Fit Foodie Maven does Mexico

By Lee Funke

Published 3/10/2016 • Updated 12/30/2021

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How has it already been over a week since I’ve been home from Mexico? I think maybe because I literally slept for the first 96 hours after breaking a foot and getting the craziest Mexican flu (6 days long!) the night before we left. Don’t worry — I am saving that story for a whole different blog post. 

This Mexico trip was derived by another crazy Fit Foodie Maven idea. Last year when we started The Blogger Project and SHEuncovered, we told ourselves that we’d reward our hard work with a girls/work trip to a different country for a few weeks during the coldest month of the year. INSERT – MEXICO. We chose San Miguel de Allende as our end destination because 1. it’s the most BEAUTIFUL Mexican city you will ever lay eyes on and 2. Linley’s boyfriend’s parents live there and offered to let us stay in their beautiful garden casitas. Before heading to San Miguel, Davida set up the most legit avocado tour of my life with one of her partners, Avocados from Mexico Canada in the avocado capital of the world —> Uruapan, Michoacan. 

Vacation with your two best friends? Yes please! If you followed our adventure on Snapchat you got a great play by play of how much fun we had. Lin, Davida, and I ate and drank our way through central Mexico. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say this – – but I drank some form of alcohol 10 days in a row. KILLIN IT. My Wisconsin upbringing should be proud. 

Part 1: Avocado Heaven

Location: Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico
Fun Fact: More than 50% of The World’s avocados come from Uruapan. 

I didn’t think it was possible to fall more in love with the avocado, but after this trip I can safely say that our relationship has never been stronger. We literally saw EVERY step of the avocado process from seeding, to growing, to harvesting, to packaging. The coolest part about the whole thing is to see how many different sets of hands touch an avocado before it’s on the shelf at the grocery store.

Avocados from Mexico Canada set up an amazing 2 day tour for the three of us. Our first stop was Rancho Milpillas, an avocado farm. Farmer Augustin shared some delicious traditional avocado dishes with us and then gave us an awesome tour of his property. This was the first time I ever realized that avocados grew on trees. 🙂 Miles and miles of avocado trees…it was like a dream. It was cool to see how an ORGANIC farm is run and all the different procedures that need to be done in order to keep the avocados safe from predators without chemicals. Plus Augie was the most legit farmer I’ve ever met.

We hopped in the car and took the windiest road to our second destination to a small town to cook with national renowned female traditional cooks. Fun fact- I get SUPER car sick, so my hand was glued to the oh shit handle the entire time praying I wasn’t going to lose my lunch in the front seat 🙂 

This stop is where I learned 2 very important lessons: 1. Always take a shot of mezcal before cooking and 2. NEVER, I mean NEVER, put garlic in your guac. We learned how to make traditional Mexican guacamole, avocado salsa, and tamales. I LOVE TAMALES AND THEY LOVE ME.

We ended up throwing everything into one big soup at the end, which was really interesting and super tasty. 

Stop three was to an avocado nursery. This is where we learned all about the different variations of avocados and how the planting process works. Did you know there are three types? Criollo, Hass, and Mendez. The craziest part- each Hass and Mendez avocado tree is actually grafted with a Criollo tree. We’re talking hand grafted. Each plant. 

I PLANTED AN AVOCADO TREE PEOPLE. 

Our final stop as part of our avocado tour was a packing plant. This is where many many hands touch each avocado. It was so cool to see them unload hundreds of crates and clean and sort the avocados by size so that they can be properly packaged and shipped! Did you know that avocados are only shipped by truck or boat? No plans allowed. That’s right- to get an avocado to Europe…it takes 17 days from the time it’s picked off the tree because it goes by boat! That’s also why the price of avocados are so high. Gotta factor in the shipping! 

I am really glad we got to spend time in Uruapan and the surrounding farm towns. It’s not really a travel destination, but it was cool to see a different culture in their element. Avocados are like gold in this area. They straight up employ a large majority of Uruapan and the surrounding towns.

In case you’re wondering…we didn’t feel endangered ONCE. 

Part 2: San Miguel de Allende

Location: San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico
Fun Fact: San Miguel is known for the arts and is a popular place for American and Canadian expats. 

We made our way to San Miguel de Allende by bus from Morelia, Michoacan. Can I just say that Mexican buses know what’s up. Holy first class bus. Those seats were legit. It was a pretty seamless drive and we got to see a lot of Mexican countryside. I feel like we drove from lush countryside to desert in the matter of 3 hours.

San Miguel de Allende is AMAZING. If I had to describe it in one sentence I would say: It’s like Europe, but in Mexico. 

Need I say more?

Seriously, so beautiful. I love the architecture and all of the colors. The community of people that live in San Miguel is very eclectic. There is a large population of expats that retire there, so Spanish and English are both widely spoken in the city.

We stayed in San Miguel for 6 full days at Linley’s man candy’s parent’s house (mouthful!). They have a beautiful property in the hills, where you can overlook the entire city. One of our main goals for this part of the trip was to take some good quality time off from working because we really wanted to experience as much Mexican culture as we possibly could. Our wifi was limited, so I was only able to work an hour or two each day anyways :P.

Want to know one of my favorite parts about San Miguel? There’s a little shop for everything such as the tortillaria. They literally only make fresh tortillas. We picked up 12 tortillas for like 40 cents. NUTS. The large markets are amazing, too! It’s like a one stop shop for everything you need in life. The cost of produce is super cheap and there are lots of handmade goods everywhere.

I love how slow the Mexican culture is. I feel like NO ONE is in a rush, where as here in America…the faster you go the better! We took our time each morning waking up, drinking coffee, and eating breakfast. Then we ventured into the city where we WALKED everywhere. San Miguel de Allende is situated on a mountain/hill. All I’m saying is that I had buns of steel by the end of this trip.

I have a much more detailed post in the works for all of my favorite places that we went and ate at while in San Miguel, but wanted to give you a little taste of our adventure in this post! We ate a lot of great food, drank a boat load of margaritas, and laughed A LOT. Did I mention that traveling with your two best friends is the best ever? 

Be on the look out for a follow up San Miguel post…oh and a recap on how I broke my foot on the last day of our trip 🙂 Didn’t wanna let the bad take away from how amaze balls this trip was with my girls.