Zacatecas

We arrived in Zacatecas on Feb 8 (Wed.). On our way out of Laredo that morning I asked around for the Paisano stickers and found that they have tightened up on that program, and you have to pick them up from Mexican immigration rather than 7-11s and such on the American side of the border. So we skipped that.

Cathedral in Zacatecas

The guide books had said that getting car papers would take 2 hours, so we were pleased that it only took a half hour. It is very well organized, one window for the FMT (tourist visa), another to pay for the visa, another to copy the necessary papers for the car (cost of about 25 cents), and another to turn the papers over to the car guy and get our sticker. And unlike the rest of Mexico they take American Express. The guide books and a lot of the chatter on the web said to make copies ahead of time to save time and money; but paying a few cents to get the correct copies in the format the car guy needed really saved more time and aggravation. The only problem was when they asked for the car title, which we had left in Atlanta. I gave them the registration instead, and that was really what they meant anyway. We went across at Bridge 2, not the main bridge over the Rio Grande on the interstate. This was the same bridge we used when we used to make border runs in the old days, and is the one used mostly by Mexican citizens. We were the only gringos, and the lines were non-existent. Don’t know how long it would have taken if we had taken the main bridge as recommended by the guidebooks.

So we were on our way.

About 15 kms down the road we got stopped by customs. The guy asked what we had brought with us (he could see that the back seat was filled up, of course), and from nowhere my Spanish came out that we had only brought what we needed for 6 months living in Mexico. That seemed to be the right answer, and when I pushed the button and it came up green they did not check us.

Another 15 kms down the road the federal drug police in their black uniforms stopped us, but I guess we did not fit the profile of drug runners, and they flagged us through.

The toll road to Monterrey was excellent after the first few kms, and after an hour and a half, we bypassed Monterrey and continued on to Saltillo where we stopped for lunch. They have a very nice cathedral and square, but not much else. We had our first gorditas (tortillas opened like pita bread and stuffed with typical Mexican fillings) and continued on to Zacatecas. Unfortunately, the toll road ended in Saltillo, so it was two lanes and lots of trucks for the next 4+ hours arriving in Zacatecas around 5:30 PM. Only came close to getting killed once, and it was my fault.

Zacatecas is a beautiful little city of about 300,000 that is very similar to Guanajuato.

Alameda park.

Like Guanajuato, it is a silver mining town in a narrow valley in a desert environment with all the colorful buildings concentrated along the bottom of the valley. But it is a lot easier to get around by car than Guanajuato. Even so, we found a hotel (Finca del Minero) with a parking garage, left our car there, and have walked ever since.


Baroque facade of the cathedral

We strolled around town last night. The cathedral is in an incredible baroque style, the late 19th century theaters and markets, etc. are all built of rose colored stone that responded well to the setting sun. We had dinner in a little hole in the wall that turned out to contain a patio, a bar on one side, and a restaurant on another that was warm and snug in the chilly night air.

El Pueblito Restaurant

The hotel was about the same price as a run-down Ramada Inn we stayed at in Oklahoma City, but it is very well maintained, well appointed room, with a patio, nice restaurant, wireless internet in the lobby, and right in the middle of things. The bath room is tiled to the nth degree, and the plumbing works, contrary to my experience with many historic hotels in the US.

This morning we took the teleferico from our side of the valley to highest hill around, called La Bufa, which Pancho Villa took in 1914, thus commanding the city which quickly surrendered. It did not hurt that he had 19,500 men and 3-4 times as much artillery as the federales who had about 9,000 men.

The cathedral with La Bufa in the background

The museum at the top was about the 1914 revolution, and used newspaper articles to tell the story. This was only partially successful since the newspapers of the times often admitted they did not know what was going on, and there was as much double dealing among the rebels as there was with the federales, and it was not always clear on which side a particular newspaper was. And of course the U.S. was playing both sides against the middle. Needless to say, it was very hard to figure out what happened, and I did not volunteer that Pop had fought Pancho Villa when he and Unc were down in Texas before WWI. In fact, I tried to keep a low profile, as the ticket taker looked like Pancho Villa!

A view from La Bufa towards the city

We walked down the hill to town, which was very steep and much like coming down a pyramid in the old days, lots and lots of stone steps. Amazing how old you feel when your legs turn to rubber doing something you used to take for granted. I wonder if I will ever be able to climb the Pyramid of the Sun, much less places like Uxmal with no hand holds.

After lunch we took a siesta, and I sat down to write this up.

But there are some safety issues

BTW, Nick, we did not know what day we would be leaving Atlanta until late Friday morning. The last two weeks were more than hectic, and a couple of nights before we left, we found that Kyra could not take Mignon, which means I had to find someone from scratch; and then the morning we were to leave I got up and looked for the passports that I had set aside in an envelope in my backpack. I could only find Christiane’s! Panic! We went through everything in the apartment, everything in the car, everything we had moved to the basement twice or three times, and still no passport. We then went through the garbage, still nothing. The more I thought about it the more I realized the passport had to be in the backpack, and just could not be in any of the other places we had spent 2 hours looking. I went back to the envelope and went through each folder, and not just the passport folder. Low and behold, it had slipped into the folder on Christiane’s social security information. Much chastened we jumped in the car and headed off to see Jack. The only ones we remembered to call were Mamita and Social Security who, even today, have not told us what the hang up is.