Zacatecas to San Luis Potosi

Spent yesterday morning (Feb 11) trying to get the blog to publish photos where I wanted them, and messing with other internet stuff. Since it had been a week since we had done a laundry, Christiane took the opportunity to take our laundry to a lavanderia. It cost $14 (pesos use the same symbol we use for dollars) per kilo. Today in San Luis, the hotel charges $15 for a shirt. She also got her hair done and found out all the gossip in the neighborhood.


Imagine working here with a candle, no air pumps and a rudimenary pick and basket.

Around 11AM, we walked to the El Eden silver mine, about a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel. It was the first silver mine in Zacatecas (1586 although silver had been found there and the town really got its permanent start in 1546. The entrance is at Level 4 in a little tram that you cannot sit up in for the first few hundred meters. The next two hours were on foot. There are three levels above and three levels below, but tourism is restricted to Level 4, and in 1975 or 1976, all the floors were leveled with concrete, stairs and bridges were built, shops for minerals and souvenirs were put in and the place was wired. Despite the modern touches it was an very interesting and educational experience. I had always heard that the Indian slaves who were forced to work there died in great numbers from accidents and the poor working conditions. Seeing the enormity of what they accomplished and imagining how they climbed up and down the excavated veins of silver which extended in some cases several hundred meters nearly straight down and sometimes only a few centimeters wide (the excavations had to be wider than the veins in those areas) on flimsy ladders, carrying baskets of ore and using primitive digging devices and light sources, made us really appreciate what their lives must have been like. The photos show what appear to be large caves that are connected by tunnels. But all of these “caves” were excavated by hand into the solid rock.


This was all solid rock until the 1500s, not a cave

At the end we took an elevator to the surface and walked back to the center of town near the cathedral.

After lunch, a long nap, a church visit or two, and dinner, we headed off to La Tambora which we had missed the night before. The square where they were supposed to be was occupied by a group of clowns who noticed us in the crowd (being a head taller than most anyone else and with white hair and a beard, I kind of stood out.) It was the first time I had been called a “guero” (“blondie”) in 25 plus years, and the first time we had been called “viejos” (“oldies”). We continued on past the cathedral and La Tambora was just getting started.

After a few minutes of music, a large bass drum, a snare drum, two clarinets, a trombone, and a couple of trumpets, we headed off through the historic district following a burro followed by the band and us. We were the only gringos, and it turned out that most of the crowd were tourists from other cities in Mexico with only a few Zacatecanos.

The Burro


The Band



Por todo mal, Mezcal. Por todo bien tambien!

Climbing a callejon to the square in front of Santo Domingo church, we noticed that some of the people were carrying little cups hanging from ribbons around their necks, and that another guy was passing out a clear liquid in little doses from a little cantine. I assumed they were part of a tour group. At the next square, the band stopped to play and people danced. A little girl dressed up in a white dress and white fur coat and her parents in black suits were part of this group with little cups. We never did figure out why she was dressed, not her birthday, not a first communion. No sabemos nada.

A boy of around 12 had a camera and informed us it did not have any batteries, but he was taking pictures, anyway. I thought he was asking for money for batteries, but no, he was just chatting with the gringos as any polite little boy should do (assuming the gringos speak Spanish, of course). His only word of English was “thank you”. I took his picture with Christiane, and he was fascinated with the digital image, and he insisted on “taking” a picture of the digital picture with his camera that did not work. Later, I saw him having girls take his and his sister’s picture with his camera and saw him taking pictures of the band who actually posed for him. Great gimmick to meet the girls and get to know people. He would carefully roll the film after every shot, and I don’t think these folks knew his camera was missing batteries.

At that first stop at Santo Domingo, a guy came up and gave us little cups too, and indicated that the burro was loaded down with mezcal. I figured he had bought the cups for us and accepted them, asking how much the tequila cost and thinking that this must be a trick to get tourists to shell out the pesos. But I was wrong, it turns out the cups and the mescal are free, provided by the local tourism board. This was movable cocktail party complete with music! From that point on people would offer me a drink to our mutual health (free of course, but the sentiment was real). There was a kid in a coat and tie helping pass out the mescal. He and the guy with the burro must have passed out 3-4 gallons by the time we left, and I wondered about the kids in the US who have to have someone else sell liquor at check out. This kid did not touch a drop as far as I could tell.

We ended up meeting a whole bunch of tailors from Puebla who were in Zacatecas for a conference, and we danced along with them (yep, C and I actually danced, and not just once). The national president of the tailors this year is from Puebla and owns Hermanos Solis not far from the Zocalo (main square) there. Puebla is where Christiane used to teach at the university, and where I worked for the German foundation in archaeology. It was like a reunion, remembering places and things we had in common.

Finally, I took my last “copa” to fortify against the chilly night air, we said goodbye to the folks from Puebla and headed back to the hotel. What a great night.


Yet another Cathedral

The next morning,this morning, we packed up, paid up and headed for San Luis Potosi, a couple of hours down the road. We had always heard that SLP was a big industrial town (500,000+), and never had much desire to visit, but we were surprised to find that it has a very large historic district, the center of which is blocked off for pedestrians on Sunday afternoon. There seem to be fewer hotels in the historic center than in Zacatecas. Apparently, it has fewer tourists than Zacatecas even though it has a lot more to see. Maybe they could use a Tambora.

We plan to drop by the mariachi square for dinner and music later. (This was a big disappointment as it was so cold no one was around and unlike Garibalid in Mexico City, there were no restaurants around the square so we settled for enchiladas at a little cafe with recorded music. Ahhh, La Paloma.)