Querétaro

Young photographers at Plaza Guerrero, Querétaro

We got up, packed, had breakfast in the hotel and left SLP with few regrets. It has a large historic district, but was, on the whole, depressing. Maybe it was because it was Sunday evening, but I really did not take to it.

A couple of hours down the road we arrived at Querétaro. The intersections with the limited-access highway were confusing, and I am still not sure how they work; but suffice it to say we ended up in the wrong part of town and found our way to the center on surface streets with a map. After much driving around the center of town, we parked under the Plaza de la Constituyentes, and walked to the tourism office to find a cheap hotel. We ended up at the Señorial for significantly less than either Zacatecas or SLP. And we have a nicer room than SLP and in-room wireless broadband.

After walking back to get our car and deposit it and our stuff at the hotel, we bought a map of the “colonias” (neighborhoods) and a couple of newspapers to look for rentals. We then headed out to see a nearby colonia called Jacarandas (just because we liked the name and had fond memories of bougainvilla growing in jacarandas from 30 years ago). We also walked along the Rio Querétaro which runs along the north side of center of town.

Before our walk, we asked the hotel about renting apartments and houses. They indicated a little callejon nearby that had some places for rent. At the corner of this street we stopped to get some coffee and ask around. The owner of the café told us about a group of expats that occasionally meet there, and gave us a lady’s e-mail. We will meet her in a few minutes to get the expat view of Queretaro. Further down the street we found several places for rent, and took down numbers. This morning we called one, and will be meeting an agent later this afternoon to visit a couple of houses. You can probably see the shift in out attention from sightseeing to the nuts and bolts of moving and living in Mexico. Things are getting serious.

It was immediately apparent that Querétaro (still can’t pronounce it properly) was heads and tails above SLP, and even Zacatecas. It is lively, well taken care of, with a large historic district and parks everywhere. The streets closed to traffic often have steps, and the steps have ramps for bicycles and the handicapped, unusual in Mexico. The closed streets in SLP had armed police to make sure people did not try to drive in them, whereas in Querétaro curbs served this purpose. In Zacatecas the distances on the map seemed short when you actually walked from place to place, but here the distances seem much longer than they appear on the map since the city blocks follow the colonial grid system.

There are streets and squares loaded with nifty little restaurants and outdoor cafes, some with live music. We had a great little meal in one while watching people walk by and listening to a guy singing and playing a keyboard. On the TV inside the restaurant was the University of Georgia woman’s gymnastics team (recognized the coach) beating some other teams. All in all, a welcoming and homey feel.

We had a good chat with Maria and her husband Bob. She invited us to their colonial house that they fixed up a couple of years ago. It has two bedrooms, 2 baths, a study, living, dining and kitchen and a central patio. It is really nice and has all the authentic touches that only a Mexican architect who loves old houses could come up with, and they have done a nice job of furnishing it. They bought it for $50,000 US and paid another $50,000 to redo the floors, plumbing, put in doorways, etc. plus buy furnishings. For about $100,000 they now have a 1,600 square foot home that is a five minute walk from museums, shops, parks, etc. Not bad.

Later we visited a couple of houses for rent with an agent. One had some real character, but was a little pricey. The other was a typical house in our price range and in a nice neighborhood, but about a 20 minute walk from downtown. It was nothing special so we will keep looking. We will have to leave the hotel on Thursday so we will take a look at houses in Cuernavaca the rest of the week.

Tonight we will walk across town to a French restaurant where there is a string quartet from the state philharmonic playing to meet with Maria, Bob and some of their friends. M and B are pretty liberal. She was an assistant attorney general for West Virginia. What a breath of fresh air. Queretaro may be one of Mexico’s best kept secrets, and I hope they keep it that way. Didn’t take many pictures since have been in Querétaro.