We´re Off To The Land Of Pottery And Strange Ice Cream

Monument to the priest Miguel Hidalgo who started the movement for the independence of Mexico

 The next blog entries after this one will come to you from our favorite place in Mexico.

Dolores Hidalgo, billed as the "birthplace of Mexican independence", is a quaint town of about 40,000 people, although it seems far smaller. Set between its more famous brethren cities, San Miguel de Allende, a mecca for American and European ex-expatriates, and Guanajuato, a city declared an historical site by the UNESCO and home to the world renowned cultural festival, the Cervantino, Dolores seems to have been left behind not only in the scramble for tourism dollars, but also in the mad rush toward "progress". Of course, all of the above suits me just fine.

We discovered this colorful town a couple of years ago when we decided to spend a few weeks touring central Mexico. Claudette had never been across the pond and she wanted to see for herself the many cities, towns, and natural wonders I had been describing in our conversations--you know, those rambles through nostalgia one embarks on when far away from what was once Home.

 So, a few years ago, we decided to do a road trip through central Mexico as a sort of exploratory venture in order to find a place where we might stay for a longer period of time. Claudette's request, on the later point, was that we find a small town that would give her a taste of what the "real" Mexico was like; she had no desire to stay in any of the well-known resorts and beach towns, or in any of the major cities. I traced out a route that would give her a sampling of small and large towns.

I had thought that perhaps among the smaller villages south of Puebla we might find something that would appeal to her. I also included a city such as Querétaro that, although it is large and prosperous with commerce and industry, it is still a very charming place and very liveable as large cities go.

Finally, I thought that she should see San Miguel de Allende, where a large ex-expatriate community lives in "authentic Mexican" splendor. From there, we could also explore the surrounding area which is known for its quaint and colorful towns: Guanajuato, Pástzcuaro, and Dolores Hidalgo, among others.

We arrived in Mexico City and stayed with my friend Armando and his wife Kim. I have known Armando for many years and he and his charming wife were a boon for us. Like true Mexicans, they were generous in their hospitality and very helpful in their advice and ideas.

The first surprise for Claudette was how charming and interesting Mexico City can be. She had the idea of a crowded, bustling, dangerous place. Instead, she found the neighborhood where our friends live to be peaceful and friendly, with a lovely park near-by and every service and convenience at hand.

She was amazed at the cleanliness and efficiency of the Mexico City Metro and delighted when we went to the "historical center" where on a Sunday the Alameda is filled with every kind of street vendor you can think of and the Zocalo, the main square, and the surrounding streets are like a country fair.

We stayed a week with our friends, then we left on our road trip. As one more of their many gracious gestures, our friends lent us a car so we could avoid the cost and hassle of renting one.

Our first stop was Puebla, a bustling metropolis of nearly two million people, known for its great food, unique tiles and crafts, and religious fervor. We stayed in a very traditional hotel in center city; it was very colorful with a center patio open to the sky and lots of flowers and leather covered chairs in its open corridors. The only annoying thing was that we had to keep our room door open so that the WiFi network would work and we could keep abreast of our email--and indispensable thing for us when we are on the road.

Like many cities and towns of central Mexico, center city in Puebla is a mixture of the old and the new.We found a whole market dedicated to computer products, software, and computer repairs. It came in handy when Claudette's computer went on the blink.

But, just a few blocks away, the Museum of Arts and Crafts was closed for "repairs"; a lone guard was sitting on a pile of crates. He informed us (or rather didn't inform us) that he knew not what sort of repairs were being done to the museum, when those repairs would be finished, or if the museum was likely to open in our lifetime.

"Its been closed for several years," he said. He knew exactly how long because he had been coming there to "watch over" the place for six and a half years. What he watched over I do not know because the museum was just a shell of a building with nothing inside but dust and piles of bricks.

Walking through the busy shopping area of downtown Puebla means having to wade through a cacophony of of music, vendors shouting, cars and trucks noisily vying for space in the crowded streets, and street vendors loudly hawking their wares.

It seems that every store has a huge loud speaker at its door blaring music. The young sales girls sway and sing to the music and the customers have to shout their questions at them.

We visited a few of the many churches, looked at the tile covered historical buildings, went to a couple of the wonderful restaurants the city has to offer, and then we went south looking for a quieter place to stay.

The towns to the south of Puebla are small, very beautiful, have perfect weather, but much to our dismay, are rather lacking in services--mainly Internet connectivity. We found this strange, believe it or not, because Mexico is one of the most wired countries on this planet. I have gone to some really out of the way places and have never failed to find at least an Internet café. I think that the lack of young people is these towns is the reason connectivity has been slow in reaching them. Most of the young in these towns go to large cities looking for jobs so their home towns become ghost towns where only the old remain.

Nevertheless, we were delighted and amused at the little towns and villages that we found. One had a huge pine tree growing through the roof of it church, another had a wooden kiosk, painted in bright colors and designed in the Russian style with elaborate carved wooden posts.

We left Puebla and headed toward Querétaro. On the way we went through a couple of cities (Pachuca, most notably) but Claudette was not taken with any of them. Outside Pachuca, though, we did stop at a place where a man was grilling chickens over mesquite wood. We has a marvelous meal there.

We stopped in Querétaro and found a very nice hotel mid-town. As soon as we were settled, off we went to explore the city.

Center city Querétaro is beautiful with its handsome cathedral all lit up and the arcades surrounding the large plaza very lively with outdoor restaurants and cafés.

The next day we took a tour on the tramway with car wheels that weaves through the narrow streets of the old town and winds up on the highest part of town which has a magnificent view of the city and of the famed aqueduct.

Nice as it was, Claudette pronounced Querétaro too big for her taste.

We finally reached San Miguel de Allende. This city too has been pronounced by the UNESCO as a patrimony of humanity. It is really nice, perhaps TOO nice. It clearly caters to the tourist trade and the many galleries, craft shops and so on, are expensive.

So, after a repairing round of cocktails, we pushed on to Dolores. We immediately loved it. We stayed at a hotel called "Casa Mía", a rustic but nevertheless interesting place that the owner has enhanced by buying up the doors and windows of old houses and installing them in the rooms of the hotel.

We liked Dolores so much that the following year we returned. At first we stayed in a house where out of town students were boarding. Our room was--how shall I put it---eclectic. It was a large bedroom, one side of which it was all windows that opened into a large balcony. But the bathroom was the unique feature of the place. It had a jacuzzi the size of a pool. It had been set up so high, that we had to literally climb into the thing to take a shower.

Luckily, we went into a hat shop where I wanted to buy a hat. Every man in town was wearing one (the land around Dolores is a farming and cattle growing region), so I waned one. The owner of the hat shop was a very friendly man (as are most of the people of the town). We asked him if he knew anyone who might rent us rooms in center ville.

He said he would consult with a "lady" that he knew might be agreeable to renting us rooms. Said lady turned out to be his wife.

Our landlord is head of a very traditionally Mexican family. They even have a chapel in the house where the family prays in the early morning before starting their day.

But the place was perfect. We had a separate apartment, with its own kitchen and a nice garden. It is just a few blocks from the main plaza. It is just perfectly situated. And from there, we went on to explore Dolores.

More on that in my next blog.

Permanent Amazement

French man amazed that the weather lady has announced snow on the Pyrenees

For all intents and purposes, winter has started in our region. Although we live in the warmest corner of France, nights have been a couple of degrees below zero and the days rainy and cold.

Now if I were living in a sub-Saharan country, a tropical Pacific island located somewhere south of Tahiti, or in the steamy jungles of southern Mexico, this kind of weather would be really unusual, but since we live near the Pyrenees, and these mountains are usually covered in snow during the winter, cold, wet weather is far from being strange in the area. It is even less so in the eastern part of France adjacent to the Alps where people find a snowmobile a more apt vehicle in the winter months than a car.

Typical autumn day in the Alps

Nevertheless, when the weather lady announces snow here in France, the news hounds go out in force to interview the amazed population. What? Snow? In the mountains? The item is treated as if snowflakes had been seen falling from the sky in Timbuktu.

Qu'est-ce que c'est ce truc blanc? 

Tuareg wondering what that white stuff is...

But this phenomena, that is, being astounded by something that happens every year like clock-work, is not reserved only for snow. Rain, wind, an unusual dry spell, or any other manifestation of the weather is treated as if this country had never seen anything other than spring like weather. As soon as a few drops of rain fall, out go the news crews to interview the ladies who have had to do the unbearable, that is, get the umbrella out of the closet and put on a raincoat.

Not only the French but modern society seems to have evolved into a bunch of wimps and complainers of just about anything. Farmers go on strike because the government won't give them aid under harsh drought conditions; then it rains, and farmers complain that the government wont' give them aid to cope with harsh wet conditions.

There was a guy on television the other day complaining of police harassment because he had been taken into custody after he had been stopped for going 160 kilometers per hour in a 90 kilometer per hour zone. Now, this was not the first time this roadrunner had been stopped for speeding: it was the TWELFTH time. AND he had already lost all of the points of his driver's license, for--guess what? SPEEDING! Yet, there he was on television, being given air time by some dunderhead with a microphone and a camera, so he could complain about police harassment.

I remember visiting the little village where my grandfather lived the first thirty years of his life. It was, by any modern standards, very simple and almost crude. He was 19 years old and his bride 17 when they built their two room house out of limestone slabs because there were no trees in the desert like land where the village was. They had children, raised crops, tended cattle and goats, and went about the daily business of making a living from the land with no government aid, and no subsidies from the state. Grandfather then built a plaza for the village, with the aid of the other men in the town, a school where he taught the children to read and write, and managed to run a general store so people could buy the basic necessities of life. He and the other men of the village braved the rushing waters of a near-by river to build a bridge that was still standing when I visited the village 60 years after the bridge had been built.

Throughout the 14 years of my life that I had the privilege of living with my grandfather before he died, I never heard him ONCE say he had had a hard life. In fact, he was one of the most serene, good-natured persons I have ever known.

The other day, I went to a store, which is a few blocks away, to buy bread. It was a nice summer afternoon, so I walked. When I got to the store, there was a man bitterly complaining to the store manager that the small parking lot of the store was full so he had to park half a block away.

The poor store manager listened to the old coot for fifteen minutes and the man was still talking and complaining when I went up to the cash register to pay for my bread. Unfortunately for him, he spoke with an accent that told me he was English. So, I said,

Me: Are you handicapped?

The man: (surprised at my question) No!

Me: Are you ill? Do you suffer from pain on your feet or legs?

The man: (getting annoyed at my questions) No, why?

Me: Think about this: your belly is so huge you probably can't see your shoes, your mouth rattles on so much you are probably wasting more energy than your car. Mister, you should be glad that there was no room in the parking lot because that half-block walk, and your prattling probably burned enough lard from your gut to give you another few days of life.

The man said something about me minding my own business but the store manager smiled and didn't charge me for the bread.

I don't like complainers. There are too many important things to worry about in life without worrying the small stuff, too.