For far too long the history of 19th Century Mayan free rule in the Mexican Yucatán has been largely ignored. But local Maya are working to put it on the map. Through museums, ruins, guided tours and more, they are preserving the legacy of this largest post-colonial indigenous revolution in the Americas, commonly known as La Guerra de las Castas (The Caste War) and alternatively as the Mayan Social War.

Most of the top sites are within 200 kilometers of tourist centers like Valladolid and Playa del Carmen, making them accessible as a day trip. For those wanting a deeper dive, a multi-day tour of these off-the-beaten-track Mayan communities awaits.

Background on Mayan Resistance

In contrast to the Aztecs and Incas, the Spanish failed to swiftly conquer the Mayan Yucatán. The many autonomous kingdoms spread throughout the region meant each one had to be defeated separately. As proof of this difficulty, not until 1697—almost 175 years after their first contact with Hernán Cortés—did the last independent Mayan kingdom, that of the Itza Maya, finally surrender. Even then, the fires of resistance were not extinguished. Over the coming century, waves of Mayan uprisings occurred. Most were short-lived. But, in the early 19th century Yucatán elites inadvertently aided their cause.

At that time the Yucatán was loosely affiliated with Mexico, and the peninsular white elite wanted independence, especially as the central government increased taxation in the 1830s to pay for the war to keep Texas. For the local Mayans, everyday life was becoming increasingly insufferable. Elites, especially in the peninsula’s east, were confiscating their communal lands for henequen and sugar cane plantations, and forcing them to work in debt servitude. Mayans outnumbered whites and mestizos three to one in the Western Yucatán, and five to one in the east. They were thus prime targets for military recruitment. And, when some of these same elites made promises of lower taxes and land free from tributes in return for their military service, thousands of Mayan males joined the revolts.

Over the coming decade, Mayans were recruited for various military campaigns, both in support of Yucatán independence and in defending the Mexican republic, as two factions had emerged in the peninsula. Regardless, no change in their material conditions had occurred. A powder-keg-in-waiting had been created: the Mayan troops had kept their weapons, and they had been trained and led in battle by Mayan generals.

Panicked about a possible Mayan revolt, the peninsula government of Santiago Mendéz summarily executed Mayan leader Manuel Antonio Ay of Chichimilá in June 1847 on the suspicion that he was planning an attack. In the ensuing weeks, Mayan residents in the nearby town of Tepich were punished, with many killed and their homes burned. On July 30th, Mayan soldiers stormed Tepich. They first entered the church and executed the priest, who had been accused of sexually abusing children, then proceeded to kill all the town’s whites.

Just a year after its start, a federation of roughly 100,000 Mayan troops had conquered all the Mexican Yucatán, save the walled cities of Campeche and Mérida and the narrow Camino Real connecting the two.

Over the coming years, Mayan troops were pushed back to the peninsula’s east. There, three independent Mayan states self-ruled. The largest and most militarily aggressive, the Cruzo’ob, controlled the entire region of what is now the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, and had diplomatic relations with the British in Belize.

In 1901, Mexican troops took control of the Cruzo’ob’s capital, marking the ‘official’ end to the war. Nonetheless, the rebels scattered. The largest community of some 700, the Xcacal (or Tixcacal) Guardia, resisted and continued to self-govern until mid-century. This small community of the same name exists to this day.

Despite this fascinating tale, that includes white slaves building Cruzo’ob religious and governance buildings and captured Mayans being sent to Cuba as slaves, most visitors to the Yucatán leave without learning about this history and how it shaped the peninsula. Over its course, an estimated 250,000 perished. The region lost a third of its population due to death and exile, including half of its Mayans. Neighboring Belize was also heavily impacted. Several thousand persons took refuge and remained there after the war’s conclusion.

A perfect location to become acquainted with this history is at the aptly named Museo de la Guerra de Castas (Caste War Museum). Located in a colonial building in Tihosuco, a small town that was overtaken by Mayan rebels during the Caste War, this is the largest and most comprehensive museum in Mexico dedicated to the Caste War.

The museum provides visitors with an orientation to the 400-year history of Mayan resistance in the region, including the various uprisings against Spanish colonization. Many museum items were donated by locals to preserve them. On display are letters sent between the Mayan rebels’ key leaders concerning their military strategy. Artifacts also tell the story of the several hundred U.S. soldiers of fortune, fresh off the Mexican-American War, who agreed to the Yucatán government’s offer of 320 hectares each and a salary of $8 a month for enlisting. None collected this offer. They were unprepared for this guerrilla-style war with its high casualty rates, and most quickly returned to the U.S.

Just a few steps from the Caste War museum is the spectacular Iglesia de Santo Niño Jesús (Church of the Saint of Baby Jesus). Rather than rebuild its dome, destroyed by Mayan rebels’ shelling during the war, the locals who later resettled the area continued to hold services in the structure as is.

A Tihosuco-based cooperative tourism project, Sociedad Cooperativa Ubelilek Kaxtik Kuxtal, provides guided tours of the church, the Caste War museum, and a demonstration of cotton weaving.

Another symbol of the Caste War’s devastation can be seen during a half-hour walk through the jungle outside of Tihosuco. Here is the Lal kah or Téla. This village of primarily whites and mestizos was abandoned during the Caste War and lays blanketed by vegetation. Over the course of the Caste War, several hundred villages across the Yucatán were deserted.

Aventura Tela, a Tihosuco-based responsible tourism outfit run by Maya youth, offers guided tours of TéLa, as well as biking excursions in the area, visits to cenotes, guided birdwatching, lodging and meals with locals, and even nighttime walks in Tihosuco.

Those interested in additional ruins can visit Jacinto Pat’s former hacienda Xculumpich, another twenty minute walk from Téla.

The small village of Sacalaca, 37 kilometers southwest of Tihosuco, provides visitors with a glimpse into the colonial-era social hierarchy. Here, two churches existed within 350 meters of each other, one exclusively for the Spanish and elites, and the other for the Mayan populace.

During the Caste War, the church for the Spaniards (Iglesia Virgen de la Candelaria y los Tres Reyes) was damaged and its roof destroyed by Cruzo’ob fighters. Present-day villagers have left it as is. The former, and much smaller, church for the Maya, San Francisco de Asís, is actively used. A small community museum preserves art pieces from these churches. Also in town is a large cenote, Yokdzonot, for snorkeling and bathing, which was used by Mayan and Spanish troops during the war.

Ten kilometers from Sacalaca is the town of Huay Max, also shaped by the Caste War. Here a woman-led tourism cooperative, Yuumtsil Ka’ax, provides demonstrations to visitors about native foods (pumpkin, achiote, chilies, and several types of corn) and embroidery. In addition to providing a traditional meal, they guide visitors around sites of interest, including a medicinal garden, a community museum, and the colonial-era La Inmaculada Concepcíon church.

An hour drive south of Tihosuco is the once stronghold of the Cruzo’ob known as Chan Santa Cruz (Small Holy Cross, present day Felipe Carrillo Puerto). Passed over by most guidebooks, this small waystation holds several Cruzo’ob sites. Start at the Iglesia de la Santa Cruz (Church of the Holy Cross), which served as the Cruzo’ob’s main religious center of Balam Na (House of the Jaguar Priest). No plaques or markers attest to this plainly adorned building’s singularity: it was built by white slaves.

Across the inlaid brick plaza from the church is the Casa de la Cultura Maya. This building, with an arched walkway outside, was the one-time home of Mayan General Venancio Puc and later served as a base for successive Cruzo’ob governments, as well as a school for their children, where captive whites served as teachers. Also in the building complex is the Museo Maya Santa Cruz Xbáalam Naj, which houses some Caste War artifacts.

The seeming fountain in front of the building, Pila de los Azotes, is actually where locals who committed transgressions were punished under the rule of Mayan general Francisco May Pech. At the end of the Caste War in the early 20th century, he took over as the ruler of this semi-independent region. With an influx of settlers from other Mexican states, he had this structure built in order to punish those who committed infractions. For the crime of adultery, the punishment is said to have been 50 strikes.

The most famous of all Cruzo’ob buildings is a few kilometers away. Known as the Sanctuario de la Cruz Parlante (Sanctuary of the Talking Cross), this site honors the cenote where the Cruzo’ob developed a cult to a talking cross. Services are still held. Visitors are welcome, though they are asked to comply with the posted rules, such as removing their shoes at the sanctuary.

Due the guerrilla war style of the Caste war, few battle sites remain. However, just outside Valladolid, the San Bernadino de Siena Convent—the second largest Franciscan convent in the Yucatan—displays in its small museum the rifles and arms thrown into the convent’s cenote by fleeing Yucateco soldiers prior to their abandonment of the town during the Caste war.

Valladolid’s Palacio Municipal (Municipal Palace) has several murals of Yucatan history painted by Yucatecan Manuel Lizama, including one of the Caste War.

About 50 kilometers south is Tepich, the first village to be decimated by the Caste War. Mayan rebels first attacked the Iglesia de San José de Tepich. They then killed all the white and mestizo residents in retribution for the murder of Manuel Antonio Ay. In the adjacent cemetery Mayan rebel leader Cicilio Chi is buried. His grave is easy to spot as it is the only one in the cemetery! Chi’s former house is nearby.

A plaque at the base of the statue reads (in translation): “On the morning of July 30, 1847, Cecilio Chi and his people entered Tepich, executing the population of Spanish origin and burning homes, inaugurating with this act the war for the liberation of the Mayan people and turning Tepich into one of the centers of this great movement.”

Due to the relative lack of attention paid to Caste War history, only a few tour companies offer day tours. They include Playa del Carmen Tours, which has a day-long outing to several sites, starting from Valladolid. Undoubtedly, as more interest in this history grows, additional tours and experiences will be developed. The Tourist Promotion Council of Quintana Roo has created a colorful handout of many of the sites listed in this article.

Beyond their historical significance, a visit to these areas provides an opportunity to experience Mayan communities outside of the main tourist centers. Additionally, as these projects are organized and led by local Maya, their communities are the prime beneficiaries.

Clearly, this Caste War route is one that should not be cast aside!

Related posts on MexConnect

• The cuisine of the Yucatan: a gastronomical tour of the Maya heartland
• Instituto Cientifico de Na Bolom: a magical place in Chiapas for Maya studies
• Mexico’s Lincoln: The ecstasy and agony of Benito Juárez

The post The Path of Most Resistance: the Top Yucatán Caste War Sites appeared first on MexConnect.

The walk from the Hotel Mesón de Jobito where I’m staying to the Convento de San Francisco is only 15 minutes away but it’s a distance that spans centuries. The route takes me from the hotel built in the 1700s as a residence and then later used as an inn with donkeys, mules, and horses housed in what is now Bar Muleros where I have a drink each night. My journey takes me even deeper into the history of Zacatecas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located about 378 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Along the way I pass the Catedral Basílica de Zacatecas, consecrated in 1752, with its exterior façade of intricate lace-like pink stonework and elaborate Corinthian pillars. Inside, the main altar is over 55-feet high and 32-foot wide gilded with 24-carat gold. Doric columns rise overhead and elaborate paintings of saints can be found in niches within the walls. But while it’s worth a stop the cathedral is not my ultimate goal and I continue on to what was once the Convento de San Francisco, the first convent established after the founding of Zacatecas in 1567 and is now the Museo Rafael Coronel.

More than 450 years is a long time and over the centuries the convent fell into disrepair Stone walkways tumbled down; wild vines grew profusely and unchecked, covering the sides of walls; rooms became exposed after losing some of their walls; and roofs were opened to the sky. But instead of totally rebuilding the convent when restoration started in the 1980s, the goal was instead to create a functional museum within the crumbling but magnificent structure. Architecturally, it’s a beautiful ruin, a way of both preserving the old and celebrating its earlier glory.

The effect is romantic and enticing, it is a visit into times long gone. And so, though the heat is intense on this summer’s day and the streets are busy with noise, cars, pedestrians, and even horses drawing wagons, as I stand on the cobbled walkway leading under the first archway into a long galley of thick stone, I can already feel the outer world fading away. 

One of two museums in Zacatecas named after two brothers, Pedro and Rafael, both of whom were artists, much of the latter’s extensive mask collection is housed in some of the permanent exhibition halls and is said to be the largest collection in Mexico.

A painter, Coronel was also a collector who was fascinated by folk art and the collection he donated to the museum features not only a wide variety of masks but also puppets, pre-Hispanic art, pre-Columbian and colonial pottery, architectural drawings, photographs, and paintings. The entire folk art collection includes around 16,000 pieces. Beyond the masks, there are terracotta figures, paintings, drawings, pottery, puppets, architectural drawings, and more, including a collection of works such as sketches and drawings by artist Diego Rivera.

Coronel was married to Ruth Rivera Marín, an architect and the first women to study at the College of Engineering and Architecture at the National Polytechnic Institute. Ruth was also the youngest daughter of Diego Rivera and his second wife, Guadalupe Marin. Interestingly, Coronel had once studied to be an architect as well but quit to pursue his interest in art.

The masks, which make up a large portion of Coronel’s collection, are amazing and diverse. Displayed by their uses, regions, or types—religious ceremonies, spiritual, festivals, dances, animals both real and folk, supernatural, mystical, demons, horned devils, saints, humans, and more, they can be forbidding, scary, beautiful, and/or intriguing. The materials are far ranging as well some even using armadillo skin and human hair.

But as interesting as these treasures are, the former convent itself is also a work of art. Abandoned courtyards with benches for resting, giant agaves, and bougainvillea gone wild with masses of flowers are surrounded by exposed stairways and passageways leading into and through porticos, colonnades, and triumphal arches showing the wear of centuries. Statuary can be found throughout the museum as well. 

Rumored to be haunted—though you would think the masks would scare any spirits away—there’s a feeling sometimes when turning a corner into a shadowy and empty cloister of someone having just left though there’s no other way to go or of catching a glimpse of a long skirt or a high topped black boot as its wearer disappears further into the labyrinth of gardens and rooms.

That’s all part of the romanticism of beautiful ruins—places with so much history that some remnants of times past remain.

Related articles on MexConnect

• Interactive Map of Zacatecas
• The state of Zacatecas, Mexico – resource page
• Visiting Zacatecas, a UNESCO World Heritage City

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Did You Know…?

Thousands of dinosaur bones have been found in northern Mexico.

Bones literally litter the ground. Here’s a femur; there’s a tibia; vertebrae, ribs, skulls…

Dozens of dinosaurs, including the world’s cheapest, have been unearthed in a broad belt across northern Mexico, from Baja California and Sonora in the west, through Chihuahua, and Coahuila to Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in the east. Dinosaurs lived from around 230 to 65 millions years ago. Most of the dinosaurs dug up in northern states date back about 70 million years, though those found in the Huizachal canyon in Tamaulipas include the oldest known dinosaur bones in Mexico, from the Jurassic period 180 million years ago.

Coahuila’s most famous dinosaur was discovered at Presa San Antonio, some seventy kilometers west of the state capital Saltillo. Between 1988 and 1992, excavations on ejido land, led by Dr. René Hernández of the National University (UNAM), succeeded in recovering more than 70% of the bones of a herbivorous Kritosaurus. When reassembled, the creature was 7 meters (23 feet) long and stood 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) tall. It also became the cheapest dinosaur in the world. Excluding Dr. Hernandez’s salary, its excavation cost just 15,000 pesos, equivalent at the time to 5,000 dollars. Making a replica for the Institute of Geology Museum in Mexico City cost a whopping 40,000 pesos. The replica (218 bones) is named “Isauria”, apparently because one of the first high school students to view it was overheard to say that it looked just like Isaura, one of their fellow students!

The second location is even closer to Saltillo. The Rincón Colorado ejido is 43.5 kilometers west of the state capital along federal highway 40, the road to Torreón. Here, a small village, located three kilometers north of the road, boasts Mexico’s only “on-site” paleontology museum, complete with lots of dinosaur bones and imprints. Visitors to the museum can also obtain permission to visit the dig, located a short distance away on arid, red-tinted, scrub-covered hillsides, one of which, formerly called Cerro de la Virgen, is now known as Cerro de los Dinosaurios. Bones litter the ground, and more than 20 dinosaurs, dating from the Late Cretaceous period, have so far been found in an area of 25 square kilometers. They include specimens of duck-billed hadrosaurs, one of which still sports its toenails, horned ceratopids (three rhinoceros-like horns on the head), carnivorous tyrannosaurids and dromaeosaurids. Triceratopid still had some skin attached to its bones, very rare find, due to precise mineral-rich conditions of its burial. Hadrosaurs are particularly common and may have been amphibious, though those found here were presumably not very successful at it!

The displays in the Rincón Colorado museum reveal the wide diversity of fauna that once thrived in this area, including fish, turtles, crocodiles, sharks, bivalves, gastropods, ammonites as well as a considerable variety of flora, as shown by tell-tale signs of at least nine different kinds of fruit. Today’s vegetation is much less varied, consisting primarily of plants like agaves, prickly pear cacti, creosote bushes and acacias that can survive in the harsh semi-arid conditions.

Visitors to Coahuila today not only get the chance to see dinosaur bones but with a little perseverance and luck can also find some of the ancient petroglyphs in this part of the state that archeologists think may date back to 4,000 B.C.

In the neighboring state of Chihuahua, the chronicles of early travelers describe finding giant bones in the desert. In recent years, a team of Mexican and American researchers has been working at a site 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Rio Grande, where numerous hadrosaur leg bones were found protruding from the ground in 1999. This region, a desert today, must once have had a fauna as rich as that found in southern Coahuila 70 million years ago. Specialists in the group are especially interested in the smaller animals that lived in the swamps, and have already found and cleaned hundreds of fossilized mice teeth. This site lies well inside the 50-kilometer-wide corridor along the border that the Mexican government wants to designate as an ecological reserve and is not open to the public.

Fortunately, for those who want to see dinosaurs but don’t want to go traipsing out into the desert in Coahuila, there are some excellent alternatives. One option is the paleontology museum in Ciudad Delicias, 85 kilometers south of the city of Chihuahua. The two cities are connected by a four-lane highway, so the driving time between them is about 50 minutes. The museum is downtown at Avenida Rio Chuvíscar Nte. #2, (Tel: 614-474-4068). The museum is open daily (modest entry fee) from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The museum’s exhibits were amassed patiently over more than 20 years. They include not only dinosaurs, but also numerous other marine and terrestrial creatures, as well as minerals and meteorites. The fossil collection on display is one of the most important in the country.

Another option is the world-class Desert Museum (Museo del Desierto), opened in 1999 in Saltillo. Its paleontology area includes Isauria. The museum is in the Parque las Maravillas (Prolongación Pérez Treviño No. 3745; Tels: (844) 410-6633 / 6632)

While in Saltillo, and given that many scientists believe that all birds are descended from dinosaurs, be sure to visit the Mexican Bird Museum (Museo de las Aves de México). The museum, which opened in November 1993, houses 2350 specimens of 670 different species, collected over more than 50 years by ornithologist Aldegundo Garza de León, in the Antiguo Colegio de San Juan, a former Jesuit college, three blocks south of the main plaza. Its excellent web-site contains a wealth of information about Mexican birds, including some stunning audio-visual clips and images that can be manipulated to be viewed from different angles.

While signs of dinosaurs have also been found further south, in states like Michoacán, Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero, it seems that Mexico’s best dinosaur-hunting terrain is the incredibly rich fossil zone that straddles the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila.

Where To Stay:

In Saltillo:
For a hotel full of character, try the Hotel Rancho El Morillo
Prol. Obregón Sur y Perif. Echeverria
Apdo. Postal No. 304
Saltillo, Coahuila 25070, Mexico.
Tel: (844) 417-4078 Fax (844) 417-4376
E-Mail: reservaciones@elmorillo.com
It may be slightly difficult to find (download a map from their website) but is an interesting place to stay, and you may even find a remnant of dinosaur bone in your room since this is the hotel that was used by most of the dinosaur researchers!

In Ciudad Delicias:
Probably the best hotel in Delicias is the Casa Grande, a refurbished XIX century hacienda, converted into a family-run hotel and restaurant, located just 6 blocks from the Palaeontology Museum, at Ave. 6a. Oriente No. 601. It has 70 rooms and offers all services.
Hotel Casa Grande
Ave. 6a. Oriente # 601
Delicias, Coahuila 33000, Mexico.
Tel: (639) 474-0404 Fax (639) 474-0404

Sources:

• Fosiles de Dinosaurios en Coahuila. Gobierno de Coahuila (SEPC) (no date) – pamphlet
• Hernández H., René Dinosaurios. Gobierno de Coahuila (SEPC) (no date) short book

Text and all photos © Copyright 2005 by Tony Burton. All rights reserved.

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Three sets of twins – two of them unusual tourist delights – await the intrepid traveler who explores the area around the industrial cities of Gómez Palacio and Torreón in northern Mexico.

The first, and most obvious, pair of twins is the two cities themselves, which lie either side of the River Nazas. Gómez Palacio is in the state of Durango, Torreón in Coahuila, the river forming the boundary between the two. Road signs are confusing, to say the least, and most motorists spend longer than they had originally intended reaching their hotel. Torreón has more hotels than Gómez Palacio with several good downtown choices, including the Rio Nazas hotel, with its subterranean parking, catering to tourist and business traffic.

Downtown Torreón is lively and noisy despite its wide avenues. Hawkers vie for your attention, birds perched in the tall trees of the plaza chatter through the evening and formally-attired local dignitaries stroll side-by-side discussing their latest business and social transactions. Though Torreón is primarily a business and commercial center, it does house several tourist attractions, more than can be said for its poorer, across-the-river neighbor Gómez Palacio. Torreón has a splendid city park, with a new Regional Archaeological Museum (Museo Regional de la Laguna), several other museums and a country club with golf course.

BRIDGE IN THE MIST AND MEXICO’S GEMSTONE CAPITAL

North-west of Gómez Palacio, past the turning to the inappropriately quiet town of Dinamita (Dynamite), lies the second set of twins: Mapimí and Ojuela. To reach them from Gomez Palacio or Torreón, first take federal highway 49 northwards (follow signs for Chihuahua and stay on the free, non-toll road) as far as Bermejillo, a decaying one street town with two small motels, several rock shops and a railway station. From Bermejillo, take highway 30 (signed La Zarca) to the west. Fifteen minutes along here, a signpost indicates that “Puente de Ojuelas” is somewhere off to your left.

This is decision-time! If unsure of your vehicle’s (or driver’s) capabilities, then hire a local truck for the next stage. However, if you are driving a vehicle with high clearance and adequate power, then simply pay your toll (about 50 cents US) and bump your way seven kilometers across the desert on a gravel road to the base of the hills, taking the well-worn left fork part way there. Ahead of you, a steep cement and rock road leading up the hillside will confirm that you are in the right place! This one car wide road, with blind bends, should be navigated with great caution and probably not attempted in wet weather (a rare event in these parts). At the end of the road several surprises await you!

A ghostly air pervades the hillside, especially if mist hangs on the slopes. Ruined stone houses tell of former wealth. You are naturally drawn towards a stupendous view across a deep canyon and towards a mysteriously restored bridge.

Ore was first discovered here in 1598. By 1777, seven ” haciendas de beneficio” (enrichment plants) served thirteen different mines. In 1848, the Spanish mine owners gave up their struggle to make the mines pay and a Mexican company took over. In 1892 they decided to attack the hillside opposite Ojuela. To shortcut the approach, an engineer, Santiago Minguin, spanned the gorge with a 315-metre-long suspension bridge, said by some to be the third longest in Latin America. The mine’s production peaked just after the Mexican Revolution. Between 1922 and 1925, 687 kilograms of gold and 99,820 kilos of silver were extracted, alongside more than 51 million kilos of lead and a million kilos of copper. At that time, some 3,000 miners celebrated every evening in the bars of Ojuela, now completely abandoned to the elements.

The bridge, restored for its centenary, is a worthy contribution to future tourism in Durango state. One and a half metres wide, it sways and bounces in the breeze, probably scaring mums and dads into silent concentration faster than their excited children! But the local miners and their mineral-laden donkeys rattle across the planks as if it were a highway. Once across the bridge, old timers will take you on a one kilometer walk along mine galleries (unlit except for hand-held miners’ lamps) which completely traverse the mountain to emerge into daylight on the far side.

A local guide may offer to drive you in his truck to see some “nearby” caves. This will turn out to be a 5-hour round trip, not exactly a short expedition, merely confirming that all distances in this huge swathe of desert are relative!

Back on the highway and anxious for refreshments? Continue west for a few kilometers and enter the small and historic town of Mapimí. The Tepehuan Indians called this place “the rock on the hill” and repeatedly thwarted the attempts of Jesuit missionaries to found a town here. ** See Map Below) The gold-thirsty Jesuits won in the end; rumour has it that gold was even found under the streets.

Even if the town once had too many children, it doesn’t now, apparently. Visitors entering the town are greeted by a sign proclaiming that ” Aquí no sobran niños” (Here children are not in oversupply). Below, in much larger letters, is “¡ Maneja con cuidado!” (Drive Carefully!).

A two room museum half a block off the plaza, on the same side as the eighteenth century church, has mementos and photos from the old days when this was a prosperous mining town, and a gem shop (agates, selenite crystals and calcite) for the geologist in the family. One handbook to gem collecting in Mexico describes Mapimí as the “mineral collector’s capital of Mexico”.

According to the museum’s display, we owe the preservation of the suspension bridge at Ojuela to a Señor Carlos González who, when ordered by executives of his mining company to take 50 men and obliterate the town of Ojuelas, prevaricated sufficiently for a “rescue” campaign to save the bridge. A Mexican’s ” mañana-syndrome” won one for the nation! Other prominent mines in this region, all served by Mapimí, were San Vicente, Socavón, Sta. Rita, Sta. María, El Carmen, La Soledad, and the presumably traitorous Judas.

Like seemingly every town in this region of Mexico, Mapimí boasts that both Miguel Hidalgo, the Father of Mexican Independence, and Benito Juárez, the President of Indian blood, passed by in the nineteenth century. Juárez even stayed overnight.

A DATE IN THE DUNES

Our third set of desert twins is totally different. East of Torreón, towards Parras and Saltillo (turn right at Emiliano Zapata), are the small settlements of Villa de Bilbao and Viesca. Both Hidalgo (then a prisoner) and Juárez also visited both places, staying overnight in the latter-named.

In Viesca, in 1864, Juárez, a guest in General Jesús González Herrera’s home at number 19, Hidalgo street, was introduced to the patriotic Mexicans who would soon become the official guardians of the federal archives which Juárez was carrying with him. The archives were hidden for several years in a cave, then known as La Cueva del Tabaco (Tobacco Cave), but now renamed La Cueva de los Supremos Poderes (The Cave of the Supreme Powers), before being restored to the nation in 1867 after the French left and Maximilian was executed. The cave is about 12 kilometers east of Matamoros. While there is little to see there today, this important event in national history is one rightfully remembered by all Mexicans and the entrance to the cave is via an impressive, modern, stone stairway.

Villa de Bilbao is the nearest village to the twin attractions of cheap dates (the kind that grow on palm trees) and an amazing landscape of easily accessible desert sand dunes, Las Dunas de Bilbao, only a nine-iron sandtrap shot from the highway. The dunes have provided the backdrop or set for numerous movies. It’s fun to explore the dunes which are surprisingly free of signs of human activity (even garbage is rare to find here) and don’t pass up the opportunity to slide down them, just for fun. The dunes are not completely devoid of vegetation, but don’t expect to find very much shade.

Several homes in Bilbao sell boxes of dates – at prices which are extremely reasonable, even if the weights marked on the packages are somewhat suspect. A dirt road from Bilbao leads to the ruined ex-hacienda of Venustiano Carranza, about 12 kilometers away.

SHOULD THE SOUTHERN TEPEHUAN INDIANS WEAR CLOTHES, AND IF SO WHAT STYLE?

According to Chloë Sayer in Costumes of Mexico , “Spanish priests were equally shocked by Indian nudity. A report for 1645 by Andrés Pérez de Ribas described the efforts of priests to obtain clothing for the nude Tepehuan of northern Mexico…” Centuries later, the Spanish had successfully persuaded most of the Indians to abandon traditional dress (men wore loin cloths only) in favour of “Mexican” attire. But then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, back towards traditional attire. Among several “new apparitions” described by John Bierhorst in The Mythology of Mexico and Central America is the story of The Virgin of Cerro Amarillo. In 1956, a young southern Tepehuan woman saw the Virgin of Guadalupe, who spoke to her, requesting that a chapel be constructed and that the people stop wearing Mexican clothes.

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-Valley of Anahuac, New Year’s Eve, 1507.

Tenochtitlán, the great island city, capital of the Mexica empire, lies cloaked in darkness. An eerie silence pervades the vast ceremonial center — the Teocalli or Templo Mayor — spreading out over Moctezuma’s splendid palace, with its botanical gardens and well-stocked zoo, across the market places, canals, aqueducts, and within each of the humble abodes in the residential wards.

For five full days, activity in the normally bustling metropolis has ceased. Commerce has been suspended, ceremonial and household fires extinguished, clothing, furniture, crockery and religious idols torn, broken and smashed. It is a time of fasting, sexual abstinence and uneasy waiting. But the nemotemi — empty days — that mark the end of the solar cycle are about to come to an end.

At the summit of Uixachtecatl — the Star Hill — overlooking Tenochtitlán, the city’s astronomer-priests anxiously watch the heavens. Each is outfitted in the image of one of their many gods. They await nature’s sign, for not until the Pleiades appear on the horizon can the sacred New Year’s ritual begin.

Finally a noble captive is guided to the sacrificial stone. At the moment the brilliant star cluster reaches its zenith the priests jump into action. With one swift stroke of a razor-sharp obsidian knife they slash open their honored victim’s chest. They work furiously to kindle fire within the gaping wound, and as the first spark turns to flame, cut out the heart, casting it upon a brazier. One by one, a line of waiting couriers step forward to ignite their torches, then turn back towards the darkened city to relay the New Fire first to the altars of the Templo Mayor and thence to every temple and hearth throughout the empire.

For the next 12 days Tenochtitlán will erupt in unbridled festivity, for this ceremony marks not only the commencement of the new xiuhmolpilli  — year bundle  —  but also the start of a new 52-year calendar cycle. According to Mexica belief, if the New Fire failed to ignite, the sun would surely perish. But on this night it seemed that the gods were pleased; El Quinto Sol  — the Fifth Sun — would continue to illuminate the Mexica Empire. Once again the forces of darkness had been routed by the powers of light.

Or had they? We can only surmise the above scenario of that final New Fire ritual and wonder whether the wise priests perceived some augur of their civilization’s imminent doom. Did they in fact forsee that only a few years hence the mighty Tenochtitlán would be laid to waste, that the foundations of another metropolis would be created from the rubble of their lofty temples? Did they envision that conquerers from a distant land would be so indifferent to their accomplishments, so reviled by their religious customs that all evidence of the Mexica culture would be systematically destroyed and suppressed for generations to come?

As it happened, the Empire of the Mexicas (or Aztecs as the Spanish called them) fell to Cortés and his Conquistadores in 1521. Within a few short years the heathen temples were obliterated and valuable records, such as friar Bernardino de Sahagún’s codices — a 12-volume encyclopedia of Aztec life and culture — secreted and gathering dust.

Widespread interest in Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past was not awakened until 1790, when an astonishing artifact was uncovered during a renovation of el Zócalo, Mexico City’s central plaza. It was a massive disk of carved basalt, three feet thick and 12 feet in diameter, weighing some 24 metric tons. A veritable monument to art and science, the monolith initially remained at the Zócalo, embedded for viewing in the base of the west tower of the Metropolitan Cathedral. A hundred years later it was transferred to Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, where today it stands as the institution’s centerpiece.

Following the first intepretations of the intricately carved hieroglyphs it was labeled the Aztec Calendar Stone. In current thought Stone of the Fifth Sun is considered a more apt moniker. Though scholars have long debated the stone’s meaning and purpose, they still puzzle over its many mysteries. Some suggest that, fixed horizontally, it served as a sacrificial altar. Most now agree that it offers a graphic representation of the Mexica cosmos.

The stone’s outer rim shows two fire serpents meeting face to face at the lower extreme. Their tails are joined at the top with the symbol for the ritual date 13-Reed, considered to represent the creation, possibly corresponding to 1011 A.D. Looking out from the center of the stone is the sun god Tonatuih. His tongue, in the form of a sacrificial flint knife, protrudes from between his bared teeth, while in each claw-like hand he grasps a human heart. The god is surrounded by four glyphs symbolizing the cataclysms that ended each of the prior solar eras. According to Mexica belief, earth’s earliest inhabitants were devoured by jaguars. The demise of the second sun brought destruction by great winds. The third era ended with fiery rain, while the fourth sun was extinguished by massive floods.

These symbols, together with the image of Tonatuih, are neatly contained in the abstract motif for motion called ollin. It is surmised that the stone reveals the predicted date of destruction for El Quinto Sol during a 4-Ollin cycle. The Mexicas attempted to preserve their era, forestalling catastrophe by sating the gods with myriad rituals and sacrifices, including a steady diet of human blood.

In fulfilling their sacred duties to some 1,600 deities, the Mexicas adhered to a complex calendar system. There was a civil calendar made up of 18 months of 20 days each, which with the ominous nemontemi brought the total of the solar year to a tidy 365 days. A second sacred calendar — the tonalpohualli — was an ancient ritualistic almanac, probably adopted from the Mayan culture, comprising 260 days. Each 24-hour cycle was designated by one of 20 day names plus a number from 1 to 13. A band of the 20 day-sign gylphs encircles the Sun Stone’s center.

The formula by which the two calendars were combined meant that no one date would be repeated for a period of 18,980 days. Thus the last day of a solar cycle and the last day of a sacred cycle coincided just once every 52 years. It was on this auspicious occasion that El Quinto Sol was considered in greatest jeopardy of extinction. A successful New Fire ceremony would assure the the reappearance of the orb and continued survival of human civilization.

The intercalation of a 12-day New Fire festival period once every 52 years brought the Mexicas into nearly perfect synchronization with the true cycles of earth and sun. Modern scientists calculate the tropical year to be precisely 365.2422 days. While the Gregorian calendar currently in use allots 365.2425 days for each year, the remarkable Mexicas were a bit closer to the mark at 365.2420 days.

This is just one of many unsolved mysteries that promise to keep the Mexica’s Kingdom of the Sun a subject of fascination so long as Tonatuih — the luminous one — shines upon our earth.

(This article originally appeared in the January, 1993 edition of El Ojo del Lago. With some recent revisions by the author, it is reproduced here with her kind permission, as well as that of the publisher.)

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Did You Know…?

Very few visitors to Guadalajara and, indeed, only a minority of Tapatios (Guadalajara residents), realize that several ancient pyramids, built more than a thousand years ago, still stand in silent pride even as they hear the noise and feel the rumble of the traffic on the city’s ring-road or periférico. The site of Iztépete is so close to where Mariano Otero joins the periférico that literally tens of thousands of people pass within 300 meters of it every day, yet there is not even a clear sign indicating its presence. What would these forgotten stone say, if they could talk!

None of the archaeological sites near Guadalajara is more interesting, or accessible, than Iztépete. Perhaps visitors who know the pyramids at San Juan Teotihuacan, near Mexico City, or those built by the Maya in the Yucatan may find Iztépete disappointing. But before dismissing these ancient mounds, intriguing sections of stairway and evocative walls, bear in mind that very few larger pre-Columbian stone constructions are known anywhere in western or northern Mexico and certainly none are as close to a major international airport, perennial tourist destination and lively, business-oriented city.

Mirrors, knives and obsidian

Some early references to the site spell it “Ixtépete”. For centuries, local inhabitants had passed the name down orally from one generation to the next. When archaeologists “re”-discovered the ruins and began exploring them in 1954, and heard its name, they were forced to choose between two alternative spellings: “Ixtépete” (derived linguistically from “ixtle”, the hard fibre made from the leaves of the maguey), and “Iztépete” (meaning “hill of obsidian or knives”). Obsidian is a hard, black, reflective, volcanic glass formed when lava cools instantaneously on falling into a lake. When fractured, pieces of obsidian acquire very sharp edges. Not surprisingly, many pre-Columbian peoples prized it for use as mirrors, arrow heads and knives. Given that large, angular chunks of obsidian litter the slopes of Cerro Colli, the hill rising behind the pyramids, “Iztépete” was deemed the more appropriate spelling.

The largest structure visible today, six meters high, conceals at least five preceding pyramids which had newer, bigger, pyramids superimposed over them. The steps up it are off-centre, an indication, perhaps, that more than one temple once adorned its top. The most recent, 12-meter-wide stairway, also superimposed over earlier versions, is probably more than a thousand years old! The earliest ceramics found at Iztépete suggest that occupation here stretches back at least to the fifth century AD.

Most of the walls visible today have the distinctive ” talud y tablero” form which characterizes the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Vertical sections ( tableros) with inset sections, which would have been plastered and painted, alternate with even sloping ” talud” sections. The proportions are not only esthetic and functional but also structurally sound.

Mysteries remain

Numerous unknowns remain at Iztépete. Who built these pyramids? Why here, and not elsewhere in the region? Why does the one patio seen by visitors today have the I-shape, always associated elsewhere with courts for the pre-Columbian ball game?

Of all the sites in Jalisco, this is the one which most deserves a visit. It also deserves continued conservation, restoration and investigation. And, of course, it also deserves better signposting for more publicity.

Shaft tombs in the Regional Museum

Visitors to Guadalajara interested in learning more about the area’s archeology can continue their discoveries by spending time in the city’s Regional Museum, housed in a historic building in the city center. Like almost all museums in Mexico, this is closed on Mondays and no entrance fee is charged on Sundays. The museum’s collection of pre-Columbian earthenware is outstanding and the museum is not so huge as to overwhelm the casual visitor. One particularly intriguing display shows the constructions known as shaft tombs, underground burial chambers dating from as long ago as 300 B.C. Such tombs have proved to be a rich source of archeological data. Some have interconnecting chambers excavated at different depths and multiple burials in a single tomb are common. It has even been worked out that some shaft tombs must have been constructed prior to the persons demise!

Even though Guadalajara may not have the spectacular pyramid sites the rest of the world associates instantly with Mexico, the city should still be on the travel itinerary of anyone interested in Mexico’s fascinating pre-Columbian past.

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We were lucky: we managed to visit the famous pyramids of Teotihuacan on a rare sunny winter’s day, when Mexico City’s air was clear and, from our bus, you could actually see the snow capped volcano of Popocatepetl some forty miles away. I should explain that it was Christmas Day, a time of year when many people leave Mexico City and take their automobiles with them. A light breeze was blowing. Conditions couldn’t have been better. The morning newspapers even reported that Popo had put on a bit of a show the previous evening with a twenty minute eruption that scared everyone in the area. The unexpected sight of the volcano only whetted our appetites for the pyramids.

One other advantage of going on Christmas day was that many other people went, too. While we tourists generally don’t welcome crowds, the thought struck me that with the hordes who were there that day, this is how Teotihuacan might have looked in its glory days, as a bustling place with people buying and selling, eating and drinking, chatting and strolling in the sunshine and generally enjoying themselves. We sometime have a tendency to think of these archaeological sites as solemn places of interminable ceremonies and rituals. But the truth is that for hundreds of years Teotihuacan was actually a living, breathing, vibrant city, the center of its world, rivaling Rome and Athens in size and importance.

It must have been quite an attraction then, around 600 A.D., when it covered 40 square kilometers and had a population of some 200,000 — as much a magnet for bright, creative, ambitious people as, say, New York or London today. It lay in the center of a huge area that covers most of present-day Mexico. Three rivers flowed across the plain towards what was then nearby Lake Texcoco. However, the ecology of the area has changed drastically since. The Spanish arrived and felled the abundant cedar and pine forests to provide timber for building. Agave and cactus have now taken over. The barren plain you see today is not how it looked then.

Dominating everything at Teotihuacan is the Pyramid of the Sun. The climb up the 248 steps to the top isn’t that strenuous and the view is worth the effort. There are lots of places to rest and admire the scenery. You can stand there and look down on the crowds strolling along the Avenue of the Dead and imagine how it might have looked say, 1500 years ago when the city was at its peak. The Avenue of the Dead was at one time lined with temples and dwellings. The walls were painted with pictures of animals and mythological creatures. Only fragments of those structures remain today to tease the imagination. The Avenue of the Dead was at one time a very long thoroughfare but only a short stretch, between the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, has been excavated.

Pyramid of the Sun

The people who founded the city arrived on that high plain about 500 B.C. Little is actually known about them and their origins. Even less is known about why their civilization faded. The evidence seems to suggest that the decline was gradual, over two or three centuries, due to overpopulation, depletion of resources. In the end, the city was deliberately burned and abandoned.

Construction of the Pyramid of the Sun was started about 100 B.C. It’s the third largest pyramid in the world. A temple once crowned the summit but is no longer there. Great care obviously went into the planning of the city. All of the buildings were laid out to coincide with celestial movements. Ceremonial rituals were timed with the appearance of Venus in the morning and night sky. The front wall of the Pyramid of the Sun faces exactly the place on the horizon where the sun sets twice annually. Almost all other locations on the site are related to celestial points and had religious significance. This was a civilization with a profound knowledge of astronomy and the calendar. The rituals of the high priests took place on top of the pyramids and the populace observed from the great plaza below.

Teotihuacan is one of the major tourist attractions in Mexico City — a place that’s full of attractions. I urge you to go. It’s easy to get to. There are decent eating places out there and lots to see and do. There’s a museum and a cultural center and plenty of places to buy souvenirs. And if you’re feeling energetic, try the climb up to the top of either pyramid. At the very summit of the Pyramid of the Sun there’s a metal spike sticking up an inch or so out of the stone. Do what everyone did when we were up there — hold on to it and let the pyramid’s energy flow into your body.

If you go with an experienced guide, one who knows his or her stuff, there’s lots to learn and see and think about. But if you just want to visit and take in the ambiance of one of the world’s great archaeological sites, then Teotihuacan is still enjoyable and rewarding.

One last suggestion: do what we did and go at Christmas. Easter is also recommended. It’s the other time of year when the locals leave town and take their vehicles with them. The air will be clearer and you’ll be able to enjoy the magnificent view of the surrounding plain and, if you’re real lucky, Popocatepetl, too.

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Cogan’s Reviews

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guidebook specifically on Guadalajara and the surrounding area. There are plenty of such books on the Lake Chapala region, serving the many tourists, retirees and ex-pats who find their way down here. But I just don’t recall seeing a specific English text on Mexico’s second largest city. If I’m right – and a quick look through the offerings in amazon.com indicates that I am – then here’s a welcome addition to the growing library of Mexican guidebooks. And it’s a good one.

It covers all the information you would expect, like motels, hotels, bed & breakfasts, restaurants, shopping, money exchange locations, tourist highlights and how to get from one place to another. In addition, there’s an abundance of information on such items as bus fares, rental cars, walking and jogging routes, exercise gyms, language courses and even where to get rolls of film processed. Surprisingly, the only topic that doesn’t seem to be covered is the location of internet cafes or places where you can sit down at a keyboard and check your e-mail, which is something we always like to do when we’re on the road. However, they seem to be easy enough to find here. I know of at least four within a five minute walk of where I live in Ajijic.

I think you can rely on this author’s advice when he gives you a recommendation. Bruce Whipperman has obviously checked things in a very thorough way. When he tells you about motels and restaurants, I believe you can rest assured that he’s visited them and at least has “eye-balled” the rooms that he’s recommending.

The same thoroughness applies to his descriptions of the various tourist attractions in the city. Just to take one of many examples….when writing about Tlaquepaque he doesn’t just cover the shopping and the crafts and the principal attractions such as churches and museums and monuments. You are also given more detailed advice. When you visit, say, the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Soledad you are told: “If you have time, see if the sacristan (the keeper of the church) is around. Ask him to show you inside the sacristy behind the altar, offer a donation. Inside you’ll find the more precious paintings, including the noted Jesus Visiting the Home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, dating from 1685.” There’s lots of that sort of commentary here.

Other interesting features throughout the book are the many, many sidebars or short articles on a broad variety of topics. Here you can read about Jose Clemente Orozco, the famed Mexican muralist and where his work can be found in Guadalajara. Or you can find out about Lake Chapala and its current problems. And there’s Jorge Negrete, the Singing Cowboy of Mexican film or Sister Inez de la Cruz, a most unusual nun. There are dozens of these specialized stories throughout the book.

Whipperman is a former physics teacher who took up travel writing and photography full time after a trip to Kenya. On one occasion, more than a decade ago, when stranded in Ethiopia, he began writing and launched his new career. Since then he has produced scores of articles on places such as Bali, the Gobi desert, Japan, Nepal and other locations. He does his own photography, too, and there are lots of his photos in this Guadalajara volume. Yet another good feature is that there are lots of maps.

You’ll find good coverage, too, of a number of attractive destinations outside the city – such as Tequila, the Lake Chapala area, San Juan de Los Lagos and the Chimulco and Rio Caliente spas. The author’s enthusiasm is a key factor in Guadalajara. Indeed, Bruce Whipperman makes this reviewer want to get in the car and take off for a day’s run or an overnight stay in some nearby hacienda.

A feature that I found interesting and useful at the end of the book, in addition to the usual glossary of Spanish terms and expressions, was a list of both Suggested Reading and Internet Resources. The Suggested Reading is a fairly comprehensive list of the better books on history, culture, art, architecture, crafts, flora, fauna, people and culture. It even includes interesting fiction about Mexico. The Internet Resources covered a host of web sites on different areas of the country including information on such topics as Elderhostels and wheelchair travel.

In my humble O: I think it’s obvious that I liked this one. Need I say that it now has a place on the permanent shelf.

Moon Handbooks – Guadalajara
By Bruce Whipperman
Avalon Publishing dona300 pages. Paperback. 2002.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback

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Photo Gallery: Visiting Zacatecas, a UNESCO World Heritage City

Photo Gallery: Zacatecas

“Zacatecas is the town everyone wants to go back to,” a friend said to me when I mentioned that we were going there. If not quite true, at least I know what she meant. Zacatecas was the first town we stayed in the first time we came to Mexico, back in those days when we were frankly apprehensive about coming here. The towns around the border, starting at Nuevo Laredo didn’t look too attractive. I remember lots of garbage, hungry looking dogs, delapidated billboards and roadside cafes you’d never dream of eating in. One’s biggest fear was that one might have a car problem and be stuck there. We skirted around Monterrey and got lost in Saltillo and then drove the long desolate stretch of desert between Saltillo and Zacatecas. If I remember correctly, there’s one gas station on that road – and that’s it.

So Zacatecas, some 400 miles south, came as a pleasant surprise and a relief….a charming, colonial city, and a fairly well-to-do university town with nice hotels, friendly, well-dressed people and some good attractions. In fact, on that first day, we liked it so much we decided to stay another night, even though we had an appointment in Guadalajara, most of a day’s drive further down the road. When we left, we said, “We must come back for a week-end or a long mid-week stay.”

A year or so later, we were completing the five-day drive from Canada to Mexico and, feeling road weary, we decided to treat ourselves to Zacateca’s finest, The Quinta Real, the luxury hotel which is so cleverly built around a bullring, and for an afternoon and an evening we succumbed to five-star pampering, which we loved. Next morning, as we were driving up the long winding road leading out of the valley in which Zacatecas is nestled, one of us was clearly heard to say: “We must come back for a week-end or a long mid-week stay.”

Even my Frommer’s Mexico 1996 starts off its article on Exploring Zacatecas with this statement: “Zacatecas is so picturesque that many travelers regret not having planned at least three nights here…”

So that’s what we mean when we say Zacatecas is a town everyone wants to go back to.

It’s a city with abundant charms and attractions, all of them thoroughly documented in numerous guidebooks.

One of my favorites is the Museo Pedro Coronel which houses a surprisingly eclectic art collection featuring not only examples from ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt but works by modern masters like Picasso, Miró, Dalí and Braque. Also on display are sculptures and paintings by Maestro Coronel himself.

A collection of 4,500 Mexican masks is the centerpiece of the Rafael Coronel Museum. Rafael was the younger brother of Pedro Coronel. A long chain of rooms contain the displays of exotic and colorful masks. But the best part of the Museo is simply wandering the beautiful grounds of what used to be a convent, presently undergoing restoration. Take a look around corners and down alleyways between buildings. It’s a site that contains lots of visual pleasures.

If you want to see craftsmen producing silver chains, ear-rings and bracelets – and also to make a purchase or two on your way out, visit the Centro Platero de Zacatecas. It’s a workshop and also a school for silversmiths. Zacatecas’s wealth has been founded on silver for 400 years. Originally, in pre-Hispanic times, the town, located between two mountain ranges, existed because it was the gateway between north and south. When the Spaniards arrived and discovered the rich silver deposits in 1546 the town’s fate took a different turn. Today it is still the biggest silver producer in Mexico. An association of mining engineers supports the Centro Platero, making sure of an ample supply of craftsmen for the future.

Deep in a mine. High on a mountain.

If you would like to buy your silver in an unusual setting try the Edén mine. At the entrance a train will take you 1700 feet straight into the mountain. Deep inside you’ll find two shops. One sells silver, the other sells rock and mineral samples. If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, you can walk even further into the mine. It’s dry and nicely lit and it’s not scary. You get to look down into some quite deep gorges and they’ll even produce a waterfall for you. Keep on going and you’ll come to an elevator which takes you straight up or 200 feet to another exit.

If you’re still feeling brave it’s only a short walk up the street to El Teleférico, a cable car which swings high above the city up to Cerro de la Bufa, the mountain which dominates any aspect of Zacatecas. It’s a four or five minute ride with some wonderful views of the city nestled in a bowl below you. Don’t forget your camera. On the morning we were there the air was clear and sparkling, which is not always something you can say about a Mexican city. On the summit you’ll find an observatory, the Museum of the Taking of Zacatecas and a church, La Capilla de la Virgen of the Patrocinio, patron saint of the city – and more views.

In what other city can you go deep inside a mine and then take a cable car, all in the same morning – and never leave downtown?

Of course there’s a cathedral. This one has an incredibly ornate exterior. However, right beside it, the main square is a bit of a disappointment. It has few trees and even fewer places to sit and while away the time. However, like all other Mexican plazas, it’s still very much a people place..

And if you crave even more cultural attractions, there’s the Convento de Guadalupe with its fabulous displays of religious art ( Click for article with photos), the Regional Museo de la Historia, the Museo de F. Goitia, once a governor’s palace, and now a showcase for the works of Francisco Goitia and other Zacatecan artists.

All these places are well described in the guidebooks. They’re inexpensive and pretty easy to get to.

Actually, the most entertaining thing to do in Zacatecas is simply to go for a walk, especially in the evening. The streets are clean and tidy and nicely paved. There are very few beggars and you don’t have to wave away hordes of pedlars. The shops are worth a close inspection with their abundant displays of leather, jewellry, semi-precious stones, wood carvings and textiles. The architecture is fabulous. Many of the buildings are constructed of the pink stone quarried from the area. The stone has the effect of seeming to change color throughout the day. Each new street offers a fresh vista – a fountain, a stone carving, a unique facade, an ornate balcony decorated with plants or a set of attractive archways. It’s really a neat city, in every respect. It can be hilly in spots and the streets and alleyways wind around seemingly without rhyme or reason. Just follow your instincts and you’ll be constantly surprised and pleased. Also, be advised that Zacatecas is at an altitude of 8,000 feet. That’s a mile and a half up. So don’t get too energetic or you’ll feel the effect. And it can be cool in the evenings, so take a light sweater along.

One unique Zacatecan delight is the callejoneada , which, as it’s name suggests, is very much a street event. We met up with one while out on an evening walk. Frommer’s Mexico 1996 lists it as one of the half dozen best cultural experiences in Mexico. Anyway, it involves taking a stroll with a noisy little brass band which features a couple of exceptionally loud drummers and a man with a burro loaded with a generous supply of mezcal. What you do is sign up to accompany them and they hang a cup around your neck for the mezcal and off you go on a tour of the town, pausing frequently for drinks, singing, dancing and general merry-making that goes on until the wee small hours. It looked like fun. However, I’m getting too old for that kind of thing.

The perfect introduction to Mexico?

Zacatecas has a prosperous, settled look, more like an English cathedral town than a Mexican city. Obviously there’s a sizeable middle class there. I don’t know what they all do. I know the mines still produce silver and there’s a lot of ranching going on in the surrounding area. But these people don’t look like they’re mining or ranching. When we went to find the Centro Platero de Zacatecas we got lost in a suburb of very modern upscale houses in Fraccionamiento Lomas. Dozens of rather splendid custom built houses are under construction there, surrounding an 18-hole golf course. So somebody’s managing to prosper in these inflationary times.

The streets are busy in the evening. No one ever seems to go home. A lot of people have young children with them. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. So if you’re a bit jittery about coming to Mexico, you couldn’t find a better place to start overcoming that nervousness. It’s the perfect introduction to a country that offers so many surprises and delights. It’s a long day’s drive from the Texas border. But plan on staying more than just one night.

We found several good restaurants in the Centro Historico district. The Quinta Real is always worth a visit – but it’s pricey, as you might expect from a grand class hotel. We were happy to find one restaurant that wasn’t mentioned in anybody’s guidebook. It was La Nueva Galicia, at Plazuela Goytia 102, featuring a wide range of Mexican dishes. I was there with five other people and everyone enjoyed the experience. We also found a Greek ice-cream parlor called Café Nevería Acrópolis where we splurged on baclava and banana splits. (That’s right – a Greek ice-cream parlor!).

Our favorite place, however, was La Cuija, where the owner, who is a dead ringer for Lou Costello, (Remember Abbott and Costello?) and just as much a comedian in his own right, chats with all the diners and, at the merest drop of a sombrero , will try to sell you an extravagantly autographed copy of his cookbook. It’s called Cocina Regional . His name is Filiberto Enriquez Perales. He’ll ask 180 pesos for it, but you can get him down to 150 pesos or perhaps even less. It’s an attractive place. The waiters are all very personable and friendly – cloned, possibly, from Senor Perales. The cuisine is what you’d expect from someone who’s written a Mexican cookbook. We were all more than delighted with our chicken mole , grilled huachinango (a fish) and lomo zacatecano (broiled pork with chile sauce).

Zacatecas just doesn’t get as many tourists as a lot of other Mexican destinations. When I mentioned this to a friend in Ajijic she said: “Yes, Zacatecas is just like San Miguel de Allende – without tourists.” That’s not a remark that should make the Zacatecas Tourist Department feel very happy. This might be because Zacatecas is small and some distance from other colonial cities. It may also be because, as I mentioned earlier, Zacatecas is seen by many people as just an overnight stop on the way south. I suspect, too, a big reason is it doesn’t promote itself as much as many other cities – like Oaxaca, for instance, which really works at making tourism a lucrative industry. There are two tourist offices in Zacatecas but the one I visited seemed to exist only to hand out pamphlets. The lone employee there didn’t speak a word of English and my Spanish wasn’t good enough to allow me to phrase the questions I wanted to ask. She wouldn’t have known the answers anyway.

In Oaxaca I clearly recall going to the Secretaría for Tourism Development with a bunch of questions and being given all the information I asked for. Also, I remember the very detailed two-page survey my wife was asked to fill out about tourism one night in the zócalo in Oaxaca. From the information I was given it was quite apparent that officials in that state make good use of the data they gather to promote their area. In my humble opinion, Zacatecas needs to make the same sort of effort.

However, please don’t let any of this criticism deter you. I just hope I’ve conveyed the impression that Zacatecas is a town well worth visiting. I should tell you, too, that as we were leaving on this most recent visit, my wife was clearly heard to say: “Why don’t we come back for a few days at Christmas.” I think we will, too.

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Westwords

The reputation of Mexican criminal investigators is often somewhere below zero, except on this occasion.

They don’t even hear about a lot of crimes. They seldom solve cases. Even when they think they have caught a crook, they rarely gain convictions. Judges shake their heads. Maybe the warrant was defective, wrong address, misspelled name. Or maybe there is mistaken identity, that is not Jose.

We are told criminal investigators have been searching high and low for missing Mexicans since the cartels opened their first shooting galleries in 2006. Detectives look under every rock and behind every tree.

You don’t hear much about it but the long arm of the law has, for a year and more, been feeling around, trying to find the bandits who robbed a gold mine in the mountainous area of Mocorito, in Sinaloa, and took a ton of cargo valued at $8.4 million U.S.

It was the greatest gold robbery in Mexico history, considered the fourth biggest heist in the world. Nobody has been detained. Nobody has been accused.

The gold was in 900 kilograms of an aquiferous concentrate, meaning there was still some work to be done before it could go to market as bars, coins, rings, bracelets, watches and charms.

Circumstances hinted that the haul might have been an inside job — premeditated, well-planned and properly organized.

Retired General Moises Melo Garcia, state director of security, still professes total surprise. He said criminals in the area usually rob fuel from Pemex pipelines, that this was the first hit on a gold mine.

Investigators can’t say for sure that the robbery was the product of a specific group. Ah, but there are suspicions. That area was under control of Orso Ivan Gastelum, who was captured in January with the infamous Joaquin “El Chapo” Loera.

The severely offended mine owner, wealthy Canadian Rob McEwen, said this is far worse than the typical cost of doing business in Mexico. His and other companies in Sinaloa have had to negotiate agreements with drug traffickers to be able to work in their territories.

Not to worry, señor. Sinaloa Justice Prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera is confident that his people will soon find those responsible and present them for judgment.

Stranger things have happened.

I am reminded of the great Mexico museum robbery of long, long ago. It made huge headlines. I know. I wrote some.

Thieves stole 140 thought-to-be-priceless Maya, Aztec and other artifacts from world-famous National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on Christmas Eve 1985. Nothing like that had ever happened.

Bad guys pried open seven glass display cases in three exhibition halls and grabbed several of the best-known gold, jade, turquoise and obsidian objects. Mexican prosecutors interrogated the nine guards.

They were “working” a 12-hour shift. One or more was/were supposed to visit each room in the modern museum at least once every hour. Nobody saw anything. The place was so quiet, you could have heard the mice if they had been singing Christmas carols.

Museum officials guesstimated the total value of stolen goods at “many millions of dollars.”

“We don’t know the price. Nothing like this has ever been sold on international markets,” said Felipe Solis, then curator at the museum.

Solis said he believed the thieves to be professionals who would probably try to sell the artifacts abroad. Other experts said the objects were so well known that the bandits would find it difficult to unload them.

“It’s like trying to fence the ‘Mona Lisa’” said Robert Childs, then director of collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

A former New York dealer in artifacts expressed fears for the fate of the stolen objects when the thieves discovered how difficult it would be to sell them.

“No reputable dealer would dare get even his fingerprints on them. The tragedy of this is that the thieves may become scared and destroy them.”

The stolen objects were small, easy to hide, easy to haul. The largest was less than a foot in diameter.

The most famous piece was the jade mosaic funerary mask of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal who ruled Palenque for 68 years until his death in 683 AD. The mask was discovered when the tomb was uncovered in 1952.

Other prizes included an Aztec vase shaped like a monkey and a mask of the bat god Murcielago of the Zapotec culture. Gone were artifacts from the two major Maya finds, at Palenque and the “sacred pool” at Chichen Itza.

The thieves were smart. They left dozens of display cases untouched and took the stuff that was most valuable and easiest to carry.

Criminal investigators responded with a double-barreled effort. They put up printed posters on power poles at highway intersections and at airports, seaports and railroad stations.

They also went high tech for the time, asking Interpol-Mexico to seek information from other countries where archeological artifacts had been stolen.

I recall reading that the burglary almost had to be linked to the international traffic in cultural treasures, that it was too big a haul for common crooks.

I felt for Mexicans who appreciated history. For generations, the looting of treasures from thousands of sites had been a persistent problem. Finally, archeologists had put some great discoveries in a safe place for all to see and appreciate. Now they were gone.

Officials talked of recovery. That sounded like a myth. It would be mission impossible, the proverbial search for one certain pin in a tribe of porcupines.

Three years later – three years — federal officials staged a big press conference to show off what they had found — most of the missing gold, jade and stone. They had actually made an arrest. Amazing.

Details of the case were intriguing. The thieves were not professionals. They were two dropouts from veterinary school, Carlos Perches Treviño, 28, and Ramón Sardina García, age 30.

Perches said they had spent six months planning the crime. He guessed they had made more than 50 trips to the museum. They examined display cases, took photographs, studied construction layout and charted the paths and patterns of security guards.

The bandits crawled through an air conditioning duct into the basement and spent maybe 30 minutes removing the art pieces and placing them carefully in a canvas suitcase. They left as they had entered and never saw or heard a guard.

Keep in mind that this was late on Christmas Eve. There could have been a guard party or maybe a sleep-in. The loss was not discovered until the day shift made morning rounds.

Perches said there was no clear plan of what to do with the loot. They “just had it” for more than a year, in the suitcase atop a closet.

When Perches moved to Acapulco, he offered to trade the treasure to drug traffickers for cocaine. No deal. He eventually returned to Mexico City.

One of the drug dealers, Salvador “el Cabo” Gutierrez, got caught and told the Perches story in negotiations with authorities. It took criminal investigators a while to find the needle in the big city haystack.

The artifacts survived in generally good condition. The mask of the Zapotec bat god required repairs.

Detectives were praised for cracking the case. Museum officials breathed a huge sigh of relief. Mexicans who cared and knew about the crime were happy about the recovery.

The moral of this story? Mexico criminal investigators sometimes get a bad rap. Under certain conditions, they do, indeed, solve crimes. Any day now, they may find a missing Mexican. They might even get the gold.

Well, maybe not. That would be pushing their luck.

Published or Updated on: June 17, 2016 by Marvin West © 2016

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