Advertisement
Published: March 24th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Queretaro
Norm & Judie near the arches in Queretaro I am sorry for my 3 week absence -- I can’t believe it has been that long! I have a lot to report. My parents were here for a two weeks stay followed by a quick 4½ day visit with my brother. I will summarize some of the highlights from each week.
Week #1
Four Cities in One Day! San Jose Iturbide - A small town with a very nice central square (it had some really pretty trees that had just bloomed with beautiful purple flowers). We walked around the central square, enjoyed the beautiful day and visited a small bread store for some sweet treats. We discovered a really neat little market. I have finally learned the trick to finding the “central square.” Just look for the tallest church in the city. Just like that you have found the central square. Well, in Iturbide’s case the church was there, yet very different. Unlike most, this church was neoclassic with a very behemoth look (see picture). The city is small and after wondering around for an hour, there was no reason to stay. We headed directly north to find our next stop - a true Mexican ghost town!
Map of our trip
Visited four cities in one day! Mineral de Pozos. In its day it was a very important city but for much of the late Twentieth Century Pozos has been abandoned -- A ghost town of sorts. At it’s high point it had 30,000 people. It now has 1,000 to 1,500 people - actually it is far from dead. There are a lot of old crumbling building and walls. In the 1980’s, Mexico declared the city a National Historic Treasure. To the east of Pozos is the mountainous region of the Sierra Gorda - it provides a beautiful backdrop. A friend had recommended that I find Jesus Ugalde and ask him to take us on a tour of the old mines. I was told that Jesus is the town historian and an expert on the culture and traditions of the city. We found him on the city square located at Aldama #10. Unfortunately, Jesus was tired and did not want to do a tour : ( So, after an hour or so, it was north 20 minutes to San Luis de la Paz.
San Luis de la Paz - We really liked this little town. It has a beautiful park near the central and the
Dad enjoying O.J. and the view
Little Market San Jose Ituribide church is very nice. Most of the travel books are less then kind to this place so we almost did not go. What a treasure we would have missed. Walked around the town, found a really nice park and two nice squares and then ate lunch at “West’s” -- good food and friendly service. After 2 hours of walking and eating we were on our way to Dolores Hidalgo.
Deloras Hidalgo - This is where Miguel Hidalgo made the cry for independence. In September of 1810, Miguel Hidalgo started the movement for independence here. Now this town is famous for two things: Talavera Ceramic and Ice Cream. We bought both! The ceramic selection is wonderful. The ice cream is good, yet pretty weird. On the central plazas corners, you can buy avocado, mole, corn, whiskey, tequila ice cream and ever fruit flavored ice cream you can think of. We settled for strawberry, orange, whiskey and tequila. All 4 were very yummy. From here we drove through San Miguel de Allende. Really we only hit the hill the goes around the city. It was late and we were tired. So we headed back to Queretaro
The Wednesday Ritual When
we have visitors it is getting to be the routine to visit Bernal, and Tequisquiapan in one day. On Wednesday at 8:40 a.m. we were off to Bernal. Bernal is the city with the BIG ROCK. In fact the 3rd biggest in the world (or so they claim). We arrived at 9:20 a.m. and the city was just waking-up. None of the shopping places were “open for business.” The business owners were out in the streets cleaning their store fronts, cleaning the streets, sweeping in front of their stores and just preparing for the day. It was fun to observe. We had breakfast at a really nice place and then we walked around until about 11:00 when all the stores began to open their doors. We did a little shopping and then left for Tequisquiapan (don’t even try to pronounce it!). This is a small village about 45 minutes southeast of Bernal. The drive was easy. On the way, we passed through the town of Ezequiel Montes. Ezequiel looked to be a fairly large city. Dad was really intrigued by the city and wanted to stop, but we had no time! We also drove through the local market area so
we saw all kinds of shops selling everything from fruits and vegetables to hardware.
Once in Tequisquiapn, we met two older couples from Arizona. They spoke no Spanish, but were staying in a condo and just doing short day trip - very adventuresome! I tried to talk them into going to Queretaro. Not sure if they went.
On Friday we started our adventure to Puerto Vallarta. We drove 6 hours north west to the small town of Ixtalan del Rio. This villages “claim to fame” is Carlos Casteneda’s Journey to Ixtlán. See next trip report for more on this adventure!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.129s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0499s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb