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THE DELIGHTFUL SPA TOWN
OF TEQUISQUIAPAN, QUERETARO

This article describes "a delightful little spa town too few foreign travelers have discovered", to quote the 1979 edition of Fodor's Guide to Mexico. Astonishingly, this description is as appropriate today as it was then.

Imagine, if you will, the following:

  • a small town, only two hours by car from Mexico City, with winding cobblestone streets, lined by attractive and neatly kept one-storey buildings;
  • a town which boasts a dozen or more "three star" hotels, all with thermal swimming pools, and a multitude of handicraft shops and galleries specialising in "basketware";
  • nearby, an excellent (if expensive) 18-hole golf course, open to the public;
  • a specialist handicrafts market, a lively regular, daily, market and, on weekends, a line of small stalls selling precious stones and jewelry;
  • a town small enough to walk around and bathed in sunshine virtually all year round;
  • a town which even has an annual cheese and wine (and very good it is, too!) festival in early summer;

But where is this paradise-on-earth? Why, in Tequisquiapan, of course, in the central Mexican state of Queretaro.

 

First time visitors to Tequisquiapan are invariably struck by the cleanliness and sense of order that prevails around the town. Colourful purple bougainvillia tumbles down well-kept walls, merely hinting at the beautiful gardens behind. The narrow streets are carefully paved with a mosaic of small, apparently irregular, but actually cunningly designed interlocking stone blocks. There are no potholes or litter despite the disproportionately large number of hotels, restaurants and tourist shops around the centre. On subsequent visits, none of this changes - the visitor in agreeably surprised to discover that the bougainvillia still hugs the walls, that the town is at least as clean as the time before, a pleasant sensation in a country where litter and garbage seem to have invaded anywhere and everywhere.

Tequisquiapan is not a particulary historic town. The oldest "barrio" is far from the centre, on the far side of the San Juan river, spanned by a stone bridge. The river, on the banks of which grow the ancient cypress trees which provide the raw material for much of the local basketwork, has now been dammed, just to the south of the town, creating a picturesque lake.

Three sides of the town's spacious central plaza have arcades or "portales." The fourth has the obligatory pale-coloured church with a single, squat, bell-tower to one side of its imposing entrance.

Mid-week, Tequisquiapan is deserted. A ghost town, waiting for revival. Revival occurs every weekend as hundreds of...

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