We rented a car for a week and headed up into the mountains. Our first stop was the old mining town of San Sebastian – first populated by the
Aztecs and then in the 1600’s to the 1930’s by miners. Now the people cultivate
corn, cattle, and coffee.
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| Driving into San Sebastian |
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| San Sebastian central plaza |
On to Mascota for lunch and a visit to their wonderful
cultural center and archeology museum.
We planned to spend the night in Talpa de Allende, but as we
got closer we saw more and more people headed in the same direction. They were
on foot, horseback, motorcycles, bicycles, cars and buses. It dawned on us that this must be the
pilgrimage to the Virgin of Talpa Basilica which, according to our Moon
handbook, occurs on March 19 and attracts about one million people! Apparently
people start their pilgrimage a week or so before the 19th. There
were thousands of people, hundreds of horses, buses, cars, motorcycles and
bicycles. It was fascinating to see. We could not even get as far as the town
plaza so we turned around and headed toward Tequila.
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| The road into Talpa |
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This is the closest we got to the central plaza in Talpa.
This group of "walkers" was also a band! |
All the way to Tequila there were “walkers” headed to Talpa.
We got to Tequila after dark and all the hotels were full there, too. We headed
on to Magdalena. Sure enough, we got a room at Hotel Quinta de Misa
(recommended by friends) and had GREAT street tacos at a cart on the square.
There was a long line and you had to take a number – first time we’ve seen
that!
Sunday morning view from our balcony in Magdalena
After breakfast we headed for Tepic with a stop at Ixtlan
del Rio at an archeological site.
All the Tepic museums were closed on Sunday, but we walked around the
plaza and shopped all the Huichol stands. Monday we went to the wonderful
Anthropology Museum and then got on the road around noon – now headed down to
the lowlands.
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| Sugar cane truck headed to Tepic |
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| Tepic market |
We arrived in Santiago Ixcuintla around one in the
afternoon, checked into a hotel, walked around the town and then drove out to
the Huichol Cultural Center. The
Center has seen it’s better days, but it was interesting to meet Mariano
Valadez (a well known yarn painting artist) and buy one of his yarn paintings.
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| Santiago central plaza |
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| Sitting on the sidewalk looking at fashion magazines |
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| This is Mariano Valadez and the yarn painting we bought |
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| Mariano in his prime |
The next morning we went to the market and bought warm
bolillos
for breakfast before we headed to Mexcaltitan.
Apparently this is where the Aztecs began their migration south to Mexico City.
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| Mexcaltitan |
Mexcaltitan is an island with no motorized vehicles. It was
promoted several years ago as a
“Pueblo Magico” tourist attraction, but apparently the tourism money dried up
and not many tourists have been coming here. It’s quaint and interesting with a
few restaurants, a couple of tiendas, and a very nice anthropology museum. We walked the town and had lunch before
getting a ride back to the mainland with Franco.
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| Franco.....our water taxi driver |
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| Fish drying on the sidewalk |
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| Delivery van |
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| Classic pangas with fish nets ready |
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| School is out |
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Looking from one of the main streets
through a building to the lagoon |
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| This gentleman guarded our car while we were on the island |
We were only a few hours from La Cruz at this point so we headed back to
Loomba-Loomba with a stop at Mantanchen Bay for banana bread and a stop in
Guayabitos
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