Yes I’m well aware I did it again- neglected this blog and it has been almost a month. According to the statistics for people who visit this site, I don’t seem to be disappointing that many people, but to the few diligent followers (aka my parents and my grandma) apologies for not being on top of this. My excuse this time was thankfully not sickness, but three papers (2 of which were in Spanish) and a history exam this week. Now that there is a break, I can update on our last amazing excursion outside the city of Querétaro.
On October 8th (wow, that was a while ago, again, sorry all!) we all had to go to a museum here in the city and here a presentation about the missions that we would be seeing in the Sierra Gorda. The presentation was actually given by a woman who was an adjunct professor at Westmont a few years ago and taught many of the girls in our class, so it was a real treat for them to see her again (she is a native to Querétaro). During her presentation I learned some more about the actual Sierra Gorda. This is a region of Querétaro that is about 2-3 hours away by bus, closer to the northern border. As we drive up this windy hill, we are suppose to see vegetation that is familiar to us- pine trees and red/brown dirt. But then, once we cross over the top, we enter this rain forest that is a humid and green and extremely different. The ridge is huge and has many pueblos up and down it and in five of these pueblos is where Father Junipero Serra established the five missions that began the Camino Real that ended in California. For those that think that name sounds familiar, the missions that Father Serra built in California is pretty much standard, 4th grade textbook knowledge in any California grade school classroom. However, these missions that were built in the mid 18th century are actually seen as his greatest works.
By the end of this presentation, I was so excited to be leaving and seeing all these sites in person. This was one of the major reasons why I came on this semester abroad – to not just read about historic sites, but actually be able to see them in person! After enduring another night of down pouring rain (which was an incredible relief after the most ridiculous hot spell ever), and buying myself something I never thought I would own, Crocks (for walking in the waterfalls) we were set to leave at 8am on Friday morning.
The fog was such a relief after a very hot week.
o dear….
On this particular trip, we were fortunate to have a husband/wife team of Saul and Requina as our guides. Requina is an art restorer and Saul, well, I’m not quite sure about his background but the two of them visit the Sierra Gorda with students groups through our exchange program school about 6 times a year. They know someone in every village we visit and if they don’t, by the end of our visit they have made a new friend. They were an amazing, fun contribution to our group, from Requina’s knowledge to Saul’s can-do attitude that exuded energy to all of us.
Our schedule was absolutely jam-packed and there never seemed to be a dull moment. After driving for a few hours, we stopped at a city named Pinal de Amoles where we had the snack of gorditas, which Laura and I had the first weekend in San Miguel Allende and they just continue to get better. We all thought we would be going to a restaurant, but no, we visited a stand where the woman was a friend of Requina and Saul’s and she proceeded to make gorditas for 19 people. ¡Que rico!
At the gordita stand as she prepared all the different meats and sauces we could put into our gorditas.
I think this seconds for many of us…
We were then suppose to go to a place where they sold authentic wine from the area, but the woman just decided to not be at her place when we arrived. While this is typical Mexico, I was still bummed since I was planning on maybe getting a few Christmas presents there. But since the wine was a dead end, it was back on the bus. Thankfully, I don’t get carsick so I wasn’t joining the Dramamine/pass out and sleep club up front. We drove until we got to las cascadas (waterfalls) del Chuveje around 1pm.
As we walked to the trailhead for the actual waterfall. This is our professors’ daughter, Ruth. She and her brother, Andy, are some of the luckiest kids in the world getting to come this semester, but they would tell you otherwise.
Then we caught a ride on the back of a truck of one of Saul and Requina’s friends. Cue the Jurassic Park theme song.
Warning us that we shouldn’t get in the waterfalls, but as Saul put it, “sometimes in mexico, no means yes!”
in case we lost our way….
on our walk to the waterfall
the waterfall! it was so strong, and loud and i had never seen anything quite so powerful in my entire life!
jumping in.
Crocks kids! (we all bought them the day before)
In the cold, cold water.
We then headed to the Misión Concá for a late comida. We ordered our food before hand and then went exploring. Sal and Requina showed us where they have a natural spa and where this sweet, huge tree is located…but we were mostly intrigued by the playground. We then headed back to eat comida but had to wait….and wait…and then a few people got food and then others waited….we soon realized that there was only one cook in the back and our comida ended up being about 3 hours long and being closer to dinner time when we were done!
While we were by now rather tired after the day of activities, our professors were adamant to complete the rest of the schedule, which consisted of visiting our first Father Serra mission. So, in the dark and as it began to rain, we all took horrible shots of the first mission. It’s embarrassing to even show you the pictures from this evening, trust me, all the missions look more or less the same so my other photos will give you some kind of an idea. The biggest deal about this mission was that on the side there was carving of a “conejo” or a rabbit, which is a symbol from the indigenous groups. It’s the only mission to have an indigenous symbol on it. Had I not been wet and tired and it not been dark and I could have properly seen it, I’m sure I would have liked it more. Nevertheless, we all had a good time watching the adults shine a light on the side of the building just so could be sure to see the conejo!
After resting a bit more in the van, we finally arrived at Jalpan. We split up into our rooms and took showers, having been told that we had the option of going with Sal and Requina to this “canta bar,” which yes, is a karaoke bar. Most of us found a new burst of energy and decided to venture out with our Spanish professors. We had a lot of fun looking for old pop songs from the 90s to sing along too and I even found a Beatles’ hit song list that I found pretty hilarious. After a few hours there, we headed back to the hotel (which was essentially across the plaza, Jalpan is very tiny!)
And…that was Friday. You can see now why I felt so daunted to write this blog. I actually started writing this about 5 days ago and am finishing it up now! Ok, so Saturday was even more packed if that were possible. We had spent the night in Jalpan and had breakfast in the hotel. We put our stuff on the bus and learned that, while not having internet in the room, where the bus was parked we were getting free access so we all had internet for about 15 minutes. Soon after that we headed to our second mission in Jalpan. These are probably my best shots of the four missions we visited on this trip.
The sky was not conducive to picture taking, but I did what I could.
Image that is above the door at all the missions – Christ’s arm and the arm of a Father who presides over the mission.
Inside the church.
Price you have to pay if you want to put a candle offering up for a loved one. Not surprisingly, I saw lots of candles burning that people brought from home.
View from the outside of the church.
And then we got back in the van and drove for probably about 3 hours until we wound our way to Xilitla. We arrived at our 3rd mission, where my camera decided not to wait, like I had asked it to, until that afternoon to die so I could recharge it at our next rest stop. However, I soon realized that a lot of these missions look the same, so it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, although I was still disappointed with myself for not charging my camera the night before (I’m still getting used to this charging a battery business!).
After that, we went to have comida at this restaurant our Spanish professors knew about in this tiny little town. At first, the hostess told us that we couldn’t eat there because they were renting out the whole place for a quinsiñera. But once we talked with the chef, he told us to come out back and sit on the patio. About 15 minutes later guests piled in and the quinsiñera began, and we were outside in our hiking gear while everyone was dressed up all nice. Basically, we crashed a quinsiñera, and it was awesome. To make things even better, it was most likely the best comida we had on the trip.
Time in our bathing suits was not over yet, as we soon found out when we arrived at las Pozas de Edward James. Basically, it is this tucked away tropical forest in Xilitla where this British guy who was really into the surrealist art movement and was friends with all the surrealist artists during the 20th century. He found this place and decided to build his own little sanctuary there. He loved all the flowers and butterflies that were present there. He built all these monuments with stairs that go no where or giant human-size stone flowers. It seems like you could get so lost wandering around for hours, but Sal and Requina kept reminding us that all the stairs eventually lead back to the entrance. It was the most humid place I have ever been in, but it was the humidity you feel in the middle of the rainforest. For some reason, other people’s pictures from this day are not uploading well on this blog, so either go look at them on facebook or wait and ask to look at them when I am home and have made copies because they are…well, surreal!
We headed to our hotel for the night, which was actually more of someone’s house that they had transformed into a B&B type place. Shannon, Alyse, Caity and I shared one room that you had to walk outdoors to get too and that looked over where we all ate in the morning. That evening, we got lots of crackers, deli meat, cheese and fruit and had a cena together – the WIM group, Sal and Requina, and the couple who owned the house. We had so much fun laughing and being in each other’s company, although I don’t know if I can eat another cracker for the rest of my life after the amount I consumed that night!
Sunday morning….I knew we did a lot didn’t we? Sunday morning was the archeological site located in San Luis Potosi, the state located directly to the north of the state of Querétaro, where we were still located. It was going to be a hot, muggy day with lots of bugs. No one was particularly thrilled about going to this place…except Requina who studies restoration and excavation sites like this and me, because I still remember wanting to be an archeologicalist when I was 11. Remarkably, despite it being so hot and not entirely exciting to most everyone around us, the whole day was memorable to all of us, mostly due to the great sense of humor everyone has and the general positive spirits of the group. Having travelled with individuals who have made it their life goal to complain about everything, it was such a relief to have everyone remain respectful during the entire visit. Here’s a bit of what we saw:
Name of the site. This is fairly a new site, they just started finding major artifacts here in about 2001, although they had been doing research about this site since the 1970s. The civilization found here suggests that there were people who lived in this region earlier than what people originally thought.
If you look carefully, you can see there is gap between the mountains where a certain point during the day, the sun goes right through it. It was one of the ways they created the calender.
The hill we climbed to go look at the view.
View.
We also went to a second archeological site very close to this one (it came to power when the first hit its demise). In case anyone was wondering, the first place was called Tantoc and the second Tamuin.
We then had comida at this fish place, where once again, we had one cook and waited a very long time for food. My food turned out all right in the end, although I cannot speak for all. However, things made a turn for the better when we stopped at a well known ice cream stand on the way back to Xilitla. While we were ordering our desserts, we met this other man and his family there who spoke perfect English. Turns out the man runs a ministry team with US churches and brings them down to Mexico and a few years back he took a group from Montecito Covenant, the church literally right down the street from Westmont! He talked with one of the girls in our group who goes there and actually made a connection with her and one of the girls in her youth group. The world really is a small place.
Monday morning we had breakfast at the house/hotel we stayed in. Here’s an idea of what it looked like:
On the left is the sliding door that went into our room.
Me and Shannon in our room that we shared with two other girls.
Chucho, the sweetest dog I have ever met. I guess Chucho is also a nickname for Jesús…who knew?
Then our day wouldn’t be complete with one more look at a mission. In case this blog hasn’t already illustrated, however, we were kinda tired by this point and a little worried about having so little time to finish all of our homework for class the next day. However, I was able to snap a few pictures.
I liked that the last two missions we visited had lawns in them.
I can’t figure out how to rotate on here, but I had to put this on here for anyone who knows Southern California. These lamp posts signify the Camino Real that Father Serra took from Mexico to CA and is at all the missions that he planted in both places. It was fun to see a site that is so familiar since there is the “Camino Real” in Santa Barbara (although Father Serra did not found the mission there).
And then, the day passed by on a bus and we were finally reaching “home” in the city of Querétaro.
So there you have it. I am probably just as tired now from recording and recalling all of this than I was when I got back to my room almost two weeks ago. Again, sorry for the delay but, hey, it’s up now! I’m hoping to have a few other small posts in the near future with other fun things we have been doing outside of the scheduled activities with the group.
hope all is well with everyone!
Sarah
