First day of the language program

We had signed up as volunteers at an English language program for Spaniards here in Spain. So, this language program is not about us learning Spanish... it is to help Spaniards learning English.

It's five nights/six days, and Sunday morning at 9:30am the bus picked us up to take us to a resort two and a half hours west of Madrid near the village of El Barco de Avila.

Some quirky things in Madrid

Once again, we waited out the rain before heading out to do more exploring here in Madrid. So it was almost 1:30pm before we set out on the subway towards the center of the city.

We often use the Atlas Obscura website to find interesting things to see that aren't necessarily on the tourist radar, and Ruth had mapped out a short list of them.

We moved to another accommodation

Despite sleeping in Friday morning, we managed to get out of the apartment with time to spare. We walked to the nearby subway station to take the metro underground to the north of Madrid.

Only a ten minute walk from the subway station and we arrived at our next accommodation. It's in a very residential area, with a lot of apartment buildings.

Madrid's El Retiro Park, and another photo matchup

We went and did some shopping Thursday morning. I actually didn't plan this very well. I wore my hiking boots on the plane as the only pair of footwear that I brought. But I knew that my hiking boots didn't have many miles left on them. I should have left them behind and wore my sneakers and bought some new hiking boots here.

Wandering around central Madrid, and some more photo matching!

We had two goals on Wednesday. The first was to see the special changing of the guard ceremony at Madrid's Royal Palace that only takes place on the first Wednesday of the month. And the second was to match up a couple of my dad's photos from when he was here in October of 1954.

We only got one goal accomplished.

Getting ourselves settled in

When we left you last, we were sitting at a coffee shop in Madrid airport. We had some time to waste because we weren't able to get into our accommodation until 12 noon, and it was only 8am. 

We left the airport at about 9:30am. The express bus from the airport would be able to take us to the Atocha train station, and then it would be a 2.5 km (about a mile) walk from there to our apartment.

Arrived at Madrid Airport

We were down for the included breakfast at our Mexico City hotel right on the nose at 7:00am when they opened. Once again, it was a good breakfast. This was the same MX hotel chain that we have used in the past in Mexico City, although this was the first time at the Hotel MX Congreso location.

Not bad, for 784 pesos ($55 CAD, $40 USD) a night with the good included breakfast. On the down side, we found the room too warm, and the WiFi didn't work very well. Good thing we have enough cellular data left on our Telcel SIM card.

And... we're off!

Saturday evening we had a nice surprise.

Normally, we look forward to seeing friends Paco and Oti whenever we visit Valle de Bravo. This time, they had other plans and had told us they weren't able to make it. We would have to wait to see them when we return in October.

Getting things organized

Spent the day yesterday giving Igor a good cleanup. He'll be sitting here waiting for us for five months until our return around October 8th. The exterior will need another good scrub by then, at least the inside will be ready and waiting for us.

This morning, I am going to change the solar charge controller to the one that came with the last kit we ordered. I think it's a better quality one, and the one that's currently installed doesn't seem to want to kick down to float voltage when the batteries are fully charged.

Well, that was a great trip!

Reflecting on the last five and a half months, what a great trip this has been! Of course we always love our time here in Mexico, but we hadn't been here for almost five years and we were really missing it. This trip was all about visiting old friends and favorite locations, with only one new area that we hadn't explored in the past.

We had arrived in Cancun on November 12th.

April Expenses - Our cheapest month so far this year

We had a budget of $1,783 CAD ($1,247 USD) for the month of April. We spent more than that, but we always make our budget as a best case scenario as something to strive for. So although we spent more, it wasn't by much.

We spent $1,960 CAD ($1,420 USD), which is the lowest month we've had since April 2023... so we're pretty happy with that!

Back at our happy place

We spent much of the last two days driving, and have now returned to Valle de Bravo, the place where we set out from on January 2nd, almost four months ago.

But while we did a lot of driving the last two days, we still managed to do some sightseeing. We stopped in at the Tula archeological site to have a look around.

Experiences like this are why we travel!

It was already almost 30C (86F) when we set off just before 9:30am. But we were headed from 500' altitude to over 5,000' altitude. So we were looking forward to more comfortable temperatures.

We stopped and filled Igor's fuel tank for what should be the last time until we return to Mexico in October.

One last night in the heat!

We only had about an hour to our next destination, an event salon and restaurant. We had stayed here with our Mexico RV Caravan group five years ago, and the woman running the place remembered us!

We had slept well in the cooler weather up in the mountains near the big hole in the ground. It had been at about 3,500', and we were headed back down to 500'.

A big hole in the ground!

We did the one hour drive south to the Sotano de Golondrinas. The direct translation of this is "Basement of the Swallows", however that's not entirely correct.

Sotano de Golondrinas is a huge hole in the ground. It's 512 meters (1,612') deep. It's the sixth deepest abyss in the world.