To talk about Monterrey is to talk about progress and culture. A very cheap Interjet direct fly from Houston prompted us there. Here’s a tip, often if you use a VPN service, you can try to book directly from the airline's country of origin currency, in this case, Mexican pesos and not U.S. Dollars. For this particular instance, the result was a round-trip ticket for $ 80.00 USD. For example, Mexican airlines have U.S. targeted websites such as the usual .com website, Mexican native websites, often use .mx instead than .com – Going to .mx web address should often (not always) prompt a different price scale.
Although we often (more than often) try to avoid the usual tourism-oriented places, as we try to bring you closer to unique and undiscovered adventures, it becomes very difficult to not talk about Parque Fundidora. A park that is a synonym of greatness; a park that every year host some of the biggest bands in the world. Fundidora Park is a fully sustainable park is located inside the former Monterrey Foundry Property. (Parquefundidora.org)
If you find yourself in Monterrey, and are not sure what to do or where to go, you can find it all at Fundidora Park. At Fundidora Park we witnessed extensive walking tracks, one artificial lake, playgrounds for children and inline skaters. Fundidora Park also includes a convention center, and according to fundidorapark.org, a 2.1 miles’ permanent road course. The trail was particularly popular with joggers, bicyclists. Our particular favorites were the Mabe Fundidora Ice Rink, Sesame Street Park, and the Monterrey Arena. So just like we said before, you can find everything there.
Nonetheless, we were not done with just Fundidora. Monterrey’s downtown was the biggest melting cultural pot we have ever seen in Mexico. And music, well, music was everywhere to be found. At the central plaza, an all-female band was playing, and people were dancing. Other bands were also performing in other nearby downtown buildings.
On the other hand, all these experiences were great, but they were a bit too touristy to our taste, the adventure spirit had to get ignited, and so we did by taking just taking off and driving away from the city. We found ourselves heading south on Mexican Highway 85. We quickly noticed that most of the cars on that highway, were heading to the same place; what was that place? We didn’t know but figured there must be something there. We started going up, up, up and upon a road that was meant to accommodate one-way traffic. Yes, you guessed it, there was more than one-way traffic happening on this mountain road. After 20 minutes or so of going around and up we finally made it. What was there you ask, Cascada Cola de Caballo. (Horsetail Waterfall) The waterfall park was simply astonishing. The Flora and Fauna in the area transported us to an early stage in the history of our planet, somehow this magical place had managed to make us forget we were just 30 miles away from a metropolis.
Our adventure in Monterrey was unique, in a sense that, it brought us closer to our planet. It revived on us the importance to care for Carl Sagan's pale blue dot, our environment, our most important partner and provider in this life.
“On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam” Carl Sagan
A very special thanks to everyone in Monterrey, and the local municipal and federal police who were highly polite, professional, and helpful throughout this adventure. And thank you for taking care of the only home we’ve known.
Bicentennial Park | Joliet Waterfront Entertainment Theater Concerts. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2017, from http://www.bicentennialpark.org/
Stoker, C. (1995). Review of Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan. Icarus, 118(1), 219-220. doi:10.1006/icar.1995.1188