- I have this crazy idea that I want to buy a piece of land
somewhere in the state of Queretaro
and build some kind of self-sufficient home on that.
I'm not sure if it's going to be off the grid
or a tiny home or what,
but I wanna do something like that.
So today we're going to check out a couple nearby towns,
Huimilpan and Amealco.
First, we're going to we're going to Huimilpan
and that's about a 30 minute drive
from the south end of the city.
After an easy 30 minute drive,
we arrived in Huimilpan Centro here,
and it is noticeably cooler here.
So where we're living, Querétaro,
it's about 1,800 meters above sea level.
And here it's about 2,300 meters.
So, we gained another 500 meters in elevation.
It's cute little town in the centro here.
But...
- Yeah.
What, what do you think of this place?
- I like it. I can't stop looking at that elotes there.
So I'm sorry if I'm distracted.
This smells super very good actually.
- They have elotes asados, grilled corn, right over here.
We might have to go find some of that.
We found a mercado, let's go in.
I love these little bird houses, these are pretty cool.
Made out of wood.
How much are they?
Well, this bicycle with the flower pot is 250 pesos.
This would be perfect for our orchids.
So, you can attach an orchid
to a piece of wood with just like,
a little string and then it will wrap itself around it.
So you would have like,
the orchids growing up the side of it.
- Mm, I'm not sure about that.
You right?
Yeah, he doesn't convince me much.
(light music)
- Maya was saying that she used to get these
all the time when she was like four years old.
What are they?
Chipileta.
- Would you like to try something?
- Yeah, I would try this.
This looks interesting.
- What else?
- You choose.
- Give you to try many of these candies?
- No, I can't.
I can't handle that much sugar.
Just like a couple.
- You don't have to finish it.
- Question for you,
Is this a mango seed with (Spanish)?
- I do not know.
That one, I don't know.
I had not seen it before.
- May? Do you want a tamale?
- No, it's tamarind
- In the candy store.
Maya was brought back to her childhood
and she decided to make me get diabetes.
She's like, you're you're gonna try all of these.
- Start with this one
- Okay.
- So you just took it out in like,
it's like a roll of the Marino.
I like it because it's not so sweet.
At least not for me.
- It's a roll up, like a snake.
- This time I'm not gonna take it
with my hands because our dirty.
So just bite it.
- Okay.
I'm surprised at how not sweet it is.
- [May] It's not.
- It's a little bit sweet.
- [May] It's just a little bit.
- And you don't like super sweet stuff.
(funky dropping effect)
- [May] One minute of silence for the candy
that's now on the floor.
- No, it's on my, it's on my jeans.
You can eat it off of me.
- No. Have you tried this before?
- I don't think so.
Cajeta en obleas.
What are obleas?
Are these things obleas?
(wrapper crackling)
That was way harder to bite than I thought.
I don't like it.
- That's good.
- Meh, hard to bite.
Hard to chew.
Not much flavor.
Okay, now I'm trying something called an hormiga,
which would be translated to an ant.
- Why you bite it.
You should,
- You didn't tell me how to eat it.
How am I supposed to know I'm not supposed to bite it?
- So what do you think?
- Pretty sour.
- That's why I love them.
- I wasn't expecting all that crunch,
but I suppose if you're biting into an ant,
Okay, so May got in an Elote,
which is just corn on the cob with some stuff on it
like mayonnaise and cheese and a little chili powder.
And I got basically the same thing but in a cup.
And I got lime as well.
And for the two of them it was 50 pesos.
Give it a try.
- Okay.
Mm, it's really sweet, actually.
- Sweet? Why is it sweet?
- The taste,
the taste of it is really different.
- [Jordan] My esquites were also grilled,
so I'll try with the esquites first.
Okay, I'll give this a try.
I love esquites.
They're always so good.
But you know, being in front of that place
I felt like I was sitting in front
of a campfire with all the smoke blowing right in my face.
I had to keep turning around and closing my eyes,
because I was getting like my eyes burnt from all the smoke.
But it smelled really good.
Those esquites were so worth the 25 pesos.
Ha. I love them.
Except you're dying now from the spice
- But it's good.
It's worth it.
(Spanish GPS directions)
- I'm trying to record, quiet.
Okay, so we walked around centro a little bit,
got some candy, got some esquites and elotes
and then we just drove around town a little bit so
I'd be able to see more of this place.
And I like the town.
I, I think it's cute.
It has like a nice calm vibe here.
I don't know if I could see myself buying property
and building here though.
I'm not sure,
I would have to get to know the town a little bit more.
But anyway, we're gonna head
to Amealco now so we can freeze our asses off.
It's already so cold here
and it's gonna be even colder there,
but I'm actually really excited to go there,
because it's a Pueblo Mexico,
a magic town in Mexico that I haven't been to yet
and I've been wanting to visit for a while.
And by the way, if you're familiar with those Lele dolls,
you might have seen them if you've been to Querétaro.
Well, those originated in Amealco.
After leaving Huimilpan on our way to Amealco.
We've only been on the road for
I don't know, maybe 10 minutes.
And we keep seeing these like memorials on the side
of the road from people who have died driving this road,
which seems crazy to me because, it like,
it seems like a nice safe road to me.
- Yeah, and you can usually see those kind of things
like when you're driving around Mexico.
But it keeps my attention that it, we were like,
in a very short distance like drive and I could see like
five or six of those memorials like,
- Yeah.
- less than a kilometers separated.
So it was really weird to me.
- Yeah, that's crazy.
So if you're driving around here, be careful.
- It says it's 55 degrees here like it was in Huimilpan,
but it feels cooler here.
I think it's the breeze.
I think it's windier here.
- I can't speak.
My brain is frozen.
- They have Dia de Muertos dolls here.
How cool.
I love it.
May was telling me that she wanted to get one
of these Dia de Muertos Leles as a gift
for someone and then she sees this one and she's like
I love it so, so much.
And I'm like, you're keeping it, aren't you?
She's like, Yeah.
Can you talk about how it's handmade and stuff?
- Ah, yeah.
It's all handmade it.
So the flowers and everything that's all handmade,
it so, I really love it.
- All the stitching and everything is done by hand.
So there's, this was 280 pesos and let me tell you
there is a lot of work that goes into that.
A lot of work and a lot of love goes into this.
Here's a statue of Señor Amealco.
- What?
- Just I said here's a statue of Señor Amealco.
- It's Alfredo.
- Alfredo.
Alfredo de Bonfil.
And so the full name of the town
is called Almealco de Bonfil.
(Spanish)
(guitar music)
This little store we came in just now has a bunch
of small unique snacks that you don't see everywhere.
Like here they have gummies made of passion
fruit and May's holding one made of apple.
I think we're gonna get these two.
Okay, we'll show you our little haul quickly from the store.
Some kind of chili (Spanish)
don't know what that is but May got it as a gift.
- It's a very small chili, like round chili,
like it's about this size
and you can find it I think at the north part of Mexico.
But it's one of the most spicest ones.
So, yeah, my father loves it so that's why I buy it.
- And then we got apple gummies and mango
with some like chili on it, which I'm really excited for.
And then a fruit I've never tried before,
nor can I pronounce it.
- Xoconostle.
- It's like a Tuna, like the sister of the Tuna.
It's, it's a tuna.
- Okay.
- But it's more sour
- So fruit from a cactus.
- It's more sour.
No, it's not as sweet as tuna.
It's sour.
- Okay
I wanna try it.
First time trying this fruit I can't pronounce.
It's good.
Kind of sour.
Don't really know what to taste like.
Damn it, why can't I describe it better?
(Spanish)
- It tastes like a combination of pineapple and apple.
- [Jordan] Okay.
- And Tuna.
It's, it's really good actually.
- And that's Tuna the fruit, not tuna the fish.
- I loved it.
Well,
- [Jordan] Too sour?
- Too sour.
Oh.
Oh, that really good.
Okay
- May wants to go back for more of the Xoconostle.
Is that how you say it?
And I actually want to go back
for more of these Apple gummies.
These are so good.
I love them.
It tastes just like apple, but with some spiciness and I,
I love the texture of the gummy in my mouth as well.
So we had to come back to the home
of the first Lele doll and we got some more.
We got a little mariachi del día de muertos guy,
that's kind of funny .
He just needs a guitar.
Maybe we can add a guitar to him.
And then another Lele doll.
So now we have one that we can give
as a gift and one that May can keep for herself.
- I want that one is cute.
I want that one.
- I'm not gonna have any money left over for land.
I'm gonna spend it all on Lele dolls.
(Spanish)
By the way, if you guys
didn't know Amealco is where the Le la dolls originated
and at different times
of year you can find them in different themes.
Like right now you can find some Día de Muertos Leles.
If you come around Christmas time
you'll be able to find some like, Santa Claus Leles.
I love this painting
with the Leles peeking up from behind the houses.
It's pretty cool.
May, you sit here I sit here and then I reach really far
out to get them both in the shot.
What do you think about Amealco so far?
- I think I like Amealco more than Huimilpan.
- I do too.
- At least we've found a lot
of good things like the candies and the little those,
- And it's a bigger town so there's definitely more here
and I, I think it's pretty, I like it a lot.
Driving here though made me really
nervous seeing all those memorials
or whatever you call them on the side of the road.
After May pointed them out
and we really started looking for them,
it was like every two or 300 meters.
It was crazy.
It was like five of them every mile.
On our way back we're gonna count to see how
I really like it in here.
I think it's super pretty.
I thought it was going to be
like an open courtyard based on the pictures,
but it's actually covered above us, which is nice.
I like music, I like the looks of it in here.
It's very colorful and they have lots
of very typical Mexican foods.
Lot different options in here as well.
And they brought out these chips and salsa for us.
Complimentary.
Those look really good.
The salsa is unique but has so much flavor
And then the chips, you can tell they're made super fresh.
Yeah, that looks really good.
You have the (Spanish) the prickly pair
cactus leaf and then the vegetables.
And the chicken.
- You wanna try?
- Yeah. Hell yeah.
This looks amazing.
That's a big bite.
- You can do it.
- Okay, I think you're really gonna like the salsa.
Oh that was so flavorful.
And the chicken's really tender.
- Yes.
(background chattering)
Really good salsa.
- Yeah, I love it.
So I got the Gorditas with chicken (Spanish).
No, I'm mixing my English in Spanish.
I got the gorditas con tinga de pollo.
So these are going to be like a corn dough
on the outside and then they cut a slit
in the middle of it in which they put chicken tinga
which has like chicken and onion.
I think there's a little bit of green salsa in here.
And then they put cheese, lettuce, and cream as well.
I'm excited to give this a try.
I thought we were going to be leaving town after eating,
but May's over here texting with her mom
and she just found out that the cheese here is really good
like the cheese from the mercado.
So we might have to go find the mercado
after this and get some queso (Spanish)
I think I like it here.
Everyone we've met here has been super nice and like walking
in and outta the restaurants,
people are saying Provecho, like, enjoy your meal.
Which a lot of times in the bigger cities,
like in Querétaro you don't get that all the time,
but I like that.
So we just got home and on the drive home from Amealco
to Huimilpan, we were counting how many memorials
and crosses were on the side of the road.
And on that drive, 30 minutes on the road,
we counted 46 or 48.
But either way it's a, it's a huge number and I
bet we missed at least half of them because much
of the road, like on the side of the road,
it has really long grass.
So a lot of those are hard to see.
And then we're going reasonably fast by that.
But yeah, I really liked am Amealco,
that road scares me though,
not because of anything that happened today.
It, it's a nice road and doesn't seem bad,
but whatever the reason,
like there's lots of problems on that road.
(Spanish)
Okay, so here we got a couple of Lele dolls.
We have Alaska saying hi and oh,
Bass is going crazy.
Since we've added that aerator he's been a lot more active.
- [May] He's baby.
- [Jordan] And then we got the mariachi.
- [May] Juanito
- [Jordan] What do you think?
- [Alaska] Awoooo
- [Jordan] Really?
- [May] She wants a (indistinct)
(Alaska barking)
- [Jordan] What's a Juanito?
- [May] Juanito.
- [Jordan] Oh, Juanito.
- [May] Juanito.
- [Jordan] Juanito.