Queretero, San Miguel de Allende, and Guanahuato

This past weekend was one in which I discovered many new towns in Mexico all situated to the north of Mexico City. My traveling companions consisted of two French Canadian married couples, another French Canadian girl, a women from Sweden, a girl from Holland, another girl from Switzerland, and finally the owner of the school that I am attending along with his wife, daughter, and grandson - a large multilingual crew!!!

After 4 hours in the van, we arrived at out first stop, Queretero. Queretero is an old colonial town that was founded in 1531 and is known as one of the cleanest and wealthiest cities in Mexico. Rightly so...the people in the town were so different from what I had experienced so far in Cuernavaca. They were dressed modern and nice and the streets were impeccable. Even the old buildings and churches were bright and colorful. We arrived in the evening, had a meal together and then when all the young people were coming out for the evening, I went to bed because I was so exhausted. In the morning, I had a chance to explore the town. I took a photo of a Mexican girl who wanted to sell me gum for a peso (13 pesos to a dollar). She was really cute and obviously trimmed her own bangs. After I gave her the money for the gum, the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by children - about 6 of them who all wanted to sell me something - or just to hold out their hand for money. I told them that I wanted to take their picture but they all ran away, not wanting to be photographed - bummer!

The next town we visited was San Miguel de Allende. I had already heard from other people that this was a cool town - and it was!! My favorite by far of the three. The streets were narrow and made of cobblestone. The houses were all very colorful with interesting doors and windows decorated with beautiful plants. I felt like I was walking around in a painting. The town is known for drawing artisans to live there. And it showed...the people and sites were beyond words. There were also a lot of foreigners abound who apparently live in the town. The shops were great! This town sells a lot of painted and decorated tin - mirrors, crosses, sacred hearts - anything tin. One shop I went into had a gallery and artist studio upstairs and the girl working in the shop let me walk through the private studio of the two artists (from San Franciso) who work out of the gallery. In San Miguel, the center of town was bustling in the evening. It was a holiday weekend in Mexico, so many people were out and about.


The next day, we rode in the van through some beautiful mountains to the town of Guanahuato.
I found this town to be fascinatingly creepy. First of all the town is made up of colorful homes that all are sitting in the hillside of a mountain. Then, when you actually drive into the town, you discover that most of the streets are under the ground, in tunnels. And I´m not talking about nice modern tunnels like Harbor Tunnel...no, these were narrow, one way only, claustrophobic caves. Our van maybe had a foot of clearance on either side. You could put your hand out the window and touch the old, stone, cold wall of this dark tunnel (most without lights). OK, so to further my thoughts of a strange town, we picked up a guide who gave us a driving tour of the town. Our first stop was a haunted house where young girls back in the 15 and 1600´s who became empregnated outside of wedlock were buried alive in the walls. We were also shown a basement room where during the Spanish inquisition, the indigenous people were chosen at random and tortured and killed. They still had the dusty, cobweb filled torture devices. Ugh! Next this guide wanted to take us to a mummy museum - the class resounded together with a ¨No thanks¨. We ended up checking into our hostel and touring the center of town on our own. This proved to be really fun because the SuperBowl was on every TV. It was really strange watching these Mexican people watch the game - with most routing for Arizona. The next morning, my french canadian friend and I shopped in the town market where I found some great buys. Then, it was back in the van for a LONG trip home - 9 hours to be exact. My ipod died, my phone battery went dead, and I could not wait to get back.


All in all, it was a fabulous weekend of discovery (and shopping). Bryan is going to have to bring the extra large suitcase when he comes to visit this week......