraded to business class for our flight from Toronto! The kids were just excited to get pop (deprived!) and the extra inches of leg room were heaven to Norm and I. A long stop over in Atlanta and then we finally arrived in Mexico City late in the evening. We had a few hours before we had to catch our very early bus so we decided to catch a few hours sleep at the airport. Norm and I may not be the most observant people on the planet, but how did we not notice the airport was open air? It got surprisingly cold and we were pretty miserable when we headed out of the city in the early hours.

Our first destination was the city of Guanajuato, which is close to the geographical middle of the country. Hopefully far enough away from the dangers of being too near the border, and also not really on the gringo radar. We have rented a house in the old part of the town for the next five weeks so we'll be here for Christmas and Hogmanay. Very little English is spoken here so we are hoping to pick up some Spanish before heading out on the rest of our trip through Central America.

We'll write more in the next few weeks (the kids want to give their two cents too) but our early impressions of Guanajuato are: stunning location, delicious food (my God, the food!) and beautiful welcoming people. We had never met anyone who had visited here before, but we liked the look of the town when we did Google image searches. Seriously, that is the extent of our previous knowledge of this place, so we are again feeling extremely lucky - what a beautiful destination.

We have spent the past few years talking about, and planning, this trip and it certainly feels surreal that we have finally begun our travels...