Despite being home to some 300,000 people (and the self-proclaimed Avocado Capital of the World), Uruapan isn’t nearly as well-known as smaller Patzcuaro, an hour to the east.
We’ve heard mixed reviews from other travelers regarding Uruapan, so we approached the place with fairly low expectations. When that happens in Mexico, we’re almost certainly bound to be pleasantly surprised, which was the case with Uruapan.
The first of those surprises came with the weather.
When we rolled in the previous afternoon, it was pretty warm. Without electricity, it took a while to get the RV cooled down for sleep. But when it did eventually cool off up here at 5,500 feet, holy moly, it was frigid (at least for us). It also ended up being one of the best night’s sleep we’ve had in a while.
One Day in Uruapan, Michoacan
Greeted by brilliant sunshine, we hopped in a taxi and headed into town for some breakfast.
Something else that surprised us was the number of cafes offering savory crepes. It’s something we miss from Laos, and really hadn’t come across since. Here, it seems they’re everywhere. The chipotle sauce is a nice added touch.
Lori did the research for Uruapan, so the boys and I happily let her take the lead, not quite knowing where she was taking us.
We wound through a strange mix of urban streets dotted with decaying colonial buildings as well as pleasant leafy alleyways.
Old Factory of San Pedro
This is an old factory where you’re supposed to be able to watch local artisans weave textiles. We took a look around, but unfortunately the main part of the factory is closed today.
We’re heading out of town tomorrow, which means no factory tour for us. Oh well. Still plenty to see.
Mexico just elected their first female president a few days ago. Crazy how such a traditional country beat the U.S. to the punch. With the U.S. squarely in a tiny minority of countries who still haven’t elected a woman to the highest position in the land, I think the election result says more about the U.S. than Mexico.
The results of these elections are tallied and posted on a large piece of paper at the various voting locations. It’s interesting to see the breakdown. The current president and president-elect’s party is the Morena party, which received 126 votes for president in this precinct (the most of any candidate).
This might be the largest single piece of chicharron (fried pork rinds) I’ve ever seen. It would not be the last of this size we’d see today.
This diminutive building in a gulley has an interesting story. Walking by, you’d never know it was world-famous.
Narrowest House in the World
This strange looking structure at one time or another was The Narrowest House in the World, certified by the Guinness Book of World Records some years ago. Since then, it’s been surpassed, but that’s hardly the point.
The real attraction here is that the owner invites visitors into his house and gives tours for a small fee. We couldn’t resist.
Like all good things, this one required a bit of waiting. You basically show up, call the number on the door, and the owner comes to meet you. Today, he’s about 15 minutes away.
When he arrived, he welcomed us into his very narrow abode and eagerly proceeded to tell us all about his unusual residence.
The owner lived here for many years with his wife and two kids (before the kids got too big and his wife started pining for a little more space).
Part of the tour involves seeing all the photos of those who visited over the years before getting our own requisite picture taken.
Striking the customary pose…
Time to go up to the bedrooms.
The house was built in 1985 and measures just 4 feet 8 inches (1.42 meters) wide and four stories high.
After one of the more unique sightseeing experiences we’ve had in a while, we make the walk back into the Centro for some coffee at Uruapan’s most famous coffee shop, La Lucha Cafeteria.
The cold brew wasn’t great, but we had to try it anyway.
La Huatapera Indigenous Museum
This is La Huatapera Indigenous Museum, housed in an old hospital for indigenous people during the colonial era.
Lately, I’ve been growing ever more fatigued with pottery and textiles. Every major city in Mexico has some museum devoted to those things, and really, once you’ve seen one museum packed with them, you’ve seen them all.
But Noe loves that stuff, and it’s fun to see his enthusiasm, so we’ll continue to visit these places.
I will say that being able to tour the historic hospital and attached chapel is worth the price of admission alone, regardless of what museum collections are housed here.
Around Uruapan
On our way to the next stop, Lori paused at this tourism kiosk to ask for a map. They’re not going to have a map, I thought. Shows how much I know.
Expecting to be shrugged off as we usually are at these sorts of kiosks in Mexico, I was blown away—
—first, when the lady enthusiastically nodded and produced one of the nicest tourist maps I’ve seen in Mexico—
—then second, when she spent the next ten minutes answering every last one of Lori’s questions and providing really informative answers on all the top sights in town.
Heck, she even had little keepsakes for the kids.
The bar has certainly been raised for future tourist kiosks.
Uruapan’s Casa de la Cultura. Not all that exciting, but another interesting historic complex to walk around.
Time for ice cream!
All this is fine and good, but the main attraction in Uruapan (and the one I’ve been waiting for all day) has yet to be seen. And getting there is half the fun.
Arguably one of the city’s greatest assets is the Cupatitzio River. Mostly a subterranean river through much of the city, it spews forth in dramatic fashion at various points. Even here at the tail end of dry season, it’s a force to be reckoned with.
Lineal Park is one of the most picturesque city parks I’ve seen anywhere in Mexico. It’s so lush and green, it seems like it would be more at home in Central America than here in Central Mexico.
At the center of it all is La Espumita, the raging waterfall that partially feeds the river.
We follow the Rio Cupatitzio through a small hamlet of stone canals. The path winds around to a set of stone stairs that lead to Mexico’s second most-visited National Park: Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio.
Barranca del Cupatitzio National Park
We’ve never seen anything like this place. It’s a national park in the middle of a city of 300,000 people. Here, water bursts forth from every conceivable nook and cranny further feeding the Cupatitzio River in stunning fashion.
Over the past 100 years, the Mexican government has diverted and harnessed the flow of the river in creative manmade ways. But they’ve also left plenty of areas where natural waterfalls spring from the rocky river banks.
It’s not what Lori and I typically think of when we think of a national park. It’s a thoroughly Mexican take blending history and natural beauty that is both surprising and humbling at every turn.
At one point, Noe turns to us and says, “Wow! It’s like we’re in the United States!” Lori and I were confused by his comment. There is most definitely nothing in the continental U.S. like this. Offshore, the Road to Hana on Maui or El Yuque in Puerto Rico come to mind, but nothing Noe has seen.
But it’s also like nothing he’s seen in Mexico, either. And he’s too young to remember anything from living in Southeast Asia besides what he’s seen in photos and video.
We ultimately concluded that Noe must equate seeing new and different things with the U.S. (where he’s only spent a handful of months over the past four years), and Mexico to “normal”, or at least coastal Mexico.
This is potable fresh spring water and there are nearby cups for visitors to grab a drink. The river water is filtered through the bedrock surrounding the park.
It occurs to me now while writing this how diverse these photos are, despite each one being taken only steps away from the last. Pretty incredible in a park that stretches just 1,000 feet in width and 2,500 feet from end to end.
In the middle of it all, there’s even a fairly sizable playground.
This area was shaped to resemble an ancient temple.
Set back in the forest from the main walkway is a rainbow trout hatchery/farm. The boys got a kick out of feeding the huge (and voracious) fish.
And if all that wasn’t enough, just outside the exit gate, there was a small shop selling a full range of—you guessed it—AVOCADO BEER.
Well, you probably didn’t guess that. We never did get to try an Uruapan avocado. At least we got to try the beer. Pretty good stuff too.
Errands & Wildfires
But our day wasn’t quite over. We still had one last thing to do. I wasn’t going to let my one opportunity for the foreseeable future to visit a Home Depot pass by. My RV project was practically bursting at the seams and I was hoping our next stop, Patzcuaro, would be a good place to get some long-needed work done on our casa rodante.
Noe, meanwhile, busied himself in the gardening section.
Noe has a knack for finding hobbies that aren’t exactly the most compatible with RV or nomadic living. But that doesn’t mean the dude can’t dream.
Since we got the RV, Home Depot visits seem to follow the same trajectory: Starting with a long list and dangerous levels of optimism, soon followed by wandering the aisles for long periods of time in deep denial and disbelief, eventually turning to resignation, and ultimately ending in somehow feeling grateful for the surprisingly few things I was able to find.
I’m happy to report, however, that this particular Home Depot trip was one of the more successful ones, even if it took much longer than planned.
Hungry and exhausted, I did what any self-respecting Mexican dad would do after dragging his family to Home Depot for two hours: Took the family next door and treated them to Little Caesars—fastest and cheapest dinner in Mexico!
We devoured pepperoni pizza as the entire world around us burned, or so it seemed.
During our stay in Uruapan, firefighters were battling a number of wildfires in the hills around town.
Nobody seemed to be particularly worried about them, which isn’t exactly a surprise in Mexico. But we couldn’t help be a bit concerned.
After all, the Uber driver had the radio tuned to live coverage of the blazes and the place we were staying at was just one hill over from the worst of the blazes.
It all had something to do with avocado orchards and cartels, but none of it really makes any sense to us. The Uber drivers told us that if things get really bad, they’ll issue an evacuation order. Alright…
As night fell, the fires only seemed to get worse.
But when we got back to the hotel where the RV was, the fires seemed to be sufficiently far and the wind at that point was blowing in the opposite direction. Weirdest of all is we couldn’t even smell the smoke.
Still, none of us slept particularly well that night, despite being absolutely exhausted. The boys of course had lots of questions and I found myself getting up a handful of times to peek out at the neighboring hill to track the status of the fires.
By 2am, however, the red glow on the horizon had vanished, the temperatures dipped down into the 50s, and I was able to get a bit of sleep before getting up to face yet another big day.
