The main reason for going to Santiago de Quertaro was to get my glasses fixed. I also found out that it is a really nice city, both at the historic centre and the ultra modern mall I went to.
Historic Centre
The first thing on my agenda for the day was to get coffee. Google Maps said there was a Starbucks downtown. They lied! There was, however, a nice Italian coffee shop nearby.
Outside of it was stall after stall serving breakfast street food.
I know, I should be eating at these places. It would be a lot cheaper and more experiential. However, I am a bit of a germaphobe and afraid of getting sick. I’m just not that adventurous when it comes to eating.
After my coffee and carrot cake I wandered around. Here is some of what I saw:
Can you see how red my face is in this picture.
I did end up buying some sunblock. My nose and cheeks are exposed when riding and they were burnt and hurting.
As a former police officer and police advisor, I am always interested in what and how the police are doing things. I spotted this camera truck downtown.
It reminded me of all the video vehicles in Manchester, England.
My Glasses
In Victoria, BC, I purchased new glasses before I left for this adventure. The brand I purchased were ic!-Berlin. I was sold on them because they are supposedly unbreakable and could be bent in many directions and would return to their normal shape. They are also screwless.
If you remember, I sat on my sunglasses in La Paz. They broke and didn’t return to their normal shape. A couple of nice ladies in a hole in the wall optical shop fixed them, after a lot of examination, so they were wearable. However, there were still not in good shape.
My regular glasses were also now crooked.
As I found out, with these new fandangled new glasses, people hadn’t seen them before and had a hard time fixing them. When I looked on the ic!-Berlin website, there were only 3 places in Mexico that sold them. One was in here in Santiago de Quertaro.
I couldn’t wait to finally have them fixed.
Mall Antea Queretaro
The optical shop where they sold my glasses was in the Mall Antea Quertaro. It is on the outskirts of town and so I rode my bike there.
I got to the mall and the parking was paid parking. I stopped, got my ticket, waited for the gate to open and started to ride. A security guard came running up to me and said that motorcycles didn’t have to pay! When I left I could just ride around the small opening on the side of the gate! Bonus!
As I rode up the escalator I couldn’t believe how nice this mall was. But first it was the optical shop.
The gentleman there spoke English and was more than helpful.
It turned out they no longer sell my brand but had similar screwless brands. He fixed my glasses up and even replaced a part. All free of charge.
After that I explored the mall a bit. They had two Starbucks!
It was quite the mall with every name brand you can think of.
My Location for October 31, 2016
