Shown are Hacienda La Soledad's casa grande (far left), bodega (middle) and stables (right). The casa grande houses the hacendado (owner) and his family, and stables are where he keeps his horses. In the context of a hacienda, a bodega is the storehouse for a hacienda's produce. Hacienda La Soledad de Nextipac is located about 1/2 way between Hacienda La Venta del Astillero and Hacienda Santa Lucia. These latter two can be seen in Parts 1-3 of this series. La Soledad is situated just south of the pueblo of Nextipac on the east side of the highway. The hacienda was a little hard to find because there is no sign and the place is set back a bit from the road. We had to go to the plaza in Nextipac to find someone who could guide us to it. If you would like to visit, here is a Google satellite image focused directly on the site. By zooming in to the maximum, you can see the hacienda's buildings and where it lies in relation to the road and to Nextipac. If you zoom out, you can find the towns of La Venta del Astillero and Tesistán (location of Hacienda Santa Lucia), along with the best routes to get to the area.


A mare and her colt graze quietly in a pasture just behind the casa grande. The fields surrounding the property were filled with small herds of these beautiful animals. The colt was only a few weeks old and just beginning to graze, while still occasionally nuzzling for the mare's milk.


The casco


Just inside the main gate of the casco is a low adobe house. A casco was the central group of buildings that was the nerve center of the operation. At one time, the house above may have housed the hacienda's overseer, or mayordomo. This man (they were almost always male) would have been responsible for the day-to-day operations. Since La Soledad is relatively small, accommodations were rustic. Hacendados often owned a number of properties, both large and small. Most of the time, they lived in their luxurious townhouses in Guadalajara and seldom visited their rural properties more than a few times a year. When they did, it was a major local event.


Next to the mayordomo's house is a small adobe cottage. This would have housed one of the peones acasillados. These were trusted workers who received free housing as part of their compensation. Generally they worked within the casco. The men among the peones acasillados performed skilled jobs, such as horse trainer, blacksmith, carpenter, barrel-maker, or as a leather worker making saddles and harnesses. The women served as maids, cooks, seamstresses and performed other domestic functions. Haciendas were generally as self-sufficient as they could make themselves. Journeys that would today take barely an hour by auto could take several days in the 19th century. In addition, travelers faced Chichimec attacks up through the 17th Century, and bandit raids through the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.


A small capilla occupies one side of the large courtyard.  Capillas (chapels) can be found within the cascos of most haciendas. Many still function today as the local church for the communities that grew up around haciendas abandoned after the Revolution.


A bell dedicated to San Isidro, patron saint of laborers and small farmers. I took this telephoto shot of the lower bell in the campanario (bell tower). I was unable to see a date on the bell, but the weathering indicates it may be from the 19th or early 20th century. Bells like this served religious purposes, but also functioned to signal the beginning and end of the workday and to warn of the approach of visitors.


Next to the church stands a well-constructed pozo (well). Until the installation of indoor plumbing, a pozo like this provided water for the whole community living within the casco.


View of the casa grande and the capilla from the steps of the peon acasillado's cottage. The mayordomo's house is out of view just to the right. Notice the old hitching rail just to the left of center of the photo. This central courtyard would have served a variety of functions. These might include greeting guests, holding fiestas, protecting animals such as horses and cattle in times of danger, as well as engaging in other tasks that might require a large, enclosed area.


The casa grande is a two-story adobe structure with a red-tiled roof. A couple of my fellow Hacienda Hunters can be seen in the photo. Catherine is to the left of the tree and her husband Allan is near the hitching rail on the right side. They originally moved down to Mexico from the Pacific Northwest, although Allan originally hails from Great Britain. Along the center of the front of the casa grande you can see a long, rust-colored water trough for horses. The entrance to the house is the large wooden door just to the right of the water trough.


A hacienda wedding. Judging from the clothes, the photo was taken in the early 20th Century, perhaps in the 1920s. Hacienda La Soledad came into the possession of Martín Guadalupe Orozco Sánchez in 1870. It has remained in the Orozco family ever since. It is not clear which members of the family are shown above. At the time Orozco Sanchez acquired it, the hacienda amounted to 300 hectares (741 acres). After the Revolution, much of the land was redistributed to form small individual farm plots for the former peones. The family now rents the remaining property for eventos (parties or weddings).


Courtyards and patios of the casa grande


The central patio of the casa grande is shaded by this large strangler fig. Like most old Mexican and colonial homes, the focus was inward. The patio was a place where many work and social activities occurred.


Baking bread and pastries was a major activity in this patio. This is one of the patio's two wood-fired "beehive" ovens. The metal rod behind the oven is used to stir up the glowing coals and the stone slab on top is used to cover the opening. This is a very ancient technology, probably dating to Biblical times. It is still used not only here, but by some neighborhood bakers in my village of Ajijic.


The walls of this corner of the patio were decorated with antique farm implements. Under the lamp on the right is a hand-carved wooden yoke for harnessing draft animals, probably horses. Under it is a  plow made entirely of wood, including the blade. Crops at La Soledad included corn, squash, beans, camote (similar to sweet potato), sorghum, and forage for livestock.


An old carreta stands in another corner. A carreta was an all-purpose vehicle equivalent to the modern pickup truck. Two-wheeled carts like this were the main way produce and goods were transported to market for hundreds of years in Nueva España and 19th century Mexico. Some are still in use today. A carreta was usually pulled by a pair of oxen or mules. Large haciendas often owned more than a hundred of these, along with several hundred draft animals. Hiring outsiders to haul produce was expensive and a hacendado who could transport his own goods could increase his profit substantially. However, a carreta was a slow-moving vehicle and this limited the markets that could be reached. When railroads were built in the last quarter of the 19th century, they revolutionized the hacienda economy. Notice the milk cans on the side of the carreta and on the walls behind it. In 1920, the Orozcos acquired 140 cows and their milk production which became a major revenue source.


An old carreta and the peones who used it. This is one of the photos hanging on the walls of the casa grande. It is possibly the same carreta seen in my previous photo. These old carts became so emblematic of Old Mexico that there was actually a novel written about one. B. Traven, the man who wrote Treasure of the Sierra Madre (later made into a movie with Humphrey Bogart), also wrote a novel called La Carreta. It was about a young man who escaped debt-slavery on a hacienda by becoming a driver hauling freight on one of these vehicles.


A jumble of old tools and equipment that were once essential to the hacienda's operation. An old iron skillet hangs on the wall. In the center, the leather horse collar was part of the harness used for plowing. Horse shoes and some blacksmith devices are scattered around.


Leather "chaps" are draped over a rail. These are important protective outer-wear for vaqueros (cowboys). The long, sharp thorns of cactus and acacia can quickly shred unprotected flesh when riding through heavy underbrush. Chaps are worn over regular pants and cover the upper and lower legs.


A set of worn gates forms the exit from the patio into the back part of the casco. Something about the sagging old gates, highlighted by the brilliant outside light, appealed to my photographer's eye.


Mysterious little passageways led off into unknown areas of the casa grande. I like rustic old places like this. There is history in every stone. Rustic though it is, the whole place is neatly kept, well-swept, and full of plants and flowers.


The hacendado's living quarters


This door leads into the kitchen and dining area of the casa grande. These would have been private areas restricted to the hacendado's family and guests, as well as such cooks, maids and personal servants.


A comal and a metate stand on the counter in one corner of the kitchen. A comal is a flat griddle placed over a wood fire. In ancient times, pre-hispanic people used clay comales, but the Spanish introduced sheet iron. To the comal's right is a three-legged stone metate (grinding tray) with a mano (stone roller). These are used for grinding corn for tortillas. Ancient metates have been found all over Mexico and other parts of the Western Hemisphere. They even pre-date the development of agriculture in Mexico (approximately 8000 BC), since the earliest ones were used by Paleolithic people to grind wild seeds.


A set of scales sits on a shelf near the comal and metate. Like the other two devices, scales like this are still in use all over Mexico. Someone once said that the past is not past at all, but is always with us. In Mexico, I find this true every day.


The dining room is adjacent to the kitchen.  Notice the stone mosaic floor. The dining room seems a bit small, given the size of the typical family in the 19th century. Perhaps when the hacendado visited, they set up outside in the patio, or in the courtyard in front of the casa grande for big fiestas.


One of the bedrooms. I believe this may be one of the rooms in which current-day guests stay, along with their families. The smaller beds would probably be for children. The walls are filled with old photos of the Orozco family from the past 150 years. The two photos in the upper left are of a husband and wife, possibly the same couple shown in the wedding photo seen previously.


La Dueña, wife of one of the Orozco men.La Dueña, in Spanish, means the female owner. She is portrayed as very serious, even severe, and is dressed in black with her hair pulled back and no sign of frivolity. Notice how the wonderful carved, gilt frame contrasts with the portrait.

This completes Part 4 and also my series on the Haciendas of Zapopan. We have visited a number of other sites in the Zapopan area, and will no doubt visit many in the future. I may continue this series at a later date. I hope you enjoyed this look at haciendas and hacienda life in the Guadalajara area. If you would like to leave a comment or question, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Tepalo Falls after a heavy rain. During a recent hike, my friend Chuck (the handsome guy on the left) and I paused at the base of the largest of several waterfalls in Tepalo Canyon. It only contains water during the summer or early fall of each year. The rest of the year its dry rock face is used by adventurous expats and Mexicans to practice their rappelling skills. Tepalo Canyon is one of a large number of arroyos that cut deeply into the Sierra El Tecuan, a long east-to-west ridge that overlooks the North Shore of Lake Chapala.  For a look at this mountain range, click on this Google map. (The map incorrectly labels it "Sierra de San Juan Cosalá). The highest point on this ridge is Cerro Chupinaya, topping out at just under 8,000 ft, a popular hike for those in good physical condition.


Gearing up at the trailhead. From left to right are Larry, Steve, Ridge, Lynn, Jim B, and Louise. Larry's dog Levi stands in front, impatient to hit the trail. These are all experienced and well-equipped hikers. All but one wear a broad-brimmed hat to ward off the intense sun. Everyone carries a hiking stick to help with balance on the steep, rocky trails. Some choose expensive, collapsible models with moulded hand-grips. Others just use old broom-sticks with rubber tips on the ends. Lug-soled hiking shoes or boots are also essential equipment. An increasing number of hikers are using a "camel-back" pack containing a water bladder with a tube that extends over the shoulder. Wearing one of these, a hiker can easily take a sip of water even while in motion, thus eliminating the need to remove a pack and dig out a water bottle. My camel-back can contain up to 3 liters, but I only put in that much for a long hike.


The first of the Tepalo Canyon's falls pours over an old dam. The dam may have created a water reservoir for the pueblo of Ajijic in some bygone time. The trail passes the falls only about 100 yards from the trailhead. Over the years, rocks and sediment have filled up the space behind the dam so that the ground is now level with its top.


Due to recent rains, we needed to cross the stream many times as we ascended the canyon. Fortunately, none of the crossings were more than a few inches deep. Most could be traversed with a little careful boulder-hopping. I had no fears of wet feet because my boots are lined with water-resistant Gortex.


A young Huichol girl stands on a ledge at the Hidden Canyon falls. Hidden Canyon is a short box canyon that branches off the main arroyo and ends at a nearly vertical waterfall. This is the second large falls encountered along the Tepalo trail. Huicholes are a very ancient tribe that has tenaciously clung to its culture, language and traditions. Their homeland lies in the rugged mountains and canyons where Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas States meet. A small population Huicholes lives in the area of Lake Chapala and sells their beautiful handicrafts at street markets. They call themselves Wixárika and speak a language of the Uto-Aztecan family. The girl above was one of a group of Huichol teenagers that we encountered on our hike.


The kids began to climb the nearly vertical and very slippery rock face of the falls. I was quite astonished at their agility. Most experienced hikers would be reluctant to climb this face even when it is bone dry.


Up they went, soaked to the skin. Notice the girl at the top. She is dressed in a full, ankle-length skirt and is shod in sandals! That water has to be cold.


The climbers turn and gesture in triumph as a friend photographs their progress. Of course, getting down from a climb is always more problematic that going up. That's when most people get hurt. Fortunately, they all made it down without incident.


Our party of hikers moves toward the base of the main falls. Although the climb here at first seems daunting, there are a series of natural steps in the rock face that make the ascent relatively easy. The route circles around to the right side of the falls and moves up through a series of switchbacks.


The main falls are joined by a second cascade from a separate canyon. Two arroyos meet at the head of the Tepalo Canyon's main falls. While the stream coming down from this one has less force than the one pouring over the main channel, you can see that the rock faces are wet all the way across. This indicates that during or after a heavy rain, a lot more water drops over these ledges than you see now. The relative trickle you see above is the result of several dry days.


Jim B, Levi, and Larry take a breather on top of the main falls. Behind them, the circle with three dots indicate that this is part of an ejido. Such land is held in common by local people who are members of the ejido organization and cannot be sold to outsiders except with the consent of the organization.. Ejidos were created after the 1910 Revolution as a mechanism for returning land to campesinos and indigenous people which had been usurped by hacienda owners in previous centuries. The tradition of owning land in common harks back to pre-hispanic times.

Matty and I enjoy a moment together at the head of the main falls. Matty is Chuck's dog. She adores hiking and hikers and is so affectionate that I call her "The Bandit of Love". During a hike, Matty will move from one person to another, pleading with her large, soft eyes for pets and hugs. The main falls drop steeply over the cliff just a few feet in front of me.

A pennant with Mexico's national colors and symbol hangs in Ajijic's plaza. September 16 is annually celebrated in Mexico as Independencia - the date the War for Independence from Spain began. I decided that this year, rather than blogging about it after the fact, I would do an advance posting to help outsiders understand it. The Independence war was a long, bitter, and very bloody 10-year struggle to end 300 years of Spanish domination. It was also a very complex affair, in its causes, in the nature of the struggle itself, and in its results. In comparison, the American Revolution was a rather gentlemanly affair. Canada never really had a revolution or a war for independence. These differing experiences, and the complexity of Independencia, partially explain why so many people from North America's two other nations haven't much idea of what Mexico's 16th of September celebration is all about. Obviously, given the limitations of the blog format, I can't do more than an overview, but I hope that this posting will help foreigners, especially those who live in Mexico, to understand this colorful fiesta.

The roots of insurrection

The roots of Independencia go all the way back to the era of the Conquista. The painting above is a detail from Diego Rivera's great mural in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City. From virtually the day Hernán Cortéz and his conquistadores landed, they began enslaving the local people. In some cases, the Church attempted to protect the indigenous people or at least moderate the more brutal conditions. However, most of the time Spanish religious officials were complicit in the exploitation and Rivera portrays this in his mural.

If the natives couldn't be persuaded to provide free labor through religious proselytization, there was always the whip. After all, convents and cathedrals had to be built, one way or another. Forced labor in hacienda fields and on church edifices were not the only demands on the native people. Indigenous communities were also forced to pay mandatory tithes to the church as well as tribute to the secular authorities  Over the centuries, resentment boiled over into periodic revolts. However, although sometimes violent, these uprisings tended to be localized reactions to especially egregious abuses and rarely threatened the foundations of Spanish rule.


A newly imported African slave is branded in preparation for sale. Another Rivera detail alludes to the large-scale importation of African slaves as a result of the indigenous population crash. The crash was caused by European diseases, abuse, and Spanish massacres. In many areas, as much as 90% of the native population died off between the start of the Conquista in 1519 and the beginning of the 18th Century. The importation of Africans created a social class that ranked even below the indigenous.

The lack of Spanish women in the early years led the Spanish men to seek out indigenous women. Cortez himself took La Malinche, his Mayan translator, as a concubine and fathered children by her. While some of these unions may have been voluntary, others occurred when female war captives were shared out, or were random rapes. Over time, these couplings resulted in the creation of new social classes.

Mixed Spanish and indigenous were called mestizos. Mulattos resulted from unions between indigenous and Africans or, less often, African and Spanish. Each of these groups had a different social status. For example, the Africans arrived in the New World as slaves--the social rock bottom. While the Spanish had enslaved some of the native people, most were not, and some retained special status due to their linkage to the old nobility of the Aztec or other native kingdoms. On the other hand, all native people were subject to tribute, while mestizos were not. Again, mestizos were not the social equals of someone with two parents of Spanish lineage.

The Spanish divided themselves into nobles and commoners, as in the Old Country. Over time, a whole new class distinction developed. Spaniards born in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) were called peninsulares and stood at the top of the social scale. Criollos were Spaniards born in Nueva España (Mexico). They had a lower status and fewer rights than peninsulares. This distinction would have an important impact on Independencia as the criollos increasingly objected to the "glass ceiling" blocking them from lucrative political positions in colonial society.


An old mine cart, full of silver ore, on display in Guanajuato. During Nueva España's first couple of centuries, silver mining and smelting dominated the economy. The Spanish Crown demanded its Quinta (Royal Fifth) of all production, and most of the rest of the silver was shipped to Spain to pay for colonial imports. This caused a chronic shortage of currency and the consequent reliance on credit. The credit was extended by Spanish merchants who, through it, came to monopolize many sectors of the economy.

The merchants were widely hated both as creditors, and because they were seen as greedy peninsulares who were often the only source of desirable imported products. The Crown restricted Nueva España's production of many of these items in order to protect business interests in Spain--to which many peninsulares were closely connected.

In addition, the Crown kept a monopoly on the sale of mercury, a key element in the silver smelting process. Periodic shortages of mercury caused mine shutdowns and mass unemployment, which severely disrupted the economies of important mining towns, such as Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí. The resulting economic dislocations spread, in widening circles, throughout Nueva España. In the period leading up to Independencia, the supply of mercury was especially short because of British blockades during the on-going Napoleonic Wars.

In addition to short-term bouts of unemployment due to scarce mercury, the mine worker's overall economic situation gradually worsened as the 18th century wore on. This provided yet another source of friction. During the population crash of the 16th and 17th centuries, mine owners had had to offer incentives to get the labor they needed. One of these was called the partido, which was a share of ore a miner could keep for himself, in addition to his pay. The mine owners, who were often peninsulares, began to abolish the partido as the population recovered in the 18th Century and labor shortages eased. The miner workers saw this not only as a cut in compensation, but also as a loss of status.



The wife of a wealthy Spaniard does her part to help the poor. The painting is part of a mural in Guanajuato depicting conditions leading up to Independencia. The population crash, and subsequent recovery, also affected agricultural workers. Grain cultivation required a large workforce but, during the crash, agricultural labor was also scarce. In order to recruit workers from the indigenous villages, hacendados (hacienda owners) offered a regular ration of maiz (corn) in addition to pay. This was important because, while grain prices rose during the 18th century, farm worker pay did not. The maiz ration somewhat insulated hacienda workers from food inflation. However, as the population recovered, hacendados--like the mine owners--felt less need to extend such benefits and began to abolish the maiz ration. This caused widespread outrage, as well as increased hunger.

In addition, the population increase meant that indigenous villages had to feed more people from their existing stock of communal land. At the same time, the increase in the available workforce caused the hacendados to shift from livestock to the more profitable grain crops. Eager to increase production, they began to cast covetous eyes upon indigenous lands. Illegal seizures of native fields increased. On the other hand, indigenous villagers sometimes forcibly occupied hacienda lands that they believed had been stolen from them in the past. These conflicts often ended in the colonial courts but sometimes resulted in violent confrontations.

In addition to these pressures, a series of great droughts caused crop failures four times in the century between 1710 and 1810. The fourth one (1808-1810) occurred just before the outbreak of Independencia. The crop failures caused famine, which in turn caused migrations to the cities in search of food, which then resulted in great epidemics. Thousands died. Further, huge numbers of mules and oxen starved during the grain shortages. Mines were powered by these animals, and all freight transportation and field plowing also depended upon them. The economic dislocations were far-reaching. Merchants and hacienda owners often hoarded grain during these episodes, seeking to exploit the crises. Such practices led to food riots in the cities.

Thus, slavery and oppression, social class tensions, a lack of circulating currency, conflicts between debtors and creditors, the impact of population changes on labor conditions and land use, and food hoarding by the elites during agricultural crises all converged to fracture Nueva España's colonial society.


The insurgent leaders


Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was the first great leader of the revolt against Spain. He is portrayed enscribing Libertad (Liberty) on a banner, while the bound hands of a faceless man eagerly reach for it. One of Hidalgo's earliest decrees was to end slavery and tribute and to demand the return of lands stolen from the indigenous people. The underclasses, known as the castes, flocked to his cause although none of this was achieved until long after his death. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was born a criollo in 1753, the son of a middle-class hacienda administrator in the province of  Guanajuato. While living on the hacienda, he learned Nahuatl, Otomi, and Purépecha, the languages of his father's workers. This skill would prove crucial during Independencia. His father was affluent enough to pay for a good education and, at age 15, he was sent to Valladolid (today Morelia) in Michoacan to attend a Jesuit college.

When the Jesuits were summarily expelled from Spanish territories in 1767, protests broke out all over the country and Hidalgo was no doubt influenced by them. Since his Jesuit school was closed, he switched to the prestigious Colegio San Nicolás. After graduating, Hidalgo earned advanced degrees at the Royal and Pontifical University in Mexico City. In addition to Spanish, Latin, and 3 indigenous languages, he also learned French and Italian. At the University, the young man became familiar with the ideas of Europe's Enlightenment, another crucial step in his preparation.

After he became a priest, Hidalgo returned to Colegio San Nicolás to teach and became the dean of the school in 1790. However, his liberal ideas, along with mismanagement of funds, caused his removal. He was then assigned to a succession of parishes. This was occasioned not only by his ideas but his lifestyle. He fathered 5 children out of wedlock by two different women, liked dancing and gambling, and seemed a bit like an 18th Century hippie.

However, Hidalgo was sympathetic to the indigenous people and started various projects to help them become economically self-sufficient. Some of these projects violated the Spanish monopolies and he was angered when ordered to stop. In 1808, Hidalgo was the priest in Dolores, Guanajuato. When the crop failure occurred, famine hit his parish hard and his parishioners faced starvation. Hidalgo protested vigorously when the local Spanish merchants held grain off the market to push prices higher. Then, whispers circulated about a group in Querétaro who sought to oust the Spanish. Hidalgo quickly joined them..


Statue of the dashing young Ignacio Allende in San Miguel de Allende. Ignacio Allende y Unzaga was born in 1769, the son of a wealthy criollo trader in San Miguel el Grande, as the town was called before it was renamed for Allende after Indpendencia. He grew up in the sumptuous house which still faces the main plaza in San Miguel, across from the Cathedral. In 1802, Allende joined the Viceroy's army as a cavalry officer in the regiment stationed in his hometown. He rose to the rank of captain, but, at the same time, became involved in the Independencia conspiracy. In 1806 he was nearly arrested for it, but his social and political connections apparently shielded him. In spite of his close call, he began secretly meeting with Miguel Hidalgo and others in the city of Querétaro.

Up to this point, the conspiracy did not amount to much more than theoretical discussions among small, loosely connected groups. They were scattered around the country and largely made up of middle-class criollos. True, there was widespread discontent among mestizos and other castes for reasons I have already stated, but they were largely unrepresented among the various groups of conspirators. There had been strikes among miners, food riots in the cities, and violent clashes between hacendados and indigenous villagers. However these were episodic, localized, and were easily suppressed. No central issue connected the various groups among the castes with each other, or with the criollos.

Then, in 1808, everything changed. In that year Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, treacherously turned on his ally, the King of Spain. Napoleon deposed the weak King Charles IV, occupied the country, and installed Joseph Bonaparte, the Emperor's brother, as the new King. Suddenly, the entire legitimacy of Nueva España's Viceregal government was called into question. To whom was loyalty owed? Napoleon's brother? Charles IV? His son Ferdinand, who now claimed the throne? Or was it at last time to break away and form a new country? The crisis of legitimacy caused confusion and disarray in Mexico City and provided the opportunity for the conspirators to act.

Still, a fundamental question remained. Was this to be a coup d'etat by the criollos, with the object of removing the hated "glass ceiling," but leaving all other social arrangements intact? Or was it to be a true social revolution involving the masses seething with discontent? From 1808 to the late summer of 1810, the conspirators worked feverishly to prepare their revolt but left this fundamental question unanswered.



La Corregidora was as formidable a person as she appears in the portrait above. Doña Maria Josefa Ortiz gained her nickname "La Corregidora" through her marriage to Miguel Dominguez. He was the Corregidor (Magistrate) of Querétaro, an important city along the route between Mexico City and the silver towns of western and northern Nueva España. Like Hidalgo and Allende, she was a criollo, born in Vallodolid in 1769. Her father, a captain in the Viceregal Army, had been killed in action during her infancy. Ortiz was raised by her older sister after their mother died. Educated at the Colegio de las Vizcaines, she married Miguel Dominguez, a rising figure in Nueva España's society. The couple moved to Querétaro after the Viceroy appointed Dominguez to be its Corregidor.

La Corregidora soon developed sympathy with the plight of the castes and may, as well, have resented the limitations placed on her husband's career by their status as criollos. She began meeting with Hidalgo, Allende, and others to discuss the ideas of the Enlightenment and the possibilities for change in Nueva España. Her husband was aware of her activities but limited his own involvement because of his official position. Following the usurpation by Joseph Bonaparte, the disarray among the top ranks of Nueva España's leadership created a political vacuum. The conspiracy went into high gear.

The leaders in Querétaro secretly began to gather and store weapons. Hidalgo dispatched couriers to his many contacts among the leaders of mine workers, mule caravan drivers, hacienda workers, and local priests. All were directed to be ready when the call was given. Similarly, Allende contacted his friends among young criollo Army officers who might be sympathetic. He made preparations to seize command of his own cavalry regiment at the critical moment. The date was set for December 8, 1810.

Then, disaster struck. An informer tipped off the authorities, who happened to include the Corregidor, Miguel Dominguez. Fearing the exposure of his wife's involvement, and of his own guilty knowledge of the plot, Dominguez locked her in her bedroom so she couldn't warn her fellow conspirators and become further implicated. La Corregidora responded with typical resourcefulness. After tapping on her floor to alert her maid, she whispered instructions through the keyhole of the locked door. The maid quickly alerted a messenger. Whipping his horse into a lather, the man raced through the night to the town of Dolores to warn Hidalgo and Allende. Faced with a decision to flee or fight, they decided to launch the revolt two months early. The die was cast.

Launching the revolt


The church where Father Miguel Hidalgo called for revolt. Nuestra Señora de Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows church) still stands, dominating the main plaza in Dolores Hidalgo. When he addressed the crowd, Hidalgo stood on the top step, just to the left of the great wooden door seen above. His name was added to that of the town after independence was won.

When La Corregidora's warning arrived in the late evening of September 15, 1810, Hidalgo acted quickly. First, he ordered Ignacio Allende to take a party of armed men and free 80 prisoners held in the local jail These included a number of pro-independence prisoners and thus their still-tiny force began to grow. Next, he dispatched messengers to mobilize sympathetic local leaders in the the mining towns, haciendas, mule driving groups, and pueblo churches all over central and western Mexico.

All this would take time, of course, and the Spanish authorities had already begun arresting identified conspirators. Doubtless Hidalgo's and Allende's names were high on the list. They needed to start building an army immediately, using whatever was at hand. For many criollos with property and careers at stake, theoretical discussions were one thing, risking everything was quite another. There was no time to form an army made up primarily of that very ambivalent group. Circumstances forced a choice between a criollo political coup d'etat from the top, or a social revolution from the bottom. In politics, war, and life in general, timing is everything.

Hidalgo decided to focus his appeal on the indigenous villagers, the hacienda peones, the impoverished mine workers, and the debtor classes of the cities. To rouse them, he aimed the revolt squarely against the gachupines, as the hated Spanish-born peninsulares were widely and derisively called. Since the largest group of potential supporters were the landless peones and the indigenous villagers, he would need to promise them land. In addition, Hidalgo was a priest of the Church, as well as a revolutionary. He clearly understood the usefulness of claiming God's support when launching a great armed struggle. Hidalgo also knew that the rural people he so vitally needed were fervently religious. A crusade for liberty and land, based on a religious appeal, would pull it all together.


The bell that Hidalgo rang to summon the people of Dolores rests in a museum near the church. This is the Mexican equivalent of the famous Liberty Bell in the US. Even today, life in Mexican pueblos is governed by the sound of church bells. Sometimes they call residents to mass, sometimes they notify of a death, and sometimes they signal an emergency. Hearing the bell rung at an unusual hour of the evening, people quickly assembled in the broad plaza in front of the church.

Standing on the top step, flanked by Allende and the other leaders, Hidalgo appealed to the crowd in what, ever afterward, has been known as his grito (a loud cry or shout). What he actually said is unknown, and is much disputed among historians. It is likely that the grito went something like this:

"My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once... Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!"

In 1825, four years after Independencia was won, September 16 became a Mexican national holiday. Each year, in the nation's largest cities and smallest pueblos, this scene is re-enacted at 11 PM on September 15, the eve of Independencia. Whether it is the President of Mexico addressing hundreds of thousands massed in the famous Zocalo Plaza, or a local official of a tiny mountain town speaking to a few dozen, the scene is the same. The bell hanging over the balcony of the official building is rung and the presiding official issues a version of the grito. The crowd answers with lusty shouts of Viva! and sings the national anthem. It is a very moving ceremony.


The Virgen de Guadalupe became the patron of Independencia. She is to be found everywhere in Mexico, often framed by Mexican flags, or decorated in the Mexican national colors of red, white, and green. Once again, Hidalgo and his compatriots reacted to their circumstances. There had been no time to create a flag for the Independencia movement and its army. Shortly after they began their famous march from Dolores, they stopped at the little town of Atotonilco, a few miles outside San Miguel. There, at the Sanctuary of Jesus Nazareno, Hidalgo spotted a large banner with the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. He grabbed a long spear and hoisted the image in front of his army. Above is the actual banner used. It is currently on display in a Dolores museum.

Throughout history, flags have been very important, particularly in military operations. In the confused environment of a battlefield, with smoke and dust billowing about, soldiers needed some way to identify their own lines and those of the enemy. Everyone took heart when they could see their own flag. As late as World War II, the raising of the US flag on top of Iwo Jima's volcano had an electrifying effect on the troops watching below.

According to the legend, the Virgen de Guadalupe was encountered in the mid-16th century on the site of a ruined temple to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin. The person who reported it was a recently converted Aztec man who had taken the Christian name of Juan Diego. The event was especially significant because it was the very first time the Virgin had been encountered in the New World, and it was by an indigenous person! She is usually portrayed as dark-skinned and this, along with the story of the encounter and of various miracles attributed to her, soon had the native people flocking to convert. She became the patron of Nueva España's poor and downtrodden people, especially the indigenous. This is why Hidalgo's choice of that particular banner was so crucial.

He could not have picked a more powerful symbol to use in his grito or for his flag. By choosing this emblem, by denouncing the gachupines, and by calling for the return of "lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers," Hidalgo electrified the Mexican underclasses. The first stage of Independencia would be a mass uprising, an attempt at full-scale social revolution.


The wildfire of insurrection


The word of the revolt spread like a wildfire. This painting is a detail from a mural in Guanajuato. It captures the fanatical zeal with which the oppressed castes flocked to Hidalgo's call, and the reckless bravery they exhibited in battle against Spanish troops and militia. Also evident is how poorly armed and equipped they were. Most carried machetes or other farm tools as weapons. The miners might be armed with pickaxes or other tools of their trade. A number brought slings with which they could accurately propel rocks for a surprising distance. Except for small detachments of militia that had joined the revolt, or the cavalry that Allende brought from San Miguel, very few of Hidalgo's men had guns. Only a handful knew how to properly use the ones captured along the way.

Hidalgo quickly assembled 600 men in Dolores, and began a march through the Bajio area of present- day Guanajuato State. Everywhere along their route more recruits poured in from haciendas, pueblos, and indigenous villages. Their army seemed to grow by the hour. At its peak, it totaled between 80,000 and 100,000 men. However, it was actually less of an army than it was a people in arms, a huge mob with little discipline and no sense of tactics. In spite of these deficiencies, Hidalgo's army had enormous fervor and energy to match its colossal size. It seemed irresistible and, at first, overwhelmed all opposition it encountered.

While happy about their successes, Allende and the other criollo leaders were increasingly uneasy about the tendency of their troops to massacre hacienda owners in the countryside and merchants in the towns, after looting their stores. It seems that they took Hidalgo's words to heart when he said in his grito:"death to the gachupines!" Sometimes those killed included criollos, particularly if they had a reputation for abusing those under them. To the criollos helping lead the revolt, this was getting a bit close to home. Hidalgo seemed unwilling to restrain the excesses of his men, or perhaps he simply knew that with such an army it was impossible. There was too little capacity for control and too much pent-up anger. It would be well for those who sit at the top of any society to remember that the more tightly they clamp the lid over the discontent boiling under them, the more devastating the explosion will be when the it finally blows off.

It should be noted that similar revolts occurred over much of Mexico, as soon as word reached other parts of the conspiratorial network. This was particularly so in western and northern Mexico's silver towns, where the mine workers rose up and, with their criollo allies, seized control of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and many smaller mining towns such as Etzatlán in present-day western Jalisco. If they could hold these towns, it would be a huge blow to the Spanish authorities. The loss of the silver revenues would seriously cramp royalist operations, while the rebels could use the silver to finance theirs. However, the Spanish still controlled Guanajuato, one of the key silver towns near Dolores. It became the rebels' first major target.



Guanajuato's fortress-like Alhóndiga de Granaditas was actually a granary. Today it is a museum dedicated to the battle that occurred here and to an extensive pre-hispanic collection. Most cities in Nueva España contained an alhondiga to store wheat and corn brought in from haciendas and indigenous villages. Grain was purchased at government-set prices and stored for resale in buildings like this. Construction on Guanajuato'sAlhóndiga de Granaditas was completed in November 1809, less than a year before the revolt.

The Spanish authorities in Guanajuato decided to stand their ground rather than flee Hidalgo's approaching army. Because of its large size, thick stone walls, generally small windows, and the store of food already present in the building, the Spanish authorities picked this site as their fortress. It was a sound military decision.

The royalist troops and all of the wealthy peninsulares and their families took refuge inside and prepared to withstand a siege. They brought along all the recently mined silver and their valuable personal belongings to keep them from rebel hands. Let the rabble sack the city and even burn it! They would still be safe. Only heavy artillery could knock down their walls and they knew Hidalgo's forces had virtually none. The Alhóndiga de Granaditas should have saved the Spanish. However, they didn't count on the bravery and ingenuity of one man.



El Pipla, with his paving-stone armor and his torch, defeated the Alhóndiga's defenders. The painting above is a detail from a mural in Guanajuato. There is also a giant statue of him on the crest of a ridge overlooking the city. Like most people who become heroes, El Pipila was an ordinary man who emerged suddenly during extraordinary times. His real name was Juan José de los Reyes Martinez Amaro. He was a mine worker from Guanajuato who, like many other miners, joined the revolt. El Pipila was the nickname his coworkers gave him.

When the rebel army marched into the city, the royalists were already safely ensconced in their granary fortress. For two days, a firefight raged between the well-armed Spanish inside and the few among the rebels who possessed guns. Several attempts to rush the stronghold came to naught. Spanish guns bristled at every window, and the heavy, iron-studded, wooden doors stood against every attempt to force them. Rebel casualties mounted. Something had to be done.

Then, El Pipla stepped forward with an amazing proposal. He planned to crawl across the open plaza through the intense royalist gunfire to the wall of the Alhóndiga. Once there, El Pipila proposed to set the building's cellar door afire. If it worked, the rebel forces could pour inside and seize the fortress. The miner set out with a large, flat piece of paving stone strapped on his back as a bullet shield. He carried a torch in one hand and a pot of flammable tar in the other. It is likely that few thought he would make it, but he did. Smearing the door with the tar, he set it alight. When it collapsed in embers, the rebels made their rush. Soon, with nowhere to go, the defenders surrendered. However, there was no safety in surrender.


Wealthy peninsulares cower in terror before the fury of those they had long oppressed. Their blood up, and furious at the casualties they had sustained, Hidalgo's ragged forces massacred the surrendering Spanish. They killed soldiers and civilians alike, including women, and children. While it does not appear that Hidalgo ordered the massacre, he was the responsible commander and it deeply stained his reputation.

Many criollos recoiled in horror, both within his army and among potential supporters. Allende and other key leaders gritted their teeth and remained loyal but, after all, what choice had they at this point? Many other criollos slipped back into neutrality and some swung their support to the royalist cause. Hidalgo desperately needed experienced criollo officers to train and discipline his army. so the massacre produced disastrous results in the longer term.

In fact, the deliberate killing of gachupines, particularly wealthy merchants, continued throughout this stage of the revolt. Hidago's forces eventually took Guadalajara and arrested the merchants and other royalist officials who had not already fled. During the two months he held the city, several hundred were summarily executed. Beginning on December 12, the feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe, groups of prisoners were taken from their cells each night, 20 to 30 at a time. They were transported to the ravines just outside the city where they were killed with knives and machetes and their bodies dumped.

While all this is horrifying, it is also true that the Spanish had seized and held Nueva España through 300 years of torture, massacre, enslavement and theft. In fact, during the Independence War's 10-year duration, royalist forces committed innumerable acts of violence against rebel prisoners and unarmed civilians, including many summary executions. There were bloody hands on both sides.


Like so many of Mexico's heroic figures, Hidalgo did not die in his sleep. He led the rebel army toward Mexico City and fought a battle at Monte de las Cruces near the capital. Allende urged him to attack the city, but he refused for reasons that are unclear. Possibly, Hidalgo shrank from the scale of the likely massacre had he succeeded. Also, entrenched in the capital were the strongest Spanish forces in the country and the rebels had suffered heavy losses at Monte de las Cruces. Whatever  his reasons, Hidalgo retreated to Guadalajara. There, he issued a decree ending slavery, eliminating indigenous tribute payments, and demanding the return of native lands seized by Spaniards. These acts forever endeared him to the underclasses. Hidalgo's anti-slavery decree pre-dated Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by more than 50 years.

In the mean time, the Spanish had at last overcome their disarray. General Calleja, one of their more effective officers, marched down from San Luis Potosí to challenge Hidalgo and his army. With only 6,000 men, Calleja's army was laughably small compared to Hidalgo's 80,000+. However, they were trained, disciplined troops, and possessed field artillery. The two armies clashed at Calderón Bridge, northeast of Guadalajara. At first, it looked like Hidalgo's forces would once again be victorious. However, Calleja's troops stood fast and a lucky shot by his artillery blew up Hidalgo's ammunition supply. The massive explosion panicked Hidalgo's undisciplined army and they fled the field.

The rebel leaders attempted to regroup, but it was over. They could do nothing but flee, hoping to reach the United States. Because of the catastrophic defeat, and the massacres that preceded it, the criollo leaders removed Hidalgo as head of the army and replaced him with Allende. In Coahuila, Hidalgo and other top leaders were betrayed and captured. Taken to Chihuahua, the rebel leaders were tried, executed by firing squad, and then decapitated. The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, and two other key leaders were sent to the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato and hung in iron cages on the four corners of the building. The social revolutionary phase of Independencia was over.

One of the revolt's surviving leaders was José María Morelos y Pavon. He carried on the fight from bases in Michoacan and Oaxaca. Morelos had observed the flaws of a huge, undisciplined army and his was a smaller, much better trained force. However, although talented, Morelos was a former priest and mule driver rather than a trained general. He made a series of strategic mistakes which prevented ultimate success and was himself finally defeated, captured, and executed in 1815. The war then devolved into a guerrilla insurgency. Sometimes these roving, independent bands were indistinguishable from bandits. A stalemate ensued for the next six years. The Spanish held the cities and towns of any size. The guerrillas dominated the countryside.  Finally, exhaustion on both sides, along with continuing disarray in Spain, led to an agreement between Spanish General Agustín de Iturbide and rebel leader Vicente Guerrero. In 1821, they joined forces and ended the war. Independencia had at last succeeded.

NOTE: To learn about the heroic four-year siege of Lake Chapala's Mezcala Island during the independence struggle, click here.

This completes my posting on Mexico's Independencia. I hope you have enjoyed it and have, perhaps, learned something you didn't know already. If you'd like to ask a question or leave a comment, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

A colorful hot air balloon rises majestically against backdrop of Ajijic's mountains. The Globos Fiesta is one of the most popular events during Ajijic's annual Independencia celebration. Globos are balloons, and the ones launched during the fiesta are made of tissue paper and powered by hot air. While they don't carry passengers, they are most definitely exciting. This is not only because of their vivid colors and the fascinating variety of their shapes. The globos also have a reputation for catching fire that would give heart papitations to a north-of-the-border fire marshal. The Globos Fiesta is usually held on the Saturday afternoon of the weekend before September 15, Mexico's Independence Day.


The field of action


The bleachers of the local futbol (soccer) field were jammed with spectators. Unless you arrive early, there is little chance of finding a seat up there. However, many groups set up canopies and chairs around the perimeter of the field, and individuals often bring their own folding seats. The field itself is covered by hundreds of wandering spectators. The various teams prepping, inflating, and launching their globos are usually surrounded by scores of gawkers. In addition to spectators and team members, innumerable vendors roam about, selling cotton candy, toys, food, artisan wares, etc. Music blasts from loud speakers and the whole event is typically Mexican: colorful, noisy, and a little crazy.


Prepping the globo. The first step is to carefully unfold and spread out the globo. Even though some are quite large, they are still fairly fragile and must be handled gently. A fire is burning in the dark can in the center of the photo in order to generate the hot air needed for the initial inflation.


One team member fans hot air up into the opening while another ignites the flame inside. This is one of the most tricky moments. The globo's fragile skin could be torn by an overeager handler or a gust of wind blowing it against something sharp. It could also catch fire by coming in contact with the little stove on the ground, or during the delicate operation necessary to light its internal fire.


Success! The globo is up, up, and away! The large balloon rose gently as the the crowd cheered. It was one of the more successful entries and achieved an altitude of several thousand feet. Through the air hole in the bottom, you can see the blazing internal flame.


Some of the mechanics of getting them launched


This entry required a step ladder to prep it. The globos, as you will soon see, come in every imaginable shape and size. Some are only as big as an oversized beach ball. Others can be as tall as a house and require scaffolding to set up and launch. Although all are made of paper and powered by hot air, the resemblance among balloons ends there. Some are round, some square, others are multi-pointed stars, or long cylinders, or are shaped like animals or other objects.


A team effort. A large group was required to launch this globo. This photo gives you an idea of how big some of the balloons are, particularly when scaled against the people who are working on them. This one was only half-inflated.


Where'd it go? The Naranja Mechanica team squints into the sunlight, trying to keep their entry in sight. Some balloons are constructed and launched by individuals or family groups. In other cases local businesses field teams. An auto mechanic's shop fielded this team, complete with its own t-shirts. Sometimes a single team will construct multiple globos. A friend mentioned that someone he knew had brought 35 balloons to the event. I can believe it, because the Globos Fiesta always continues through the afternoon and into the evening. Throughout, at any one time, there are usually 5-10 globos in the air, while another 5-10 are under preparation or launching.


A view from the ground. I took this shot to show some of the basic elements of a typical design. The hole in the bottom keeps air flowing in to feed the flame. The fire itself is usually produced by lighting an oily rag in a small wire container suspended inside the balloon. In order to maintain the globo's stability in buffeting air currents, a water-filled plastic soda bottle has been suspended several feet below the balloon. This performs the same function as the tail on a kite. If the globo oscillates too much from side to side, the flame may come in contact with the skin, with disastrous results.


Globos come in all shapes, sizes, and themes


This weird looking figure is a popular character in Mexican children's cartoon shows. The balloon is probably about 15 feet tall and 4 feet wide. I have noticed that cylindrical shaped globos often don't fare well because they are especially prone to oscillations. However, this one did just fine.


On a stairway to heaven. Perhaps the shape of this one helped ensure its smooth launch and flawless performance as it rose through the clouds. Whatever works.


Love conquers all. Another globo with a theme that its creators felt couldn't lose. They were right. The heart flew on and on until we lost sight of it in the clouds.


And now for something completely different... A bright green rana (frog) rises graceflully into the sky. The crew had a difficult time getting the rana inflated, probably due to the multiple chambers that had to be filled. It was also very clumsy to launch. Once in the air, however, the happy creature soared aloft.


The Rise and Fall of "Just Chillin's" Globo


Just Chillin's penguin mascot was the theme for their entry. Just Chillin' is a wildly popular new restaurant located on the Carretera in west Ajijic. All the expats who eat there regularly were rooting for this entry. It was quite large, and had the problematic cylinder shape. I kept my fingers crossed.


Oh no! Disaster strikes! Sure enough, the penguin's shape caused it to oscillate soon after launch. Everyone held their breath. Then, black smoke appeared, the first sign of demise. As the oscillations increased, flames appeared and began consuming the side of the globo. The huge crowd groaned in sympathy as the ground crew watched helplessly.


The penguin disintegrates and begins to drop. Once a sizable portion of the walls of a balloon are consumed, the warm air inside dissipates and the balloon begins to drop, trailed by debris.


The flaming wreck of Just Chillin's entry plummets to the ground. Remember, the field below was swarming with people. Everyone scattered to avoid the crash. Any visiting fire marshals from up north probably had to be revived with smelling salts. Probably 40-50% of the launches go this way. Some of them get only a few feet off the ground before flaming out. I have many photos of such disasters, but I only chose one as a representative sample. Most land on the field, but others end up on rooftops, on the nearby highway, in the trees, or dangling from power lines. However, I have never seen any serious damage as a result and everyone treats it as great fun.

Some that made it...


A spectacular star-burst globo is hung with a sign while others float in the distance. The sign is titled "Miasthenia Gravis" and apparently the globo was intended to promote awareness about a muscle disease that generally affects women under 40 and men over 60.  If you look closely you can see three other globos in the photo. The most distant is only a white speck among the clouds in the upper right.

This completes my posting on the Globo Fiesta. If you ever visit Lake Chapala during the week of Independencia, this is one event you don't want to miss! I hope you enjoyed this posting. After last week's very serious analysis of the socio-economic basis of the War of Independence, I thought people might be ready for a bit of simple fun. If you have any questions of comments, please leave them in the Comments section below or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Zamora's plaza offers inviting benches under shady trees near lovely old fountains. The fountain in the background is one of several in the plaza. For a long time, Carole and I had discussed visiting the small city of Zamora de Hidalgo, located in northwestern Michoacan. We had even made tentative plans on several occasions, but something always intervened. Finally, in June of 2015, we set off in our trusty-but-aging Toyota Corolla. In this first posting of my Zamora series, I will focus on the Plaza de Armas and the primarily 19th Century structures that surround it. In subsequent postings I will show some of the other major sites of interest, as well as take you for a look at the Purépecha villages in the surrounding mountains and to lovely Lago de Camécuaro.

Plaza Zamora


A view through the trees toward the kiosco of'Plaza de Armas. Like much of Zamora's architecture, the plaza was built during the 35-year dictatorship of Porfirio Dias, known as the Porfiriato. Construction began on the plaza in 1885 and it was completed in 1895. The City of Zamora lies in a lush valley only about a 2 hour drive east from our home in Ajijic. It could easily be visited as a day-trip, but you probably need at least 2-4 days to really appreciate the town and the area around it, . There are several ways to reach Zamora from Lake Chapala, but the easiest and quickest is go north on the Chapala-Guadalajara Carretera to the Ocotlán turnoff. Once at Ocotlán, head east on the 15D Autopista toward Morelia. Exit toward the south at Ecuandereo onto Highway 37. It's about a 30 minute drive from there to Zamora. The roads are excellent all the way. To view a Google map of the area, click here.


Wrought-iron lyre decorates the railing of the plaza's kiosco. Wrought-iron decoration like this is very typical of the Porfiriato, and is still popular in Mexican plazas. In 1500 BC, long before the Porfiriato, people began to settle in this fertile valley. Over almost 3000 years, waves of migration brought tribes known as the Pirinda, Nahua, Huetamo, Colima, and finally the Purépecha. This last group arrived in the 14th century AD. They founded what the Spaniards called the Tarascan Empire, which covered the area of what is now the State of Michoacan and parts of several surrounding states. The Purépecha called the valley Tziróndaro, which means "swamp place". The description fits, since the valley is a flat, well-watered alluvial plain surrounded by volcanic mountains.


A skull-like face peers out from the jaws of a jaguar in a large painting displayed in the plaza. Jaguars, skulls, and faces peering out from a monster's jaws have been common themes in Mexican art going far back into pre-hispanic history. The Tziróndaro Valley served the Purépecha not only aa a fertile source of maiz (corn),but also as a buffer zone against the Mexica (Aztec) Empire to the east, as well as the wild Chichimec nomads from the north. During the Salitre War of 1480-1510, the Tziróndiro served as a good forward base for the Tarascan ruler Tangaxuan II. He sent an army across the Coast Range to seize the valuable salt beds near Sayula. The 30-year campaign failed and the Purépecha were ultimately expelled. Less than 10 years after this defeat, in 1519, the Spanish under Hernán Cortéz landed on the Gulf Coast. With their arrival, everything began to change. Epidemics of European diseases ravaged the Purépecha population, even before the Spanish physically arrived in Michoacan. In 1529, a conquistador named Nuño Beltran de Guzman invaded the Tarascan Empire, executed Tangaxuan II, and killed or enslaved a significant part of the population. Most of the survivors fled into the mountains. This left the Tzirondaro Valley largely depopulated


Arched portales line the north side of the plaza. The covered walkway not only protects shoppers from sun and rain, it also serves as a place for small street vendors to spread out their wares. In 1573, Spanish King Phillip II issued his Law of the Indies. Among other things it specified the architectural requirements for Spanish colonial possessions. The King decreed that every town should be built around a plaza bordered by a church, a government building, and commercial areas. Part of the design required covered walkways around the borders of the plaza, similar to the one seen above. When Zamora was founded in 1574, the pattern was followed closely. In that year, Viceroy Martin Enrique de Almanza sent 40 Spanish families to settle in the Valle de Tziróndaro. The settlers came mainly from the city of Zamora in Spain, so they named the new pueblo after their home town. Spanish officials chose this valley for much the same reasons the Tarascans had. Although depopulated by epidemics and Guzman's depredations, its land was rich and it occupied a strategic position as a buffer against marauding Chichimecs.


The plaza's fountains are surrounded by lush gardens. In the center background, you can see the Presidencia (city hall) and, to the left, the Mercado (market). Viceroy Almanza's move to settle the valley was not a casual afterthought. At the time, epidemics were again raging and the various indigenous populations were dying off at a tremendous rate. Spanish conquistadors were not inclined to do hands-on farm work themselves, and relying on native labor was becoming unfeasible. Spanish farms in many areas had been abandoned. Even obtaining maiz (corn) from indigenous villages was becoming problematic due to the epidemics. Wheat prices in Mexico City were skyrocketing and famine loomed as a real possibility. When the Viceroy decided to bring farmers directly over from Spain and set them to work in the most promising areas, Valle de Tziróndaro was high on his list.


Carole studies a map as we try to orient ourselves. Her Tilley hat, and mine, sometimes cause us to be mistaken for Canadians, among whom the virtually indestructible headgear is wildly popular. One of our first tasks when arriving at a new location is to gather whatever maps and other tourist information are available. This supplements our usually extensive pre-trip research. Often our hotel will provide a map of the area and possibly even a concierge service. To make the most of our time, we sketch out a calendar in advance and fill it with the places / activities that make the most sense for each particular day. Some things, like walking tours, are best done in the morning when it is cool. Others, like museums, are best for the afternoon when it may be hot outside. We try to alternate days spent walking around town with days in our car, exploring the countryside. Often we leave our last full day unscheduled, saving it for things we only find out about during the course of the visit, or that were not open when we originally scheduled them. We also keep an eye out for interesting places to stop along the way to and from the city we will visit. Always, we try to fit in some "down time" so the adventure is not just a frantic rush from place to place. Aside from a hotel, one of the very best places to find local information is the Oficina de Turismo (Tourist Office), often located in or near the local presidencia (city hall).


La Presidencia

Zamora's Presidencia faces the plaza, sharing a corner with the Catedral. Zamora's Presidencia is a building that has been largely remodeled but whose old portales were retained to help maintain the colonial character of the plaza. A tourist office is a place you'd think would be easy to find. For reasons that have never been clear to me, such offices are often in obscure locations. Usually the best person to ask is the nearest policeman, often found hanging out around the entrance of the building. We have found local cops to be almost invariably polite. They will often personally lead you to your destination, which is what happened in this case. Once located, the tourist staff loaded me up with all the maps and pamphlets I could carry. These were all in Spanish, of course, but a map is a map and my Spanish reading fluency is good enough to handle the literature, even if my spoken Spanish is still limited.


Wooden rafters support the ceiling of the walkway that surrounds the Presidencia's courtyard. Rafters like these are common in Michoacan because of the great forests that blanket its mountains. Zamora grew slowly between the 16th century and the last part of the 19th. In 1580, the settlers built a rustic parish church next to the plaza. By 1681, the old church had become decrepit, so residents constructed a new one. In 1740, Zamora had grown enough to incorporate the independent village of Tecos within its boundaries. However, by 1790, the town still had only 8000 inhabitants. During the late colonial period, local haciendas became prosperous growing wheat for Guadalajara, Vallodolid (present-day Morelia), and even for far-away Mexico City. The land they planted was often obtained through means that, shall we say, were of questionable legitimacy.


"Death is nothing when you die for your country." This was among several posters that lined the walls of the Presidencia. Artist Francisco Mora produced this classic Mexican catrina defiantly shaking his fist while surrounded by other skeletons and skulls. Mexico's history contains many tragic and violent episodes. Its colonial period ended in the decade-long cataclysm known as the War of Independence (1810-1821).  In the late fall of 1810, the rebel army led by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla stopped briefly in Zamora to regroup, while on its way to capture Guadalajara. The people greeted Hidalgo with such enthusiasm that he granted them the much-coveted status of Villa (city), and gave them the name "Zamora the Illustrious." At this point the town's population was still only about 8000 people, the same level as in 1790, so perhaps the title contained a bit of hyperbole. However, Zamorans still remember the event with pride.


A giant fist rises from the soil, representing the power of Mexico's campesinos (farm workers). The fist is menaced by the bayonets of an oppressor as a peon, spreading his maiz, looks on. The artist is Arturo Garcia Bustos and the caption reads " I serve the nation because of its great, legitimate, and inviolable sovereignty." Such peones, along with the miners and artisans from the towns, formed the great majority of Hidalgo's army. Following his defeat and execution in 1811, they scattered to form innumerable insurgent bands that roamed the countryside for the next 10 years. Spanish Brigadier José de la Cruz expelled the rebels from Zamora and took control of the city, but the insurgents retreated into the mountains of Michoacan. The guerrilla war around Zamora, as well as all over the country, was characterized by insurgent raids on outlying villages and haciendas and Spanish reprisal expeditions. After an exhausting and destructive decade of stalemate, insurgent leader Vicente Guerrero and a turn-coat Spanish general named Agustin de Ituribe joined forces. They ended the war and severed ties with Spain, at last achieving the goal of independence. However, a great many issues were left unsettled when the war ended and this led to nearly 50 years of political turmoil, warfare, and foreign invasions.


The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, framed by the Presidencia's portales. The neoclassic church was built by the famous architect Eduardo Tresguerras between 1832-1838. The church occupies part of the north side of Plaza de Armas. Following the achievement of national independence, Zamora tried for a little independence of its own. The city's leadership had long felt more economically tied to Guadalajara than to Vallodolid, the capital of Michoacan. During the decades of turmoil that followed independence, they attempted to form their own separate state, with Zamora as its capital. However, this came to nothing and Zamora continued as part of Michoacan.

La Catedral de la Concepción Inmaculada

The old Cathedral was a parish church until Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Zamora. A Roman Catholic diocese is an administrative district under the supervision of a bishop. A cathedral is the "seat" of the bishop. When the Diocese of Zamora was created in 1863, Catholic officials intended to use the old parish church as the provisional cathedral until a grand new cathedral could be built. This project took quite a bit longer than anyone anticipated, largely due to the Revolution of 1910-20 and the Cristero War of 1926-29. The new Cathedral, known as the Guadalupe Sanctuary, was not inaugurated until 2008. I won't got into detail here about the old cathedral since I intend to devote Part 2 of this series to it. The painting you see under the tree, and the jaguar painting previously seen, are parts of a group of artworks displayed around the plaza that day.


The painting displays two important aspects of Zamora: strawberries and the new cathedral. While wheat was the major cash crop of the Valle de Tziróndaro from colonial times through the early 20th century, strawberries now dominate. The fertile valley abounds in the berries and they have an international market. More than half of all strawberries grown in Mexico originate in Michoacan, and Zamora is the center of this production. The Tziróndaro Valley devotes the most acreage, employs the most workers and produces the highest volume of strawberries in the State. The church in the painting is the Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the new Cathedral. I will devote a later posting to this remarkable neo-gothic building, whose spires are the loftiest in Mexico.


This little train was a magnet to the kids in the plaza. The train and its small passengers are passing in front of the main entrance of the old cathedral. The late 19th Century was a period of explosive growth in Zamora, in good part because of the arrival of the railroad. However, The 46 years between the end of the War of Independence in 1821 and the 1867 defeat of the French occupation were a period of turmoil and political upset in Zamora, as well as the rest of Mexico. First, a series of civil wars raged between federalists and centralists over the nation's form of government. Then, between 1846-48, the US invaded Mexico and seized almost 1/2 of its territory. This was followed by the Reform War in the 1850s between the Liberals and Conservatives over proposals to modernize the society and curb the economic and political power of the Church. When the Conservatives were defeated by Benito Juarez, they asked French Emperor Louis Napoleon to intervene and install a European as Emperor of Mexico. Ferdinand Maximilian, brother to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, accepted Napoleon's invitation and the French invaded in 1862. The occupation lasted five years, but the French were eventually defeated in a series of battles. One of the first of these crucial Mexican victories occurred at Zamora. In 1867 the French departed and later that year Juarez defeated and executed Maximilian. This victory began a period of peace and stability that lasted until 1910, with only the occasional, easily-suppressed revolt.


El Mercado de Morelos

The Mercado de Morelos faces the east side of the Catedral.  In 1872, Juarez died of natural causes, while still serving as President. Four years later, Porfirio Diaz--a hero in the fight against the French--was elected President. For the next 35 years, known as the Porfiriato, Diaz continued in power, ruling either directly or through proxies. His goals were to stabilize, modernize, and industrialize the nation. Zamora, now a city of 12,000, felt the effects almost immediately.  In 1879 a priest and benefactor named Father José Antonio Plancarte y Labastida launched a tram system to connect Zamora with its close neighbor, the city of Jacona. The railroad arrived in 1889, connecting Zamora with Guadalajara, Mexico City, and the world beyond. Products from the Valle de Tziróndaro could now be quickly and easily shipped all over Mexico and even sold internationally. This provided a huge boost to the economy and connected what had been a rather sleepy town to the broad world beyond. In 1898, city streets were lit by electricity. Also in that year, the first stone was laid for the new cathedral. The city government began to construct the Mercado in 1907, finishing it in 1913. Its purpose was to replace the previous open, messy, and disorganized market area with a modern building to display and sell Zamora's products. In 1910, the city's population reached 15,000. Late that same year, the Mexican Revolution exploded. Chaos and instability returned with a vengeance.


All manner of products are sold in the Mercado's booths. These include the food and clothing seen here as well as countless other items. Among the best known of the Mercado's products are chongos, a form of candy made from milk. The Mercado's architectural style is eclectic with a strong neo-classical influence. It was built using glass and steel, faced with cantera stone. The structure was the first in Zamora to be supported by a steel frame connected with rivets. Even though the Mercado is enclosed, the high, arched roof gives the building an expansive, open feeling. Like much of the architecture of the Porfiriato, it copied European styles of construction popular in late 19th and early 20th century. Porfirio Diaz' single minded pursuit of his goals resulted in rapid economic growth. However, nearly all of its benefits went to the people on the top: industrialists, merchants, hacienda owners, foreign corporations, and especially Diaz and his cronies. The standard of living of the vast majority of people either stagnated or dropped. Miners and other industrial workers struck to protest pitifully small wages and terrible working conditions. The strikes were brutally crushed. Peones in the countryside were reduced to debt-slavery through the haciendas' system of tiendas de raya (company stores). Those who tried to escape were usually captured by Diaz' vastly expanded rurales (rural police). Fugitive peones often faced severe beatings when they were returned to the haciendas. Diaz employed a sophisticated secret police apparatus to ferret out political dissent. Those causing trouble were offered the choice between silver or lead: accept a payoff to keep quiet or a take bullet. Along with all these methods, Diaz regularly rigged elections to maintain the illusion of democracy. After 35 years of tight control, the lid blew off the kettle and the explosion was shattering.


Colorful gowns await the inspection of families shopping for their daughter's quinceañera. Quince means fifteen in Spanish, the age when a girl emerges from childhood to become a woman. The fiesta celebrating a girl's quinceañerais joyful, but also very formal and the girl's friends dress in vividly-colored and frilly gowns like those above to help her celebrate it. The chaos unleashed by the Revolution often left city leaders with little to celebrate. In 1913, the year the Mercado officially opened, Zamora was looted by the combatants. In 1914, Revolutionary troops confiscated the newly completed Episcopal Palace of the Diocese. Also in that year, construction was halted on the new Cathedral, and the property was taken over by the federal government. It was not recovered by the Church until 1988. Between 1901-1921, intermittent fighting in and around Zamora reduced its population to 13,863 inhabitants.


Exquisitely-tooled cowboy boots were on sale at one booth, and for a startlingly low price. The tag on the snakeskin boots in the center asks for $750 pesos. At current exchange rates, this amounts to only $44.70 USD. Although the Revolution officially ended in 1921, upheavals continued. In 1926, President Elias Calles decided to enforce the anti-clerical provisions of the Constitution of 1917. He had various reasons, but one of them was the growing opposition to land reform among conservative Catholics. His enforcement of the Constitution resulted in a 3-year uprising known as the Cristero War. Zamora became a major center of this conflict. Organizations of landless peones, known as agraristas, pressed the government to fulfill its promises for land redistribution. Haciendas owned vast tracts of land, some of it acquired under very questionable circumstances. While there was some justification to Catholic claims of religious persecution by the Revolutionary government, there was also a financial angle to it. Some of the properties subject to the new land reform laws were owned by religious organizations, and others by individual Catholic priests or other religious officials. Even when there was no direct ownership by religious organizations or officials, many of these people were blood relatives of hacienda owners whose property was targeted for redistribution. Catholic activists claimed religious persecution, and the landless peones and indigenous villagers demanded economic justice. The conflict was very bloody and both sides committed atrocities. The Church authorities in Rome, fearing the complete destruction of the Church in Mexico, negotiated a settlement with the Revolutionary government. In 1929, the fighting finally ended.


I asked this pretty pair if I could take their photo and they rewarded me with pleased smiles. Mexico is rapidly changing and kids like these are its future. A few years after the end of the Cristero War, President Lazaro Cardenas was elected. He re-stabilized the country, pushed through land reform, and nationalized the foreign-owned oil industry. The economic picture in Zamora, and in Mexico generally, immediately began to improve. Highway 15 was pushed through to Zamora. The city was at last connected by a modern highway to Michoacan's capital Morelia (formerly called Vallodolid), Mexico City, and Guadalajara. By 1940, Zamora had once again reached 15,000 residents, a level it had not attained since the beginning of the Revolution in 1910. Local entrepreneurs built modern hotels. The Rio Douro was channeled so that flooding in the city was reduced and more water became available for agriculture. In 1953, the city was officially renamed "Zamora de Hidalgo" to commemorate the Independence War hero. In 1988, the Guadalupe Sanctuary was finally returned to the Church, and construction resumed. In 2008, the Sanctuary became the new Cathedral, 110 years after the first stone was laid.

This completes Part 1 of my series on Zamora. Carole and I enjoyed visiting this often-overlooked little treasure and we encourage you to visit too. A quick tip: most of the best hotels and restaurants appear to be located in the narrow strip of the city that connects it to its sister-city of Jacona. We advise looking there for your accommodations if you plan to stay overnight. We hope you enjoyed this posting and, if so, you'll leave any comments or questions in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE leave your email so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

The serenity of Lago de Camécuaro makes it a delightful place for a quiet morning stroll. In planning our visit, Carole and I were as interested in the area outside Zamora de Hidalgo as we were in the city itself. One of the best-known local attractions is the small national park which includes this pristine, crystal-clear lake. Lago de Camécuaro is located 14 km (8.7 mi) southeast of Zamora along Highway 15. The turnoff to the lake comes just before you enter the town of Tangancicuaro. Admission to the park is only $10 pesos (60 cents USD) and all-day parking is $20 pesos ($1.20). For a Google map showing how to get from Zamora to the park, click here.


This basalt head is one of several whimsical sculptures near the park entrance.  The total area of the park is only 9.65 hectares (23 acres) and the lake's surface is 1.6 hectares (3.4 acres). The name Camécuaro comes from the Purépecha language and means "Place of the Bath". The Purépecha-speaking people of Michoacan are one the largest indigenous cultures still existing in Mexico. They were the people of the Tarascan Empire, the Aztec Empire's greatest rival at the time of the Conquest.


A small cove near the entrance contains wooden skiffs available for rent. We didn't rent a boat, and I haven't been able to find rental prices on various Camécuaro-related websites. However, the fees are almost certain to be modest. We arrived early on a weekday morning, an excellent time to visit if you are looking for peace and quiet. On the weekends you are much more likely to encounter noisy crowds, particularly after mid-day. During our visit, we encountered only a handful of people scattered around the lake's perimeter.


The early morning rays of sunshine filter through the trees lining the shore. A rustic foot path follows the perimeter of the lake, allowing glimpses of calm water reflecting the evergreens surrounding the lake. A leisurely stroll around the circumference takes less than an hour. In addition to strolling and boating, visitors can swim and soak in hot springs found in quiet coves. Those wishing to stay overnight can camp in designated spots for only $20 pesos / night. Cooked food can be obtained from stalls along the road near the park entrance, or you can cook your own food on the grills located near the shoreline. For a satellite view of the lake, click here.


A family cruises past in one of the rental skiffs. Notice that the boat is powered by hand, leaving the peaceful scene unsullied by motor noises or exhaust fumes. The girl sitting second from the right had just noticed my camera and gave me a beautiful smile as her craft glided past. Lago de Camécuaro is not very deep in most areas and only reaches 6 m (19.6 ft) at its deepest point.


A swimmer frolics near the roots of a huge Ahuehuete (cypress) tree. The swimmer's splashing attracted my attention and a got a quick shot with my telephoto. The term Ahuehuete is Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The Spanish called these trees Sabinos. This spot is typical of the many coves lining the shore.


The Ahuehuetes are water-loving trees that grow right in the lake. The Nahuatl name means "old man of the water". Their long branches stretch out over the water, providing a cool shady place for animals, as well as people. Ahuehuetes, formally known asTaxodium mucronatum, are native to Mexico's highlands. Their range stretches from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas south to Huehuetenango in Guatemala.


Like a mound of writhing snakes, a tangled mass of roots surrounds the base of a tree.  While Ahuehuetes are evergreens and like moisture, the fuzzy-barked trees are also drought tolerant. They can grow to 40 m (130 ft) in height and their trunks normally reach a diameter of 1-3 m (3.3-9.8 ft). However, the famous Arbol de Tule (Tule Tree) in Oaxaca has a thickness of 11.42 m (37.5 ft) making it the stoutest of any tree in the world.


A suspension foot-bridge crosses the northern tip of Lago de Camécuaro. A small crowd of school kids surrounded the end of the bridge as I approached. They were all intently staring at the far end and I turned to follow their gaze. A young girl moved toward us, stepping very gingerly along the planks. At first, I couldn't understand why she was moving so carefully.


The girl passes me, a marble balanced in a spoon clenched between her teeth. Stopping about 1/2 way across, I waited for my shot. All the kids cheered her on as she moved by slow steps toward them. Apparently this was some kind of contest. As she completed her traverse of the swaying bridge, the marble still safely in the spoon's bowl, she was greeted enthusiastically by her schoolmates. We watched as several others tried, but failed, to match her feat.


Another quiet cove surrounded by thick Ahuehuetes. The tree is sacred among the indigenous people of Mexico. The Zapotecs of Oaxaca feature it in their creation myth. The Aztecs considered the Ahuehuete to represent the authority of a ruler and lined their processional paths with these majestic trees. After a disastrous (but temporary) defeat by the Aztecs, legends say that Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortéz sat under an Ahuehuete and wept. In 1910, the Ahuehuete was declared Mexico's national tree.


Large ducks, fat and colorful, waddle along the edge of the lake. They were quite unafraid as I approached for a photo. The ducks are great beggars and persistently try to obtain scraps of bread from tourists, sometimes pursuing the boats down the length of the lake. At night, they roost on an island in the lake's center.


Back at our starting point, I turned to catch a last glimpse of this lovely expanse of water.  President Lázaro Cárdenas created Lago de Camécuaro as a national park in 1940, in response to a campaign aimed at preserving its pristine beauty. If you visit Zamora you should try to include a visit to Camécuaro in your itinerary. This may not be the largest park you ever visit, but it surely will rank as one of the most beautiful.

This completes Part 2 of my Zamora series. I hope you enjoyed it and, if so, that you take a moment to leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

View through the entrance gate of the Old Cathedral. Back in Zamora after our visit to Lago de Camécuaro (see Part 2), Carole and I decided to visit one of the city's two co-cathedrals. The Catedral de la Concepción Inmaculada is located on the east side of the Plaza de Armas. It shares an intersection with the Presidencia and the Mercado Morelos. How the city ended up with co-cathedrals is a story of revolution and war that I outlined in Part 1 of this series. To locate this church on a Google map, click here.


Exterior of the Catedral de la Concepción Inmaculada


The Cathedral as it looked in the 1930s, approximately one hundred years after its completion.Originally built as a parish church, construction began in 1832 and finished in 1838. The famous architect Francisco Eduardo Tresguerras designed it in the Neo-Classical style, with touches of Baroque. Tresguerras was an artist and sculptor as well as an architect, and built churches and palaces for the elite all over Mexico. In 1811, shortly after the beginning of the War of Independence, the architect was arrested by the Spanish because of his insurrectionist sympathies. Tresguerras apparently survived the experience without ill effect and continued his architectural work over the next two decades. This church was one of his last works because he died in 1833, a year after construction began.



The Cathedral as it appears today. The only difference that I can detect from the previous photo is the area of the facade surrounding the main entrance. In 1863, twenty-five years after its completion, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Zamora. The Concepción Inmaculada church was selected as the temporary seat for the new Bishop José Antonio de la Peña y Navarro. Zamora's first bishop held that position through the years of bitter struggle against the French Occupation of Mexico. During the Occupation, the leadership of the Church was generally supportive of the French-installed Emperor Maximilian, although it is not clear where Zamora's bishop stood on the issue. De la Peña served until his death in 1877, shortly after Porfirio Diaz came to power.



A small plaza with an unusual fountain separates the Cathedral from the Mercado Morelos. I have never seen a similar fountain in any Mexican plaza I have visited. The stone-paved plaza is an extension of the Plaza de Armas. This view of the north side of the Cathedral shows the series of buttresses supporting the wall and the Neo-Classic dome.


Main interior features

The Cathedral's interior forms a single cruciform nave with numerous alcoves and retablos. The Spanish word nave translates as "ship" or "vessel". The nave of a church is a long chamber, usually covered by an arched ceiling resembling the hull of an upturned boat. The word cruciform means "shaped like a cross". Therefore a cruciform nave is one in which the long chamber has two short chambers extending perpendicularly from either side, thus shaping a cross. The ends of the shorter chambers usually contain small altars backed by retablos. The church's main altar stands at the far end of the nave.


The Cathedral's main altar follows Neo-Classical style. This can be seen in the tall Corinthian columns topped with elaborate capitals. The columns support the entablature which is covered by floral designs. This adds a touch of Baroque. Neo-Classical style became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries in reaction to the perceived emotional excesses of Baroque. During this so-called Age of Reason, social elites believed that classic Greek and Roman art and architectural styles should be emulated because those ancient societies were supposedly based on reason.


The dome covers the area where the cruciform arms connect to the nave. The dome is supported by arches and, in the triangular spaces where the arches meet, circular portraits of saints appear. Figures shown in this position are nearly always the four main Doctors of the Church: St. Augustine, Pope Gregory I, St. Jerome, and St Ambrose. These four were seminal thinkers in the development of the central doctrines of the Catholic Church. The purpose of the scaffolding was to allow painting and repairs to the dome. These old buildings require constant care to prevent deterioration.


View of the nave from the right-hand cruciform arm. The Cathedral is lit at night by the many crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. In the upper right, you can see one of the large, gilt-framed paintings which decorate the church interior. In the center is an alcove with a retablo containing a painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a ubiquitous figure in Mexican churches.


A massive pipe organ stands on a balcony overlooking the right-hand chamber. Pipe organs were developed in the Middle Ages and had been in existence for 300 years or so when the Spanish arrived in the New World. They were principally found in religious contexts. In Viceregal Nueva España, artists sometimes employed an image of an organ as a kind of abbreviation for the Church. The thunderous sound such an instrument could create produced a sense of awe among parishioners that church leaders found very satisfactory.



A beautifully carved wooden screen covers a side door. This sort of screen is very common in Mexican churches. Its purpose is to allow entrance to the nave while creating a sense of separation from the noise and profane activities of the outside world. The easy availability of wood from Michoacan's heavily-forested mountains makes magnificent creations like this possible.


Retablos, statues, and paintings



An alcove on the left side of the nave contains a retablo featuring the Virgen de Guadalupe. Two female saints fill niches on either side. Bracketing the altar at the base are two carved wooden confessionals. The retablo follows the Neo-Classical motif of the rest of the church.



Elegant Corinthian columns support the floral entablature of another retablo. The Corinthian-style column was developed in the 5th Century BC by a Greek sculptor and architect named Callimachus. However, the style was not widely utilized until 146 BC, when the Romans conquered Greece following the climactic Battle of Corinth. The Romans quickly adopted the Corinthian column along with many other aspects of Greek culture. After the Roman Empire fell to waves of barbarian invaders in the mid-5th Century AD, the people of the Dark Ages were much more inclined to build crude defensive fortifications than stately Corinthian columns. Classical Greek and Roman architectural styles effectively disappeared from Western Europe, except those found among the ancient ruins. They were eventually revived during the 18th Century, when there was a renewed interest in all things Greek and Roman. The Neo-Classical style was approaching its peak of popularity in the 19th Century when this church was constructed.



The Archangel Michael, sword in hand, tramples on a dragon/serpent representing Satan. Michael is recognized and revered by Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam alike. According to Catholic tradition, a great civil war broke out in Heaven between God and the dissident angels led by Satan. Archangel Michael commanded God's army. After Satan and his followers were defeated, they were expelled from Heaven and fell to earth, thus creating the expression "fallen angels." Ever since, as the story goes, Satan has tried to lead humanity away from the "true path" and into the ways of evil. Michael is nearly always depicted as an armed warrior tromping upon his defeated enemy.



A biblical scene hangs high upon the nave's walls. I was interested in this painting because, with only slight modifications, it could also depict scenes common in Mexico from the colonial era right up through the early 20th Century. In fact, in the remote Mexican villages of today, a similar scene would not rate a second glance. Women in such places still wear aprons and cloth head dresses. Many small indigenous girls dress as miniature versions of their mothers. Water and other goods are still carried as you see above. The young boy riding the burro on the right would be a very common sight in rural 21st Century Mexico.

This completes Part 3 of my Zamora series. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, that you take the time to add any comments of questions to the Comments section below. However, if you leave a question, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Plaza de Tangancicuaro, with the Templo Virgen de la Asunción in the background. Several fountains ring the perimeter of the Plaza. They surround the quiosco (bandstand), which is partially visible in the upper right of the photo. The area is nicely shaded by palms and carefully-groomed ficus trees. Tangancicuaro de Arista is a small city of about 30,000 people, located 14 km (8.7 mi) southeast of Zamora. In Part 2 of this series, I showed Lago de Camécuaro, the national park located nearby. Carole and I first visited that beautiful lake and, afterward, decided to check out Tangancicuaro. It turned out to be one of those charming little jewels that are so often overlooked or bypassed by foreigners. In pre-hispanic times, the town was called Acuitze, which means "snake." After the Spanish arrived, the local Purépecha renamed it Tangancicuaro, which can be interpreted as "Place Where Three Waters Rise" or, alternatively, as "Place Where the Stakes Are Nailed." There are good arguments for both, so take your pick. In 1881, the name of Mexican general and 19th century President Mariano Arista was added, and the town became Tangancicuaro de Arista.


The Plaza

The quiosco is also surrounded by lush gardens. Another of the fountains is silhouetted against the bandstand. A couple of Mexican women chat while sitting on the natural bench formed by the garden wall. As you can see, it was a lovely morning. Quioscos like this can be found in the vast majority of Mexican plazas. Sometimes they are elaborate, with multiple levels, and occasionally even contain a restaurant or tourist office. However, most are simple and follow the general design seen above. It was not until the 19th century that quioscos began to pop up in many of Mexico's plazas, although a few may have appeared before then. They became popular, along with many other French styles, during the reign of Emperor Maximilian (1862-67). After the dictator Porfirio Diaz took power in 1876, he encouraged the adoption of European customs, including quioscos, as a way to promote modernity.


An elderly Purépecha couple while away the morning. The woman wears a traditional embroidered skirt, a white huipil (blouse) and a rebozo (shawl). The man is dressed in a modern style. This is quite typical of indigenous couples I have encountered all over Mexico. The women seem to be the custodians of traditional ways, at least in terns of clothing. In Chiapas, I saw some Maya men in traditional garb, but they were few and very much the exception.


Three young students enjoy a stroll through the Plaza. From their uniforms, they probably attend one of the local Catholic colegios (prep schools). Many schools in Mexico operate on double shifts, morning and afternoon. It was about mid-day when I took this shot, and given their relaxed appearance, these kids had probably just finished their classes for the day.

Presidencia and Portales 

The national flag waves over the Presidencia (city hall). The peak of an extinct volcano rises in the background. The line of wooden columns along the front of the Presidencia is typical of Michoacan. The state is covered with dense pine forests. Consequently, where such columns in other places might be of stone or plaster-covered brick, here they are often of wood, sometimes intricately carved. The typical plaza in Mexico is surrounded by a government building on one side, a church on another, with the remaining two sides filled by small commercial businesses such as copy centers, internet cafes, and restaurants. Nearly always, there will be an ice cream shop.


Two sides of the plaza are bordered by pedestrian-only walkways. Given the traffic that can clog the narrow streets of even the smallest towns, I always welcome areas where you don't have to dodge hurtling taxis or kids wildly scooting by on motorbikes. The vertical sign by the door of one of the shops reads "Boneteria." That is the word for is a shop that sells clothes and clothing related items like needles and thread. Here, too, the walkway is lined with tall wooden columns. Someone has left a bicycle casually leaning against one column. In a small town like this, with many eyes watching, theft is probably not much of a problem.


Another view of the same walkway. A woman in a fringed rebozo walks away with her purchase as a man prepares to serve a customer from his small blue ice cream cart. Notice the coin-operated children's rides along the wall. From the looks of it, this building may well have once served as the mansion of a wealthy 18th or 19th century local hacienda owner.


Food stalls line the pedestrian walkway along the fourth side of the Plaza. Three satisfied customs walk away from a booth selling carnitas. This tasty dish consists of small pieces of braised or barbecued pork. It is usually served with tortillas along with various relishes such as chopped onions. The purchaser rolls these ingredients into steaming tacos. Mexican "fast food" at its best!


The Tianguis

A tianguis filled several streets adjoining the Plaza. A tianguis is an open market selling every kind of consumer product imaginable. They are usually held on specific days of the week and many booth operators come in from surrounding villages to participate. I always find them fascinating and great for people-watching. The history of the tianguis goes back thousands of years into pre-hispanic times. The word itself comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. When Hernán Cortéz and his Conquistadores arrived at Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City) they visited a vast tianguis. Its size and the range of its products boggled their minds.


Chicharrones, a tasty treat that contains an unimaginable quantity of cholesterol.Chicharon is pork skin deep-fried in the melted fat of the pig. Usually it is prepared by a butcher in a large vat shaped something like an oriental wok. While cooking chicharon, the butcher stirs the vat periodically with a large wooden implement resembling a canoe paddle. The wonderful smell soon draws a line of customers, most of them no doubt destined to die young from clogged arteries.


A smiling chicken vendor displays his wares. The chicken doesn't come much fresher than this. Most of these guys were probably still strutting and clucking the morning I took this shot. Notice the old-fashioned balance scale on the table. If it ain't broke, and it worked just fine for grandpa, why replace it with digital?


Dolls dressed in the finest quinceañera style were also for sale. As I explained in Part 1, a quinceañera is a special celebration for a girl who reaches her 15th birthday. It is a coming-out party, announcing to the world that she is now a woman. The dolls are Mexico's answer to Barbie, and are probably treasured by dreamy pre-teens.


The Church

The parish church faces onto the north side of the Plaza. The original evangelization of the area was accomplished by the Augustinian Order in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the latter century, the parish was dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption. The main body of the church was built in the 18th Century with a red volcanic stone known as tzontle. The two steeples were constructed with a different kind of stone and appear to have been added at a later time.


Vividly colorful artificial flowers were for sale on the church steps. I wasn't clear whether or not the flowers were related to some activity going on in the church. Perhaps this was just a convenient spot to set up shop. Things are done that way in Mexico.


The entrance is through a beautifully carved wooden screen.  Notice the ceiling. In churches elsewhere, a ceiling will usually be covered with plaster, often painted with designs or pictures. In this case, rows of wood rafters were used, again the product of Michoacan's prolific forests.


The interior of the dome is also constructed of wood. This is one of the most unusual domes I have ever encountered in a Mexican church.


Street scenes

A bicyclist pedals up a narrow street leading away from the Plaza. We had parked on a side street a couple of blocks up and were walking back to our car when I snapped this shot. From the look of the door and window frames, a lot of the structures on this street are quite old. Notice the two-toned color scheme on many of the houses. This is typical of many towns one finds in the back country. So are the single story buildings and the narrow sidewalks and streets.


Two farmers wearing cowboy hats stride past a colorful house. I was planning to photograph the house with its wildly contrasting orange walls and blue window shutters when I spotted this pair. I waited until I could frame them between the windows. For some reason, brilliant blue doors and shutters are popular all over this part of Michoacan. Only in Mexico would a color scheme like this work.

This completes Part 4 of my Zamora series. I hope you enjoyed it and, if so, you will leave your thoughts and questions in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

The early years


A family portrait. Josefa Espejo (far left) stands next to her husband Emiliano (white sombrero). On the right are his older brother Eufemio (black sombrero) and Eufemio's wife, whose name I have not been able to discover. Emiliano Zapata was born August 8, 1879 to Gabriel Zapata and Clefs Salazar. They lived in the tiny pueblo of Anenecuico, located in the southern Mexico state of Morelos. The Zapata family were mestizos--a mix of Nahua and Spanish. Emiliano grew up speaking both languages fluently. He was the 9th of 10 children and, as you can see above, was shorter and darker than his brother Eufemio. His education was limited, although it was probably superior to that of many of his contemporaries. In addition to reading and writing, he knew the rudiments of accounting. The Zapata family had few resources but, even so, were not among the poorest families because they owned a rancho where they raised horses. Emiliano was forced to grow up quickly. His mother died when he was 16 years old and, only 11 months later, his father followed her to the grave.

The young ranchero grew up witnessing at firsthand abuses committed by hacienda owners, known as hacendados. These big property owners of Morelos wanted additional land and water to expand their sugar cane operations. To obtain these, they encroached upon and sometimes illegally seized the lands and water sources of the indigenous villages as well as those of the mestizo owners of small farms and ranches. In one case, when a village objected to the theft of its land, the hacendado ordered the whole pueblo torched. The youthful Zapata joined his neighbours in protesting to the authorities, but with little success. The hacendados were strongly supported by corrupt officials appointed by Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Diaz, who ruled from 1876 to 1911.

Diaz considered the hacendado class to be one of the pillars of his regime and viewed small land holders as obstacles to progress. The local hacendados saw Emiliano as a trouble maker and pulled strings to get him drafted into the army. He only spent 6 months in uniform before his skill with horses was recognised by a wealthy man named Ignacio de la Torre. He pulled his own strings and Zapata was soon released from the army to work as a horse groomer for de la Torre. However, Zapata soon managed to return to Anenecuilco. Even though he was still a young man of 30, his neighbours respected his leadership and willingness to fight for them. They promptly elected Zapata mayor.

Santuario de Guadalupe is located four blocks east of Zamora's Plaza de Armas. After my break to cover Emiliano Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, we'll now return to my series on Zamora. The church above was built in Gothic Revival style, also referred to as Neo-Gothic. Literature about Zamora de Hidalgo nearly always mentions the Santuario as a major point of interest and it truly is spectacular. At 107.5 m (352.7 ft), the twin steeples hold the record for the tallest in Mexico. The figure of the person walking in the right foreground helps provide a sense of scale. For a Google map showing the location of the Santuario in relation to the main plaza, click here.


Juan Diego spreads his tilma (cloak), showing the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. The church is dedicated as a Sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to the legend, she was first encountered in 1531 by an Aztec whose baptismal name was Juan Diego. One day he happened to pass by the ruined temple of the goddess Tonantzin, located on the Hill of Tepeyac, near Mexico City. Suddenly, a mysterious, dark-skinned, female apparition appeared. Speaking in Nahuatl, his native language, she identified herself as the Virgin Mary and asked that a church be built on the hill in her honor. When Juan Diego went to Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga with the story, he was instructed to ask the apparition for a miracle to confirm that she was, in fact, the Virgin. The Aztec man dutifully returned and related the Archbishop's request. The Virgin told Juan Diego to gather the Castillian roses growing on the hill in his tilma and bring them to the Archbishop. Juan Diego assumed the miracle involved the existence of the roses themselves, which were blooming completely out of their normal season and were not native to Mexico. When the Aztec poured the roses out, the Archbishop was duly impressed. What really wowed him, however, was the image of the Virgin that miraculously appeared upon the surface of the tilma. A Basilica was later built on Tepeyac Hill in honor of the Virgin and the cloak is still on display there.


A Zamora resident strides toward the entrance of the Santuario. Because of her dark skin and fluency in Nahuatl, and the fact that she had first appeared to an indigenous person rather than a Spaniard, the Virgin of Guadalupe became a cult figure to the country's poor and downtrodden native people. Over the centuries, she came to be considered their special patron. However, there was bitter resistance, at least in the early years, to the acceptance of this version of the Virgin. The Franciscans denounced the rapidly growing cult as a sham. They viewed the Virgin of Guadalupe as a cover to enable the continued worship of the pagan goddess Tonantzin. Church leaders expended great effort over the centuries to stamp out any vestiges of the old religions, but with only partial success. Even today, some of the old pagan ways survive. In opposition to the Franciscans, the Dominicans and Augustinians pointed to the thousands of new converts pouring into the churches as a result of the Virgin of Guadalupe's popularity. Their attitude boiled down to "why look a gift horse in the mouth?" After all, the church had accepted the Christmas tree as a legitimate Christian symbol, even though it originated with tree-worshiping Germanic pagans. The bitter argument went on for nearly a hundred years before the practical approach finally prevailed. The Virgin of Guadalupe has since become one of the national symbols of Mexico. She even played a political role when her image was chosen as the battle flag of the insurgent army during the War of Independence against Spain.


Twelve niches adorn the facade of the church exterior, one for each of the Apostles. The Bible briefly mentions San Bartolome (St. Bartholomew)  as an Apostle. He may have been a farmer since his name translates as "son of the furrows." Later non-biblical stories allege that San Bartolome  evangelized in India, Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia (Persia), and finally Armenia, where he was martyred. The evangelist had apparently converted the King of Armenia, displeasing the King's brother. According to some accounts, the Apostle was flayed alive and then crucified upside down.


Interior of the church, looking toward the altar. Carole can be seen in the lower right. The altar area of the church is bathed in ethereal blue light. The dimensions of the Santuario are extraordinary. The total complex of buildings exceeds 5 acres. Within that area, the footprint of the Santuario itself covers 5,415 square meters (17,766 sq ft). The thirty-six columns of the nave soar 34 meters (111.5 ft) above the floor. Not only are the steeples the tallest in Mexico, the church is also the largest Neo-gothic religious building in the nation, with a capacity of more than 4000 people. Further, it is the fourth largest Catholic church in all the Americas, the ninth largest Neo-gothic cathedral in the world, and the fourteenth largest of any religious complex in the world. Needless to say, it is an impressive structure.


The left transept contains this door, set into one of the earliest sections of the church. The ornate, door was carved from mahogany. The rough stone surrounding the door indicates that this section of the wall was probably built between 1898, when the foundation stone was laid, and 1914 when construction was suspended due to the chaos of the Revolution. In that year, the half-built Santuario became the property of the federal government and was not restored to the Catholic Church until 1988. During the intervening 74 years, the structure was used as a military barracks, then impromptu housing for poor people, still later a school, and then a parking area for Zamora's garbage trucks.


Eerie blue light bathes a statue of the crucifixion, located in the altar area. Behind the statue is one of the massive columns that support the ceiling of the nave. More of the original construction of the church wall can be seen in the background.


This stained glass rosette is one of several that decorate the high walls of the main nave. These stained glass creations were installed in 2008, the 110th anniversary of the placement of the foundation stone. The Santuario de Guadalupe now functions as co-Cathedral of Zamora, along with the Templo de la Concepción (see Part 3 of this series). In 1898, the Church authorities intended for the Templo to function as the "temporary" Cathedral until the Santuario could be finished. As it happened, this took a little longer than originally planned. In 2008, the Church officials decided to create co-Cathedrals rather than demote the Templo, which had faithfully served its function all that time..


View from the right side of the altar area back toward the rear of the Santuario. Each column is four-sided, with a niche for the statue of a saint on each of the sides. As you can see, some of the niches are empty. Apparently not all of the statues have yet been created, or perhaps some were taken down for cleaning.


A brass bell hangs from one of the columns with a pull cord ready for use. I am always pleased when I find a bell that is actually intended for manual use, rather than just for decoration. In some churches, the sounds of bells are recordings broadcast from loudspeakers, a practice I find disconcerting and anachronistic..


View of the rear of the main nave showing the church's large pipe organ (top center).  The organ was brought over from the factory of Alexander Schuke in Germany. Like the rosettes, the organ was installed in 2008.


A grim reminder of the violent Cristero War of 1926-1929. A section of the wall to the left of the altar still shows pockmarks from bullets. Prisoners brought to the military barracks were executed while standing against this wall. Some of those executed, at this church and others around Mexico, were priests who had supported the Cristero rebels. The wall was preserved in this condition to commemorate the faithful who lost their lives here.


This stained-glass image fills a window near the bullet-pocked wall. On the left, the artist has created a scene showing a pile of burning bodies at the WWII German concentration camp called "Dachau". On the far right are the bodies of hanged Cristeros. In the center sits a group of heavily armed Cristero fighters. The artist's message, repeated in a nearby sign, is that the Mexican Revolutionary Government's repression against the Cristeros should be viewed as equivalent to the Holocaust. There were, indeed, human rights abuses, including summary executions, committed by the Revolutionary Government. However, the Cristeros were hardly innocent victims like those at Dachau. They were an armed, counter-revolutionary movement actively fighting the regime. The artist and his Church sponsors leave unstated the many abuses and murders committed by the Cristero fighters themselves. Cristero groups were often employed as death squads by hacienda owners against landless peones who were seeking to exercise their rights under the government's land reform laws. A sign near the stained glass window speaks of "the murder of the innocents", and there was much of that during the Cristero War. However, many of those murdered were killed by the Cristeros themselves. There was enough innocent blood shed during that conflict to stain the hands of everyone involved.


The true height of the steeples can only be appreciated from a distance. As we walked away from the Santuario de Guadalupe, I turned to take this parting shot. The human eye and that of the camera can play odd tricks. When standing near the church, as seen in the first photo of this posting, the steeples look tall, but not extraordinarily so. Here, we can appreciate their true dimensions.

This completes Part 5 of my Zamora series. I hope you have enjoyed visiting the Santuario with me and, if so you will leave any comments or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Indigenous mask from the Purépecha pueblo of Ocumicho. During our visit to Zamora, Carole and I scheduled a day trip to investigate several of the small pueblos in the mountains surrounding the city. These pueblos are the home of the native Purépecha people, the largest indigenous population in Michoacan and one of the largest in all Mexico. The carved wooden masks of Michoacan are very distinctive. They are usually anthropomorphic, in this case a mixture of human and cow. Other very common features of Michoacan masks are snakes, lizards, or insects writhing across the features of a mask, along with intricate and vividly painted designs. We purchased this one from one of the artisans in Ocumicho for approximately $24.00 USD.


San José de Gracia and its old Franciscan mission

The squat steeple and the double choir window over the door are typical of this region. During my research for this blog post, I consulted with Richard Perry, an expert on the colonial religious architecture of Mexico. He edits a website call Arts of Colonial Mexico and has written a wonderful book called Blue Lakes and Silver Cities. Anyone visiting the states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato or Querétaro should pick up a copy. Richard believes this is a Franciscan church, part of a small mission complex sited in the pueblo of San José de Gracia. The town, also known as San José Ocumicho, has only 558 inhabitants, living in 112 households. We discovered it on the way to the larger pueblo of Ocumicho, which was one of our intended destinations on this day trip.


Near the altar of the church, we discovered this rather startling figure. The statue is about 3/4 human size and is set up as a special display in front of the altar. The nature of the display led me to believe that it may be for a special saint's day, rather than being part of the church's regular decoration. Richard suggested the figure might be San Isidro, whose feast day is in May. However, June 28 was the date we visited. In any case, the figure (who might well be a woman) is dressed in a Mexican serape and wearing a rather fancy cowboy hat. Wrapped around the statue's waist is an elaborate leather apron with a flower design. I would be happy to hear from anyone who might be able to identify him/her.


A horse grazes peacefully by the ruins of an old Franciscan hospital for the Purépecha. When I spotted this structure on the street leading into town, we immediately decided it was worth investigating. Our interest increased when we saw that it was adjacent to the old Franciscan church. I thought it might have been the original colonial church, since most of the oldest churches were simple adobe structures like this one. When I emailed the photo to Richard Perry, he replied that this may have been a hospital attached to the mission complex. Its structure is very similar to one that Richard has definitely identified as a Franciscan hospital in the nearby pueblo of Patamban. Another very similar hospital in the pueblo of San Lorenzo is pictured in Blue Lakes and Silver Cities. The adobe structure seen above is rectangular and its exterior is covered by plaster. The clay tile roof is supported by wooden rafters. The only entrance is the arched door.


View through the door, showing adobe walls and carved wooden rafters. The interior was overgrown with brush. Apparently the the adobe walls inside the hospital were never plastered, or perhaps the plaster has fallen away. The only brick or stone elements of the structure I found were in the frame of the doorway. The original Spanish "hospitals" were not intended for medical purposes, but to offer shelter, food, and religious services to pilgrims. After all, hospital is the root word for hospitality. As the Spanish Church began establishing missions in the New World, hospitals were seen as a conversion mechanisms. The friars acted as health care providers in order to supplant their main rivals, the native shamans. Thus, the focus of the mission hospitals increasingly became medical care.


I was intrigued by the graceful carving of the wood rafters. The Purépecha were famous as woodcarvers before and after the Spanish arrival. The vast forests blanketing the mountains of Michoacan gave them ample working material. Hospitals such as this were utilised primarily by the indigenous people. The Spanish overlords avoided them both because of a fear of infectious diseases and because institutional care implied poverty. The Spanish preferred to receive their health care delivery at home.


Ocumicho, home of the little devils

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Ocumicho's plaza. This old colonial church is small but very charming. Ocumicho is built on a hillside so the streets wander a bit rather than conforming to the usual colonial grid pattern. Ocumicho was the name of the original Purépecha village. One translation means "place of the cobs", a reference to the production of maiz (corn). Another is "place of the tanners" referring to the tanning deer hides for leather and shoes, an early village specialty. The Spanish who settled here in the mid-16th century received their town charter in 1568. The Iglesia de San Pedro y San Pablo (seen above) was completed in 1622.

View of the rear of the church. The unusual conical buttresses on the rear corners of the structure caught my eye. This church also has an old hospital attached to it, along with other colonial-era buildings. According to Perry's book, Blue Lakes and Silver Cities, the church/hospital complex was a visita (local branch) of the Franciscan monastery at Tarecuato.


Two girls sit by the entrance of the mission complex. They are giggling over a note in the hands of the girl on the right. I am betting that it was received that day from a boy at their school. Kids are kids, wherever one encounters them.


Incense drifts toward the ceiling at the altar of the church. A Purépecha woman moved about, fumigating the various images and statues of saints with incense. Another couple of women sit near the front, chanting quietly. When I asked her, the woman with the incense confirmed that it was copal. Copal incense had been used for centuries by pre-hispanic civilisations in their religious rites. Since incense had long been used in Catholic religious rites, copal was quickly adopted by evangelising friars. Copal comes from the resin of the copal tree (Protium copal) and has an aromatic but slightly acrid scent.


An Ocumicho artisan, dressed in traditional Purépecha style. This woman was one of those we encountered in the church. She spotted us immediately as potential customers and quickly persuaded us to visit her nearby home in order to view her pottery creations. The local artisans, who appeared to be largely women, were friendly and not the least bit shy about button-holing stray tourists who might come their way. Since we had visited Ocumicho in good part because of its reputation for artisanship, we were an easy catch. She led us through a maze of ancient streets to her home. Most of the local artisan's work is not sold in Ocumicho itself, but in Zamora or other Michoacan cities. There are few places where the work is displayed. You must seek out the artisans, or let them find you. In our case, it didn't take long.


A grinning little devil revs up his motorcycle. Carole selected this little guy. On his front mudguard is a chicken and a basket of fresh eggs adorns the rear. Devil figures like this are a speciality of Ocumicho and have made the pueblo famous. Each figure is unique and made by hand by the artisan. Most are portrayed in a humorous manner. According to local legend, one day the devil came to Ocumicho and bothered everyone. He entered the trees and killed them. Locals dogs did nothing but shake and cry. He pursued people and made them sick and mad. Finally, someone had the idea of creating little devil figures so that Ocumicho could become a place where the devil could live without bothering anyone. Who created the first devil figure is a matter of some dispute. Some say it was a young man named Marcelino. Others claim it was a grandmother named Guadalupe Linares Margarita. Whoever it was, the local community has benefited greatly.


This little dragon-dog was my favourite. With his lolling tongue and happy face, I couldn't resist. He comes equipped with a pair of colorful wings, but I have yet to see him fly. This style of creature is called an alebrije. The style originated in Mexico City in the 1930s. when an artist named Pedro Linares created the first examples based on a dream. While sick with a fever, he hallucinated a forest filled with strange, unknown animals. All were crying out "alebrije!", a word which has no meaning in Spanish. He dubbed the creatures alebrijes and began to model them in cardboard and paper maché. His work became popular and the craze for alebrijes spread, eventually reaching the remote village of Ocumicho.


Another artisan displays her carved wooden devil mask. This one is very similar to the one I bought, seen in the first photo of this posting. The woman above is the cousin of the first artisan. She happened to be at her cousin's house when we came to examine the clay devils. As we left, she insisted that we come to see her ware too. That his how I ended up with my beautiful devil mask. The local artisans are nothing if not enterprising.


Reverse side of my Michoacan mask. This view shows how the wood was hollowed out to create a space for the wearer's face. The two small holes, located just above the eyeballs of the mask, allow the wearer to see through it. The ears and horns are inserted with dowels into holes and are removable to allow easy transport.

This completes Part 6 of my Zamora series. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, please leave any comments or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you have a question, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Tidy, well-kept streets with lovely old architecture characterize Zamora's Centro Historico. One of the activities we like best, when visiting a new place, is to simply wander the streets. This yields many small but interesting details for my photography, as well good people-watching, a favorite activity of Carole's. Above, we are looking down Calle Cázares toward its intersection with Calle Hidalgo. The steeple of Templo San Francisco peeps over the rooftop in the background. You will find iron benches wherever you go in Mexico, often set under shady trees, ready for the weary stroller.


View down Calle Allende, one of the town's pedestrian-only streets that lead to Plaza Zamora. More benches line this interesting walkway. In this case, they have formed handy places to park a bicycle and a motorcycle. It is always a relief to encounter one of these refuges from the rush of traffic and smell of exhaust fumes.


Little details like this door knocker tend to catch my eye. The old iron knocker is set off nicely by the cracked paint on the wooden door. It looks to be of 18th or possibly 19th century design.


A jolly workman cavorts in front of Templo San Francisco. By his clothing and bucket, I would guess that he makes his living washing the cars of people who park along the street. You will find these guys everywhere (and they are nearly always men). It's often very convenient to have them clean your car when you have a spare 30 minutes or so. They do a good job and generally charge only about $30 pesos (about $2.00 USD). This fellow seemed surprised when I asked to take his photo but then decided to have fun with it.


Café Expendio is located across Calle Hidalgo from Templo San Francisco. Café means "coffee" and expendio means "small shop", so this is a place where you can buy a cup of coffee and maybe a pastry. Notice the decorative door frames. This building used to be someone's mansion, probably built in the 19th century. The wealthy of earlier eras generally built their town houses in the most prestigious areas--on or near a plaza. In modern times, these structures have been transformed into the many small shops you typically find around a plaza.


Iconic photo from the Mexican Revolution. This famous photo by German photographer Hugh Brehme was taken in Aguascalientes during a meeting of Revolutionary leaders in late 1914. The Convention of Aguascalientes sought, unsuccessfully, to end the fighting and form a new government. The soldiers on the cowcatcher are followers of Emiliano Zapata, called Zapatistas. The mechanista (railroad mechanic) in the dark suit, standing to the left of the soldiers, is Wesley Daniel Brockway, an American railroad employee. In my blog post on the Aguascalientes Railway Museum, I had published a cropped version of this same photo that excluded the man in the grey suit with his hands on his hips. Some months before our Zamora trip, the mechanista's grandson, Wes Brockway, contacted me through my blog's comments section. He asked if I had the full photo, which included his great-grandfather, William Brockway--the grey suited man. After extensively searching my photo files and the internet, I failed to come up with anything but the cropped version. Much later, while strolling through Zamora, Carole and I stopped to eat at a rather nondescript restaurant. As we waited for our order, I wandered around the place, looking at the old photos on the walls. I almost passed this one by, but then noticed that it is the full version, including William Brockway! I quickly took a shot of this rare version and emailed it to Wes Brockway upon our return to Ajijic.


Decorative lintel above a doorway. This one has a crack in the middle and has obviously seen better days. The door way is part of a structure that was built at least in the 19th century and possibly earlier.


Carole passes another doorway, this one leading to a lawyer's office. Notice the sign on the right advertising abogados, spanish for "attorneys". The width of the door indicates it was once the main entrance of a mansion, possibly even the carriage entrance.


19th century apartment building, located on Calle Melchor Ocampo. As with many of these old buildings, the ground floor has been transformed into a multitude of small stores, including Yasmine's Boutique, and one of the ubiquitous "Telcel" cell phone stores. Telcel is owned by Carlos Slim, a billionaire who long ago immigrated from Lebanon. He is Mexico's richest man and one of the richest in the world. Slim also owns Telmex, the land-line system. He recently cut a deal with the Mexican government which now allows Telmex customers to call anywhere in Mexico or North America for free.


Keystone over a doorway arch. This magnificent architectural detail is typical of the 18th and 19th centuries. Notice the graceful lines and floral decorations. The arch, as an architectural feature, first appeared in Mesopotamia in the second millennium. However, it was not until the time of the Roman Empire that they were used extensively. The true arch was unknown in pre-hispanic Mexico and only appeared after the Spanish arrival.

This completes Part 7 of my Zamora series. I hope you enjoyed it and, if so, you will leave any thoughts, comments, or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

A local couple sits across from Patamban's plaza. Portales (covered walkways) line all four sides of this small pueblo's plaza. Patamban is a very picturesque community located in the mountains to the south of Zamora. The couple above were among the few people we saw on the streets when we arrived. The empty cobbled streets and rustic structures gave the place an other-worldly feeling, like stepping into the past. For a Google map of Patamban and the surrounding area, click here.


Plaza Patamban

A pretty plaza occupies the center of the pueblo. One of the few residents to be seen was the little girl in front of the kiosco (bandstand). Unlike most Mexican plazas, the kiosco in this one is rectangular rather than octagonal. The town descends in stages down the side of a hill, with about half the town above the plaza and the other half below. In this shot, you are looking uphill.



Across the cobblestone street from the plaza is another set of portales. This one contains a block of local government offices. In most pueblos I have visited in Mexico, the portales' pillars are stone or sometimes brick covered with plaster. In Michoacan, because of the state's vast forests, wood is used for pillars, as well as window frames and balconies.


A local vendor set up shop on the steps of yet another set of portales. She was selling large wooden paddles for stirring food in a vat, as well as smaller wooden cooking tools. We had arrived at the tail-end of the tianguis (street market). Usually once a week, residents of the pueblo and the surrounding villages gather at the plaza to sell each other the produce they grow or handicrafts they make. Patamban's artisans specialize in pottery. In the upper left, you can see a small store with the name Abarrotes Orozco. Abarrotes are groceries and Orozco is the name of the proprietor. A stand along the walkway advertises "Hot Cakes". Like many other pueblos in Michoacan, Patamban's local tongue is Purépecha and Spanish is only the second language. Given this, I was surprised at how often English signs appear.


A pair of local women chat in the street while another couple walk in the distance. Not only were the streets empty of people, but also of cars, trucks, or other motor vehicles. All this gave the place a 19th century feeling. Notice, also, how the streets are free of trash or debris in all these photos. People here may be poor, but they take pride in their community.


A sign for Sol beer adorns the worn wooden walls of this walkway. Nearly all the roofs in town were covered with red clay tiles. This method of roofing can be traced back 10,000 years to Neolithic China and the Middle East. During the millennia since, the practice of roofing with clay tiles spread all over the world. One of the primary benefits is the fire resistance of clay tiles.


A single pedestrian strolls down another quiet street. Most of the buildings in town appeared to be constructed of adobe or concrete, or a combination of both. The streets are paved with cobblestone, the cheapest and easiest paving method in poor communities.

Iglesia San Francisco de Asisi

The forecourt of San Francisco Church is approached through this old gateway. Through the gate, you can see a colonial-era cross set on a pedestal in the middle of the forecourt. Behind it is the main entrance of the church.


View of the church from within the forecourt. The man in the cowboy hat, seen in the lower right, kindly informed us that most of the village was attending a funeral inside the church. He assured us that the service would end shortly and that we could then enter for photographs. Such courtesy and friendliness to outsiders are often encountered in Mexico's remote pueblos. The yellow structure was constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries, while the steeple is more recent.




The left side of the church shows some of the 17th century construction. The old staircase leads to an arched doorway framed by simple, unadorned pilasters. Notice how the wall on either side is constructed using stones of various sizes and shapes. This is an indication of the early date of its construction, when evenly cut stones weren't available. Set in the wall above the doorway is a fascinating little relief sculpture.


The sculpture above the entrance portrays three figures standing in the doorways of a church. The figures are quite worn and obviously very old. Richard Perry publishes the website Arts of Colonial Mexico. He is my best source on colonial arts and architecture. According to Richard, the reliefs above "appear to portray Saints Peter (left) and Paul (right) with God the Father at center."


This keystone is located at the top of an arched doorway to the right of the main entrance. The date "1700" marks the inauguration of this part of the church. The arched doorway leads into the patio of the old Franciscan cloister.


The stone patio of the 300 year old cloister was covered by green moss. I could almost hear the shuffling sandals of the friars who onced lived and worked here. The balcony of the cloister's upper story carries the decorations from a recent fiesta. I was hesitant to intrude on this space, but one of the women working there cheerily waved me in.


Main sanctuary of the church. The church has a single nave, very simply decorated, as befits a Franciscan edifice. The Franciscans were generally quite serious about their vows of poverty and simplicity.


The main altar area. Again, simplicity reigns. Lit by candles, a few pieces of furniture and statues adorn the space. In some churches I have visited, actual candles have been replaced by banks of electric lightbulbs. Instead of lighting them with a match, you put in a coin. Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer the real thing.


In a side chapel, a worshiper contemplates a statue of Christ on the Cross. She is wrapped in a traditional rebozo (shawl) of brilliant blue. Several of the women in my photos wear similar rebozos. People in little pueblos like Patamban are deeply religious.

Hospital de la Concepción Inmaculada

An old adobe building stands adjacent to the atrium of Iglesia San Francisco. This is probably the oldest structure on the church property, possibly dating back to the 16th century. It is quite similar to another structure I showed in my previous posting on San José de Gracia. Both structures were built for the same purpose: hospitality. The original meaning of "hospital" was different in those days. These places were originally intended to offer food, shelter, and religious services to pilgrims. Over time, the friars began to provide medical treatment for the sick and injured. Ultimately that became the primary function of these hospitals.


Entrance to the hospital. Decorative carving adorns the stone doorway. The lower walls are of rough stone, while the upper section is of adobe. The wooden door may be hundreds of years old. I find structures like this deeply evocative, as well as highly photogenic. The very air I breathed seemed ancient.


A pair of school girls pauses for a photo. With a little persuasion, these two stopped and produced shy smiles for me. Mexico's beautiful children are often my best photographic subjects.

This concludes Part 8 of my series on Zamora, and ends the series itself. I hope you have enjoyed visiting Patamban and can stop in there some time in the future. If you would like to leave a question or a comment about this posting, please do so either in the Comments section below or by emailing me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Skyline of Costa Rica's capital San José, with high mountains rising in the background. Carole and I visited Costa Rica in December of 2015. We had heard from friends and relatives that the country is beautiful and full of national parks teeming with native plants and animals. However, when we attempted to arrange a visit several times over the years, something always came up to prevent us. Finally, last fall, we decided it was time and set up our trip through Caravan Tours. In Part 1, I will provide a look at San José, the capital city, along with some background information about the history and culture of this little Central American nation. In the rest of this multi-part series, we'll visit rain and cloud forests with a variety of animals and plants, tour a coffee plantation still using 19th century technology, take a couple of different river tours, check out  a little workshop which crafts colorful painted oxcarts, and bask on some beautiful beaches.


Costa Rica: an overview


A relief map of the country shows a long mountain range filled with volcanos, some still active. Costa Rica is bordered on the north by Nicaragua and by Panamá to the south.  The mountainous areas (in yellow) have a moderate climate with fertile volcanic soil. Most of the population lives in the broad plateau of the Central Valley, surrounded by high volcanic peaks. The llanuras (low plains) in the northeast (light green) and along the coastal areas are much warmer and are more lightly populated. Both coasts have hundreds of miles of beautiful beaches, some built up in resorts, others empty and pristine. The country has only .01% of the world's land area, but contains 5% of its bio-diversity, with 840 identified species of birds. To protect this heritage, the government has set aside 25% of the nation's landmass either as a national park or a protected area, the highest percentage in the world.  By contrast, the developing world averages 13% and the developed world is at 8%. The US stands at 14%. By 2005, Costa Rica reduced its rate of deforestation from one of the worst in the world to nearly zero. Ecotourism now brings in more money than the combined revenue of the top three export crops of bananas, coffee and pineapples. In the Global Green Economy Index, Costa Rica is ranked top in the world. Presently, 93% of the nation's energy comes from renewable sources, with a goal of 100% carbon-free by 2021. San José, has the 4th cleanest air of any city in Latin America, in spite of the fact that over 1 million people live or work there.


View of the foothills outside San José.  You can see a small part of San José in the center right of the photo. The city is located in the Central Valley in an area called the intervolcanic zone. Verdant coffee fields can be seen in the foreground. Such fields, deep with fertile volcanic soil, cover much of the foothills of the mountains surrounding the Central Valley. The population of the city of San José itself is 288,000, but the metropolitan population is much larger, comprising 1/4 of the whole country. This is the economic, political, and transportation hub of the nation. For a Google map of the city, click here.


Caravan Tours


Caravan Tours has long been our favorite company for visiting Central America. Using it, we have traveled in Panamá and Guatemala, as well as southern Mexico and Yucatan. Seen above is the luxury bus we used to travel through Costa Rica. The seats were large and comfortable, the windows were huge, and there was an on-board bathroom. Caravan's tour directors always ensure that there are plenty of bottles of water on board, and that the seating is rotated on a daily basis so nobody gets to hog the "good" spots. In the photo's background is the Hotel Barcelo San José Palacio, where we stayed on our first night in the country. The 5-star facility has a lovely location, but we wished it was closer to downtown so we could have walked around and gotten a sense of the city. Like every large city, Costa Rica does have some bad neighborhoods, with crime and possibility of robberies, but we sometimes thought Caravan went a bit overboard in isolating us from potential problems.


Laura, our Caravan Tour Director. Laura is young, perky, full of energy, and she worked very hard to see that things ran as smoothly as possible. There are a thousand details involved in a trip like this, and keeping 40+ tourists of various nationalities all moving in the same direction must be harder than herding cats. Laura is Costa Rican, but speaks fluent English. She taught us "pura vida!" (pronounced poo-rah vee-dah). This is the ubiquitous, all purpose expression in Costa Rica. The literal translation is "pure life", but it means much more than that. The expression is used in dozens of different contexts. For example, it can mean "enjoy life", "all's good", "hello", "goodby", "thank you", "that's life", etc.


The busy city of San José 

San José's Metropolitan Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. As you can see, it is located on a very busy plaza with lots of foot and auto traffic. While we never actually got to walk around in the city, Laura did give us a tour on the bus and I was able to get some shots out the window. You may notice that it is cloudy in this photo while the previous ones have been bright and sunny. The weather is very changeable here, so it pays to layer your clothes and bring rain gear. San José did not gain the title of city until 1813. That's fairly late in the game since the country's first European visitor was Christopher Columbus, who stopped on its coast during his last voyage in 1502. Costa Rica's other main cities of Heredia and Cartago were already well established by the time San José's collection of pueblos melded together enough to justify its designation as a city. A templo was begun in 1825, and completed in 1827. Finally, in 1850, the templo achieved the status of Cathedral when Bishop Anselmo Loriente y la Fuente became Costa Rica's first bishop.


Parque Central, with its magnificent quiosco is adjacent to the Cathedral.  There are many plazas, parks, and museums adjacent to both the Parque Central and the Cathedral. Once again, we regretted that Caravan did not include a visit to any of these. I would have especially liked to visit the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum)which has many pre-hispanic gold artifacts. The discovery of these kinds of trinkets among the native population living along Costa Rica's Caribbean Coast gave the country its name: "Rich Coast". Click here for a map of this area of San José

Juan Mora Fernandez (1784-1854) was the first President of Costa Rica. His statue stands in the Plaza de Cultura, adjacent to the Cathedral. Costa Rica gained independence from Spain in 1821, at the same time as Mexico. For a short time, the country chose to be part of the Central American Republic, which was dominated by Guatemala. However, Costa Ricans soon decided to split away. A conservative bloc called the Imperialists centered in Heredia and Cartago wanted to become part of the short-lived Mexican Empire. Opposed to them were Republicans, based in San José and the neighboring city of Alajuela who wanted a separate nation governed as a republic rather than a monarchy. In 1823, the Republicans prevailed in a short but bloody battle at Ochomogo in the Central Valley. The Republic of Costa Rica was established that same year with its capital in San José. The leader of the Republicans, Juan Mora Fernandez, was a merchant, teacher, and politician.  After becoming temporary president in 1824, he was elected to a full term in 1825 and was elected twice more, finishing his service in 1829. Mora Fernandez not only guided the new nation through its critical first years, but established Costa Rica's first printing plant and newspaper, making him the "Father of Costa Rican Journalism". He encouraged the exportation of brazilwood and coffee, which transformed the agricultural economy, and pushed for mining in Montes del Aguacate. Following his term as president, he became a judge, member of the constituent assembly, and delegate to the Central American Federation.

This grim-looking structure was formerly a prison but now serves as a Children's Museum. The Museo de los Niños is part of the Costa Rica Center for Science and Culture. The building served for 80 years as the Central Penitentiary, a place of "horror, crime, and violence...scene of a dark chapter of human rights violations." The prison was originally established in 1899 and finally converted into the Children's Museum in 1979, after a period of disuse and decay. It was the brainchild of a former First Lady of Costa Rica, Señora Gloria Bejarano de Calderón. The museum contains 40 rooms--formerly jail cells--for interactive exhibits. Almost 300,000 people visit every year. Unfortunately, we were not among the visitors, but could only view the building from our bus windows.


Strollers on one of the city's pedestrian-only streets. Almost everyone I saw appeared prosperous and healthy. Costa Rica has a population of 4.5 million, and about 1 million of those live or work in the San José Metropolitan area. Since 1869, education has been free and compulsory. By contrast, the compulsory education movement in the US didn't start until the 1920s. Costa Rica's literacy rate is now over 94.9%, higher than the average for Latin America, making the country a mecca of foreign investment. Although Costa Ricans do not have the income levels of the US, Canada, or Europe, they are very well-off by the standards of Latin American or the rest of the developing world. This has resulted in a continuing problem of illegal immigration from much-poorer Nicaragua. In addition to their relatively high per capita income, Costa Ricans enjoy a high-quality system of free universal heath care. In fact, in terms of access, affordability, and outcomes, it is superior to that of the United States. Costa Rican life expectancy at birth is 79.3 years. By contrast life expectancy the US in 2012 was 78.8 years. The Nicoya Peninsula area on the northwest coast is one of the world's Blue Zones, i.e. an area where it is common to find people living active, energetic lives at ages in excess of 100 years. All this has created a boom in "medical tourism" by as many as 100,000 foreigners each year.


And speaking of foreigners... You can surmise a great deal about people from the stickers they choose to paste on the backs of their vehicles. My eye was attracted to this little auto parked in a neighborhood through which we passed. Although the car is licensed in Costa Rica, the number of English-language bumper stickers leads me to believe its owner is probably from the US or Canada. The sticker using various religious symbols to spell out the word "tolerance" indicates a likelihood that the owner is a liberal. So does the "Free Tibet" emblem. The "National Geographic" sticker and the dive emblem indicate an outdoors orientation. This probably means the owner is an environmentalist, not a surprise in this ecologically-conscious nation. Almost 16,000 American expats live in Costa Rica as of 2011. This is the third largest US expat population in Latin America, behind only Mexico and Ecuador. The number of Americans in Costa Rica has jumped almost 60% from 2000, when it stood at about 9,500.


Architecture of the past


We passed this graceful 19th century mansion, possibly of the French style. Although much of San José is now covered by modern glass and steel office buildings and North American-style shopping malls, we passed through some neighborhoods that still contain beautiful old architecture like this. I was puzzled by how different Costa Rica seems from the rest of Latin America and began looking for reasons. The country is unusually prosperous, with the wealth shared broadly in the population, and not clutched tightly by a small oligarchy at the top. It has an unbroken 68-year-long history as a stable democracy in a region that, during that same period, has regularly been roiled by military coups, dictatorships, and brutal repressions against workers and the poor. As recently as 2009, a military junta in Honduras seized power and  exiled the democratically elected Honduran president to...Costa Rica! I wondered about the reasons for the existence of a stable, economically prosperous and socially progressive society in a region like this.


This beautiful little two-story house was probably built in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Notice the lovely, lacy ironwork at the top of the thin, graceful columns. It appears to have become some sort of cultural center. The roots of today's Costa Rican society lie in the earliest days of the Conquest. When the Spanish arrived in 1502, they were excited by the gold trinkets worn by the people, but found the country very thinly populated. In a later posting, I will go into pre-hispanic Costa Rican history in some detail. Suffice it to say that most of the people lived in hamlets and small towns and were governed through a system of chieftaincies. Recently, a couple of ancient cities have been discovered. While these may eventually change our understanding of Costa Rica before the Conquest, nothing yet has been found on the scale of the great pre-hispanic cities of Guatemala, Honduras, or Mexico. Costa Rica's ancient cultures seem to have resembled those of Panamá more than those of northern Central America and Mexico. Spaniards came to the New World for the wealth it would bring them. This was achieved either through the mining of precious metals or, later, by the establishment of great estates. Both of these avenues to wealth required large scale forced-labor, which Costa Rica's small native population was unable to provide. Disease and maltreatment of the native people exacerbated the problem. As a result, a system of small-scale agriculture developed in which the land was worked by the Spanish settlers themselves. This created an economic environment radically different from that of the rest of Latin America. In 1719, Costa Rica's governor described the area as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all of America." After all, if you couldn't get filthy rich and lord it over the natives, what was the point?


I was attracted by this rounded corner entrance and its iron balcony. After a time, the colonists moved away from the hot, low, and often unhealthy coastal areas up to the cool, moist highlands of the Central Valley area. The volcanic soil there was rich, but the mountainous nature of the terrain didn't lend itself to the sort of vast holdings acquired by the Spanish grandees of the Valley of Mexico or the pampas of Argentina. At one point even the governor of Costa Rica had to work his own land. In addition, the precipitous terrain and poor roads made transportation of crops and other goods to coastal ports a difficult prospect. Farmers produced for the local market as a result. At least until the middle of the 19th century, export-driven production was limited. In turn, this limited the incentives of colonial and early 19th century wealth-holders to pour in outside capital and thus dominate the economy. After independence, President Juan Moro Fernandez did encourage the exportation of coffee and brazilwood. However, the dispersal of economic power--and thus political power--continued to be a major factor inhibiting the growth of the sort of oligarchical cliques so common in other Latin American societies. In Costa Rica, small-scale enterprises, individualism, and autonomy were essential to survival.


Detail of decoration on another 19th century structure. The capital on top of the pilaster shows a woman's face surrounded by flowery vegetation. The first shipments of coffee to Europe--grown largely in the Central Valley--led eventually to the construction of a railroad. US businessman Minor Keith overcame huge difficulties to build the rail line from the Central Valley down to the Caribbean port of Limón. To compensate him for his efforts, the Costa Rican government granted him large tracts of land on which he started to grow bananas, also for export. In fact, banana trees are sometimes planted so that they can provide the shade coffee plants require. Thus, two of the country's three main export crops were introduced at about the same time. The banana industry attracted the attention of the ill-famed United Fruit Company. Although United Fruit wielded considerable economic influence in Costa Rica, it never exercised the naked power over Costa Rica's society that it enjoyed in Guatemala or elsewhere. Perhaps this was due to the presence of so many small, independent farmers and entrepreneurs. In 1856, a man named William Walker invaded Nicaragua with a group of American mercenaries (called "filibusterers"). He seized power and reinstated slavery, previously abolished during the Mexican War of Independence. When Walker invaded his next target, Costa Rica, the people rallied under President Rafael Mora Porras. The Costa Ricans drove the filibusterers back into Nicaragua, where they were defeated in the Battle of Rivas. Walker himself was captured by the government of Honduras and executed in 1860.


The dark side of San José


Bars on gates and windows and concertina wire can be seen everywhere in San José. Obviously there is a crime problem. It may be related to the lingering effects of the economic downturn of 2008 which caused the loss of some foreign businesses and investment along with a rise in unemployment. Statistics show, however, that Costa Rica's rate of crime, particularly violent crime, is far less than its Central American neighbors. The overwhelming majority of crimes are against property, not people, i.e. burglaries rather than assaults. Still, local authorities are concerned, particularly since Costa Rica does not want to gain the unenviable (but somewhat overblown) reputation of Mexico. Such a reputation would negatively affect the top industry: tourism. It is probably no wonder that Caravan wanted to keep its clients safely corralled lest we wander into a bad neighborhood and get mugged.


A homeless man catches a nap on a back street. He may be local, or he may be a Nicaraguan immigrant. It was a sad sight, regardless. Costa Rica is not a "workers paradise", but its people are measurably better off than many others in Latin America and the world. At least political violence is quite low, and has been for a very long time. From 1869 into the early 20th century, Costa Rica functioned as a stable democracy. However, in 1917, General Federico Tenoco seized power and held it until he was overthrown by a popular revolt in 1919. After his exile, the wealth, political power, and size of the Costa Rican military declined significantly. Then, in 1948, a disputed election led to another popular uprising led by José Figueres Ferrer. The resulting 44-day civil war cost 2000 dead, but the outcome was extraordinary. Figueres Ferrer won and, after he was subsequently elected president, abolished the army entirely! He pledged to replace it with an "army of teachers" and made good on his promise. Today, 67 years later, Costa Rica remains one of the few nations on earth without an army. Together with the population factors that prevented the development of a colonial oligarchy, the lack of a standing army helps explain the unusual differences between Costa Rica and its immediate neighbors, as well as with the rest of the developing world.

This completes Part 1 of my Costa Rica series. I hope you have enjoyed the photos and the commentary. If so, please leave your thoughts and any questions in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Ceramic feline from the Middle Polychrome Period (800 AD - 1200 AD). The figure comes from the Gran Nicoya area of Costa Rica's northwest coast. Jaguars and other large predators were viewed with awe by pre-hispanic people. The jaguar, which hunts at night, was believed to move freely between the world of the living and that of the dead. When we visited the Poás Volcano's Visitor Center, we found a small museum containing pre-hispanic artifacts, as well as exhibits about the volcano. In this posting, I'll highlight the wonderful craftsmanship of those ancient people and provide a brief outline of their history. In addition, we'll look at the Volcán Poás, one of Costa Rica's most active volcanoes.

Before the Spaniards

Ancient inhabitants at work and play in a forest glade. A woman makes pots while a man prepares a fire and several children frolic. The mild climate required few clothes. Evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica dates back 12,000 years. These early people hunted sloths, mastadons, and giant armadillos. The end of the Ice Age led to environmental change and people had to adapt as their original prey animals disappeared. Joining together into highly mobile groups, they began to hunt smaller game and exploit the area's plant resources. Agriculture appeared around 5,000 years ago, mainly of roots and tubers. The need to tend crops led people to settle in small villages. With the introduction of corn, food surpluses enabled a completely settled life. Around 1000 BC, pottery appeared. The widespread use of easily breakable ceramic goods is only possible in a sedentary society.


Incense burner with an alligator motif, Middle Polychrome Period (800 AD - 1200 AD). As you will see, the craftsmanship displayed by these ancient people is impressive. Imaginative animal images are utilized in almost every artifact. Crocodilian figures are often portrayed on ancient Costa Rican artifacts. The ancient people believed that these dangerous creatures possessed supernatural powers. Incense burners, called censers, were used in religious ceremonies. When the ancients burned copal resin inside the pot, the smoke escaped from the holes you can see around censer's top and on on the alligator's body. Copal produces a thick, but pleasant-smelling, smoke that was believed to represent the brains of the gods.


Ocarina shaped like a blowfish, Central Caribbean Region (undated). An ocarina is a musical instrument, kind of like a flute. These instruments have existed around the world for more than 12,000 years. In Mesoamerica, they were especially popular among the Maya and Aztecs. The use of ocarinas probably spread through the trade networks. The instrument is played by blowing into the tube extending to the right (see above). The air resonates within the hollow chamber and different tones can be produced by pressing on one or another of the 4 holes in the top. The blowfish design testifies to the native people's close relationship with the sea and its animals.


An ocarina and a censer, both with animal motifs. The ocarina (top) bears the face of a coatimundi, a forest creature that is a relative of the raccoon. The censer (bottom) is decorated with the image of a bird. Both of these artifacts were found in the northwest coastal region of Guanacaste and date from between 300 BC and 300 AD. Pre-hispanic people used musical instruments for religious rituals, political ceremonies, and sometimes just for fun. Costa Rica occupies what historians call the Intermediate Area, where influence of the cultures of Central Mexico overlapped that of the Andean cultures centered in the area of Peru. Over the millennia, successive waves of settlers arrived in the area from both the north and the south. This created an interesting mix of people, cultural traditions, technologies, and art. In addition to the influence of migration, trade networks extended through Costa Rica, linking the empires of Peru with those of Central Mexico.While ocarinas, censers, or other physical and cultural artifacts may have arrived from elsewhere, the ancient people of Costa Rica soon developed their own unique designs and styles.


Bowl, supported by three toucans (100 BC - 0 AD). This is a particularly beautiful example of the ceramic style called Red Ware. The toucans are very realistically portrayed. Their large, curved beaks form the handles of the bowl, which may have been used for ceremonial purposes. As towns and small cities developed, pre-hispanic societies in Costa Rica became stratified, specialized, and hierarchical. By 500 AD, chieftaincies had become hereditary and an astronomically-oriented priesthood had developed. Along with these, specialized classes of artisans, warriors, and farmers appeared.


Five-legged bowl from the Middle Polychrome Period (800 AD - 1200 AD). The bowl is shaped to resemble a writhing serpent, with a snake head on one end. The style of this unusual piece is called Orange Pottery. Until fairly recently, archaeologists thought that only villages and small towns had developed in Costa Rica's pre-hispanic period. Several recent discoveries have begun to change this consensus.


Stone platforms at El Guayabo National Park. At a site called El Guayabo, outside San José,  ruins of a small city were recently discovered. El Guayabo was built around 1000 BC and flourished until the Spanish arrival in the early 1500s. Twenty-five hundred years is an astonishingly long period of continuous occupation. Archaeologists believe that as many as 10,000 people once lived here. Numerous stone structures have been unearthed, including circular platforms, staircases, roads, and an extensive network of aqueducts. The circular platforms were once topped by towering conical structures. However, these were made of perishable materials such as wood. Only their circular stone bases have survived. The aqueducts were part of a complex plumbing system using sand and stones to filter the water. Another site, named Rivas, was discovered in southern Costa Rica near a town of the same name. People of the Chiriqui culture occupied Rivas between 900 AD and 1300 AD. Similar to El Guayabo, Rivas contains circular platforms and cobbled roads. Rivas is unusual in the number of tombs containing grave goods that have been discovered. Archaeologists have identified a road system at least 150 km (93 mi) in length which appears to connect El Guayabo, Rivas and other ancient sites in Costa Rica. This may indicate a much more complex society than previously thought. Unfortunately, the Caravan tour itinerary did not include El Guayabo, Rivas, or any other archaeological sites. I didn't find out about them until I began my research on Costa Rica's pre-hispanic history. By contrast, during our Caravan tours of Mexico, Guatemala, and Panamá, we had numerous opportunities to visit ancient ruins. (Photo from Wiki images)


Ceremonial metate from Gran Nicoya (500 AD - 800 AD). Made of volcanic rock and carved with a head in the form of a macaw, this grinding platform was used for ritual purposes. Metates are one of the oldest known tools for grinding plant-based foods. The earliest examples are paleolithic, i.e. they pre-date agriculture. During the Old Stone Age, these grinding platforms were used to crush seeds and other plant foods gathered from the natural environment. As old as this technology is, metates very similar to this can be purchased in many Mexican hardware stores. They are used to grind corn to make tortillas. Modern metates tend to be very utilitarian, however, and usually lack the wonderful animal motifs favored by the ancients. Because of their association with the all-important maiz (corn), metates held deep symbolic meanings for ancient people. They have often been found among the grave goods in ancient Costa Rican tombs.


Winged jade pendant from the Central Caribbean Coast (date unknown). The two wings are shark heads, separated by a bat. Sharks are fearsome ocean predators, equivalent to jaguars on land. As such, they became powerful symbols. A shark's tooth was sometimes used in blood-letting rituals. Bats were associated with darkness and the world of the dead because they live in caves. Winged pendants carved from jade were popular during the 1000 year period between 300 BC and 700 AD. Carved jade objects like the pendant were symbols of power and status. They appeared at a time when agricultural surpluses were enabling societal specialization and the development of hierarchies. Reverence for jade, and for objects carved from it, seems to have filtered south from Mesoamerica. Exactly how this cultural transfer occurred is not presently known but it may have involved the trade networks. Interestingly, archaeologists have not yet identified any ancient jade mining sites in Costa Rica. The jade objects found to date are mineralogically similar to those from ancient mines along the Motagua River in southern Guatemala. This reinforces theories about the influence of trade.


Fish-shaped gold ornament with alligator motif, Southern Pacific Coast (700 AD - 1550 AD). The structures extending from the fish's mouth are associated with alligators. It was not uncommon for pre-hispanic people to create art that was a mix of several different animals. Such art is called zoomorphic. Mining, smelting, and working with metal ingots had begun in the northwestern part of South America as early as 2100 BC. It is likely that metallurgy arrived in Costa Rica from the southern trade routes, just as jade had filtered down from the north. Somewhere around 500 AD, gold began to supplant jade as the favored material for the jewelry and ritual objects which symbolized social status and power. Ancient jade workshops along Costa Rica's Caribbean Coast soon began to switch over to the manufacture of gold objects. Artisans learned the "lost wax" method for casting and used it extensively. The widespread use of gold at the time of the Spanish Conquest can be seen in the very name of the country: Costa Rica means "Rich Coast". The originator of the name may have been either Christopher Columbus in 1502, or Conquistador Gil González Dávila in 1522. The coast they visited swarmed with gold-bedecked natives. Unfortunately, gold had a magnetic attraction for the Spaniards. If the native people had not possessed it, the Spanish might have bypassed them for a very long time.

Poas Volcano

A plume of gas rises from the crater of the Poas Volcano on an unusually clear day. In the center is the intercrater lagoon whose turquoise color is caused by the acid content of the water. The pH is near zero, making it the world's second most acidic natural lake. That is not its only distinction. The lagoon is one of the world's deepest, reaching 304 m (1000 ft). At 1.6 km (1 mi) across, Poás has the largest active crater in the world. The smoke is produced by fumeroles that regularly release noxious gases. The gray wall rising behind the lagoon is composed of layers of ash. Behind the ash wall, in the distance, is a green ridge which forms the caldera lip of an extinct crater. The bulging reddish area on the lower right of the lagoon rim is the main volcanic dome inside the active crater. I should confess here that I did not take the original photo. What you see above is my photo of an original hanging in the museum. You will see in the next photo why this was necessary.

Tourists shiver in a pelting rain as a cold fog envelopes them at the caldera rim.  Poás lies to the northwest of San José, a couple of hours up some long and winding roads. The soggy folks at the rail are standing at 2700 m (8900 ft). Beyond the railing, the great caldera was a swirling, white void. Visibility was no more than 30 m (100 ft). As I mentioned in my previous post, the weather in Costa Rica's Central Valley is changeable. At the peak of Poás, it is positively mercurial. Your chances of a clear day are about 30%. Laura, our Caravan Tour Director, had warned us to bring rain gear and warm clothes, so our party was reasonably comfortable. Also present at the peak were a number of European back-packer types. They were wearing shorts and t-shirts and had obviously not been given a "heads up". Their grim expressions and blue lips required no words. Poás is one of 14 volcanoes stretched like a necklace along the crest of the mountains that form the spine of the country. The mountain range and its volcanoes grew out of tectonic activity along the Pacific subduction zone. Nine of the fourteen volcanoes are active and, of these, the most active are Irazú, Arenal, and Poás.


Huge leaves of the "Poor Man's Umbrella" are called that for a reason. The plant is formally known as Gunnera insignis and it is native to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panamá. Since time immemorial, local people have used the broad leaves as a quick way to shelter from a downpour.


While native people knew the volcano well, Europeans were late arrivals.  The first European to visit the crater was Don Miguel Alfaro, who arrived in 1828. Almost 20 years passed before the second European visitor arrived. He was Danish botanist Andrew Oersted and he prepared a scientific report on the volcanic activity at Poás. Between 1910 and 1920, an annual hike began that brought many people to view the crater All this activity inspired Magdaleno Ugolde and Trino Araya to build a hotel in 1913, only a few kilometers from the crater. The hotel operated until 1930. Up until that time, visitors had to walk or ride a horse up the rough trails. In 1930, the first motor vehicle reached Poás. As a prize for that feat, the Chevrolet Agency presented the drivers with a spare tire. No doubt they were badly in need of a new spare by then. Finally, in 1971, Costa Rica created Parque Nacional Volcán Poás to protect 5,600 hectares (13,838 acres) of mountain and forest.The park was the brainchild of a Costa Rican student named Mario Boza. He visited Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1960s and was inspired to campaign for a park to protect Poás.


This scale model of the Poás Volcano is located in the Visitor Center museum. You can see the crater in the gray area of the upper center of the photo. The ash field continues off to the left center, allowing you to see the direction of the last eruptions. The small markers dotted around the top of the volcano indicate places of interest or lookout points. In 1910, Poás experienced the greatest eruption of its recorded history. Mud, gases, rock, and ashes spewed out in huge quantities. The column of smoke and ash reached 8000 m (26,246 ft) above the crater level.

An iguana strikes a pose. I found this extraordinary creature perched atop a wooden box along one of the trails in the Zoo Ave Wildlife Conservation Park. We stopped at the Zoo Ave facility after visiting Volcán Poás (see Part 2 of this series). Iguanas tend to remain very still, even when closely approached, making them easy to photograph. Zoo Ave (Spanish for "Bird Zoo") is owned and operated by the Nature Restoration Foundation (NSF). The NSF is a non-profit organization that also operates two other wildlife projects in Costa Rica. The Zoo Ave facility draws 60,000 visitors per year, 95% of which are Costa Ricans. Carole and I and our Caravan Tours group were part of the 5% who are foreigners. The proportion of Costa Rican visitors demonstrates the country's high level of environmental consciousness. In addition to the three wildlife centers run by the NSF, there are at least 13 other rescue centers, animal sanctuaries, and zoos doing similar work in Costa Rica. Zoo Ave is located in La Garita, Alajuela Province. The hours are 9 AM - 5 PM daily and entrance fees are $15 (USD) for adults, $13 for students, and $4 for children. For a Google map to locate Zoo Ave, click here.


The Park

Thick jungle covers most of the property, replicating the animals' natural habitat. Because many of the animals prefer to hide in the foliage, photography can be difficult. As a result, the animals you see in this posting are a small fraction of the ones we encountered. Since the 1980s, Zoo Ave has been accepting orphaned, injured, or former pet animals. Others were delivered to the facility after they were confiscated because of illegal possession. The sanctuary does not purchase animals and every creature here has been donated by the government or private individuals. Of the animals accepted, 77% are birds, mostly parrot and owl species. Another 20% are reptiles such as iguanas and boa constrictors. Generally, the reptiles are turned over after they are captured in someone's house or barn. About 4% are monkeys, sloths and squirrels. Many of these are babies who survived after their mothers were hit by cars. The goal of Zoo Ave is to release them back into the wild when they are ready. However, some animals are so injured or have become so completely socialized to human beings that they could not survive in the wild. These become Zoo Ave's permanent residents.


The facility also hosts some unusual plant species, such as this Giant Bamboo. The origin of Giant Bamboo is believed to be either Thailand or the southern part of Sri Lanka. How it got to Costa Rica is not clear to me. This is the largest of all bamboo species in the world. For scale, see Carole in the lower right corner of the photo. The Giant Bamboo can reach a height of 30 m (98.5 ft). The buds can grow at the astonishing rate of 53.3 cm (21 in) per day! The bamboo shafts are used to provide bamboo pipes, masts for boats, and paper. They can also be cooked into a creamy porridge.

Birds

The brilliant plumage of a Scarlet macaw makes it stand out against the green foliage. This one was leaning over to examine its food bowl. Macaws I have encountered in Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica seem relatively unconcerned by human visitors. There are two subspecies of Scarlet macaws, one with a range in South America (Macao macao), and another in Central America (Macao cyanoptera). In Costa Rica, wild Scarlet Macaws can only be found in two small areas along the Pacific Coast. Because of its stunning appearance, the macaw has long been valued as a pet as well as for its bright feathers. In pre-hispanic times, macaw feathers were traded all the way up to the Anasazi country of the US Southwest. When Carole and I visited the ancient ruin of Cacaxtla, north of Puebla, Mexico, we saw the remains of pens where parrots were kept for breeding. Similar pre-hispanic pens have been found in Paquime, southwest of Juarez, Mexico.

The Australian emu is the world's second tallest bird, after the African ostrich. I was unable to determine how this emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) came to be in Costa Rica. Most likely, it was a pet or was exhibited commercially. In any case, it has found a safe, comfortable home. It probably couldn't be released because it would be unlikely to survive and, lacking any opportunity to mate, couldn't propagate. Emus are quite curious. This one walked over and looked directly into my camera lens as I took a shot. Unfortunately, because of its movement, the photo came out blurred and I couldn't use it.


A rare Grey-bellied Hawk stared back imperiously as I took its picture. The very first Grey-bellied Hawk (Accipiter poliogaster) ever recorded in Costa Rica was spotted only recently. On June 26, 2008, a Costa Rican guide named Octavio Ruiz found one at La Selva Biological Station. It had apparently migrated from South America, either intentionally or by overshooting its normal range. Previous to that sighting, Grey-bellied Hawks had not been seen north of Colombia. The species is not well-understood and is rare even in South America. In addition to the thick foliage, the chain-link fences at Zoo Ave form another photographic obstacle. Many of my shots were spoiled when my camera automatically focused on the fence in the foreground instead of the animal in back. Ordinarily I can overcome this problem by placing my lens between the links. However, at Zoo Ave, barriers prevent visitors from approaching the fences, probably to keep them from feeding or otherwise disturbing the animals. This photo was one of the few "through the fence" shots that were good enough to use.


A Brown Pelican preens while floating in a small pond. Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) are common along the Pacific Coast from Canada's British Colombia to southern Chile. Although this one was swimming in a freshwater pond, Brown Pelicans are normally found along the seashore or in river estuaries. This pelican most likely ended up here because of an injury. The Brown Pelican was severely impacted by the use of DDT from the 1940s into the 1970s. The chemical thinned the birds' egg shells, causing breakage before normal hatching. Although DDT was banned in the US as of January 1, 1973, it continued to be used around the world until 2011 when it was banned by the Stockholm Treaty. Since then, Brown Pelican populations have begun to recover.


The Emerald Toucancet is the smallest and shortest billed of the Costa Rican toucans. Emerald Toucancets (Aulacorhynchus prasinus) normally dwell in the tops of cloud forests. Unlike some species, where the male wears the bright plumage and the female is drab, both toucancet genders are clothed in beautiful green feathers. A male's larger beak distinguishes it from a female toucancet. Since I only saw this one bird, I couldn't tell its gender. The birds' range includes Costa Rica and Panamá. They are popular pets because they are affectionate and love to play and interact with their owners. The toucancets' diet is primarily forest fruit, but they also eat insects, lizards and small birds.


Mammals

A monkey relaxes in its enclosure. The creature sat quietly while I took its photo. Like the iguana, this monkey almost seemed to pose. I am a bit baffled about its species. Costa Rica's monkey population contains four species: the howler, the spider, the squirrel, and the capuchin. The primate above does not resemble any of those. In searching through Google Images, the closest I could find is the Vervet Monkey, an African species most common in Ethiopia and Somalia. It is possible that someone illegally imported a Vervet and it was confiscated. If anyone can come up with a definite species for this animal, please let me know in the Comments section.


A baby marmoset peeks around the side of its mother. Common marmosets (Callithrix jaccus) are  a species of monkey native to the northeastern coast of Brazil. This may be another case of illegal importation. Marmosets are quite small, with an average height of 188 mm (7.4 in). They are characterized by bright ear tufts, a white blaze on the forehead, and a long, banded tail. Unlike most primates, whose claws have evolved into nails, marmosets still have claws on all their digits except for the big toe. Marmosets in the wild live in family groups of about 15 individuals. The entire group helps with raising the young.


A puma snoozes on a platform built high in a tree. I had to use my maximum zoom to get this shot. The Central American puma (Puma concolor costaricensis) is a subspecies of puma whose range extends from the center of Nicaragua through Costa Rica and into Panamá. Its range was originally much larger but it was wiped out in most of its previous habitat. The big cat is very adaptable and can be found in cloud forests, humid forests and gallery forests but it prefers mountains, rocky ravines and dense forests. The puma is solitary, silent and territorial and can travel long distances in search of food. Their diet consists mainly of mammals such as deer, opossum, monkey, porcupine, agouti, iguana and other forest creatures. Occasionally they take a human, especially children. The puma population in Costa Rica is considered to be "threatened".


A Three-toed sloth engaged in its favorite activity: hanging out in a tree. When photographing a sloth, it is difficult to determine what you are viewing. Because of its coloring, the animal is very hard to see from a distance. When finally spotted, you often only see an undifferentiated mass of rather unkempt fur. Which end is which? After carefully reviewing a number of sloth photos, both my own and on Google, I realized that the head of this Three-toed sloth (Bradypus tridactylus) is in the upper left of the photo. The short snout can be seen between the animal's forelegs. In the lower right of the photo, you can see a foot with three toes clinging onto the branch. Sloths move at an extremely leisurely pace of 0.24 km/h (0.15 mph). This is probably due to their leafy diet which is not terribly nutritious and results in a very slow metabolism. They live most of their lives snoozing in a tree fork or hanging upside down from a branch. About once a week, they descend to the forest floor to urinate and defecate. Why sloths don't accomplish this from high above mystifies scientists. While on the ground, their slow pace makes them extremely vulnerable to predators.


Reptiles

Green Iguanas are considered a "threatened" species in Costa Rica. This Green iguana ((Iguana iguana) sat very quietly in the weeds as I moved around looking for the best angle to shoot. Despite its name, this species comes in a variety of colors, including red and bright orange. Green Iguanas are arboreal, herbivorous, and can be found in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Green Iguana grows to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) from nose to tail and can weigh as much as 9.1 kg (20 lbs). Many people keep them as pets because of their calm disposition. However, their care can be very demanding because of their size and their special requirements for light and heat. The Green Iguana is a threatened species in Costa Rica because of a long tradition of hunting them. Locally, they are called "chicken of the trees".


Iguanas like to perch above the ground. Most of the iguanas we saw while touring Costa Rica were in trees, often on limbs extending out over the water. This position is one of the creature's best defenses since larger animals often can't get out on the limb. If a predator does, the iguana can just dive into the water and swim away. While swimming, the iguana folds its legs close to its body and uses its long, powerful tail to drive it through the water. Although is has a fearsome appearance, the animal is not aggressive except among males during mating season. However, if cornered, the iguana can lash out with its tail and will sometimes use its sharp teeth.


Black River Turtles line up as if at a bus stop. Black River Turtles (Rhinoclemmys funerea) are sometimes called Black Wood Turtles or Black Terrapin. They inhabit freshwater marshes, swamps, ponds and streams. In this case, these reptiles shared the pond with the Brown Pelican seen previously. In addition to Costa Rica, they can be found in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Panamá.


Red-eared slider turtles laze in the sun along a stream. As reptiles, they cannot regulate their own body temperature. That is why they are so often seen basking in the sun near the water. Their name comes from their habit of sliding off of rocks and logs into the water when they feel threatened. The semi-aquatic red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) is native to the US and Mexico. They are extremely popular as pets. However, their lifespan of 20-30 years (some can live to 40) may explain why they have invaded so many non-native habitats. Many pet owners are not inclined to take such long-term responsibility and release them into the wild in non-native places like Costa Rica. In fact, these colorful little guys are on the list of the world's 100 most invasive species.


This Golden Silk Orbweaver is not an official resident of Zoo Ave, it just lives here. The spider, whose official name is Nephila clavipes, has a huge brain in relation to its body size. The brain fills most of its body cavity and may extend part way down its legs. I found this spider busily wrapping up a victim caught in its web, creating a tasty snack for later.

This completes Part 3 of my Costa Rica series. If you have enjoyed it, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below. However, it you do leave a question, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

The steeples of Iglesia de San Rafael Arcángel are framed by Zarcero's remarkable topiary. The fanciful shapes of the main plaza's hedges caught my eye when our Caravan tour bus stopped for a break. Zarcero is located on Highway 141, 67 miles north of San José, the capital of Costa Rica. The town is the largest of Canton #11 in the Province of Alajuela. Each of Costa Rica's six provinces are divided into cantons, the rough equivalent to a US county. Zarcero is very clean and well-kept and its population is prosperous, with a literacy rate of 93%. Not surprisingly, this agricultural center has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. The main crops grown in the area are coffee, vegetables, and livestock. Fittingly, the city is named after a plant, the sarsaparilla vine (Smilax ornata). Sarsaparilla has been used medicinally by the indigenous people of North, Central, and South America for thousands of years.


Parque Francisco Alvarado occupies a city block that it shares with the church. The park is a popular gathering place for local people and a regular stop for tourists heading to northern Costa Rica. As you can see, the town is spread along the slopes of a valley in the mountains. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the area was part of the domain of the indigenous Cacique Garabito. A cacique is a tribal strongman or chief. The first European settlers did not began to trickle in until 1854, with the arrival of José Zumbado and his wife Solis. A small chapel was built in 1892, on the site of the current church. The first cement water pipes were laid in 1910, as a gift from the government of Cleto González Viquez. Zarcero did not gain the status of town until 1915, when it was named the seat of the canton that was created at the same time. Three years later, in 1918, the government of Federico Tinoco Granados officially declared Zarcero to be a city.


A small girl cavorts among the tunnel of topiaries. The topiary in the park was created by Evangelista Blanco Brenes. He was commissioned by the city government in 1964 to maintain the green areas opposite the church. Señor Evangelista took it upon himself to plant pine and cypress trees and  to shape them into whimsical patterns. For his work, Evangelista Blanco received the 2013 National Prize for Popular Culture. After more than 40 years, he still personally trims his creations. The line of arched plants, each looking like the letter "M", stretches out from the front steps of the church. The shapes are irresistible to children and adults alike, who constantly wander through them.


Furry green faces peer down from the top of a thick hedge. Topiary has been described as "the art of living sculpture." Wandering about, you never know what might be around the next turn of the path.  European topiary dates back to Roman times and the word comes from topiarius, meaning landscape gardener. The fanciful shaping of plants was described by Pliny the Younger, a lawyer, author, and magistrate of ancient Rome. The first Roman topiarius may have been Gnaeus Matius Calvinus, one of Julius Caesar's friends.



A rose garden is bordered by what looks like the handles of a basket. In the background, you can see the ridged back and long neck of a green dinosaur. The Romans may have been influenced by ideas filtering across vast distances from Japan and China. Those ancient Asian societies also practiced topiary, but from a different point of view. They were trying to mimic the appearance of aged pines which had been shaped by the wind. The Japanese art of bonsai, or miniature pine trees, is an expression of this.


View from the steps of the church. Off to the right of the green arches, you can see a leafy green beast about 3 meters tall. It might represent a monkey, but who knows? Apparently only Señor Evangelista. European topiary disappeared with the onslaught of the Dark Ages but was revived in the 16th century. It became popular both in the grand gardens of the elites and as decorations for simple cottages. The practice once again fell out of favor in the 18th century after it was satirically panned by the writer Alexander Pope.  Revived yet again in the mid-19th century, topiary has remained popular through the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Today, it can be found in gardens throughout the world.


Looming over Señor Evangelista's creations is the twin-towered Iglesia San Rafael Arcángel. The simple, original chapel was replaced in 1895 by this stately creation. The church was dedicated by Bishop Bernardo Augusto Thiel Hoffman, the second bishop of Costa Rica. It is part of the Diocese of Alajuela in the ecclesiastical province of Costa Rica. The grey stone of the walls and towers is nicely set off by the red roof and tower caps.


The interior of the church is filled with colorful decorations and designs. There is a single nave, with a corridor on each side, supported by rows of columns.


View of the ceiling, toward the choir loft at the back of the nave. At regular intervals, candelabras hang down to provide lighting. In modern times, however, the candles have been replaced by electric lights. Each segment of the ceiling is painted with a different coat-of-arms. Notice the graceful arches supported by the columns. Unlike Protestant churches, Catholic churches tend to place the choir to the rear of, and raised above, the sanctuary area. This is to avoid distracting the congregation and to enable the choir to face the altar area while the mass is going on.


The altar area is open and airy. Some Catholic churches, particularly of the 17th century Baroque style, are so overly decorated as to bedazzle and confuse the mind. Others, from the Neo-classic style of the 18th and 19th centuries, tend to to be very spartan in their decoration. The Iglesia de San Rafael Arcángel strikes a nice balance between the two.

This completes Part 5 of my Costa Rica series. Next time, we'll vist the Dakota Coffee Estate. If you have enjoyed this posting, or have questions, please reply in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can reply.

Hasta luego, Jim

Coffee cherries growing on the same plant ripen at different rates. The cherries first turn from green to yellow and then are picked when they become bright red. Dora Estate, owned by the Vargas family, was another stop on our tour of Costa Rica. This coffee plantation is located in Sabinilla Canton of Alajuela Province, a couple of hours drive northwest of San José. Doka Estate produces one of Costa Rica's finest coffees and its quality has resulted in numerous awards.


Photo of the Vargas family in 1940. A yunta (a yoked pair of oxen) stands next to a traditional carreta (see Part 4 of this series). Three generations of the Vargas family surround it. Many of the younger family members clutch the baskets used when picking the beans. Coffee workers get paid by how many full baskets they can deliver by the end of the day. The baskets are suspended in front by a cord around the waist so that both of the worker's hands will be free.


The headquarters of Doka Estate are surrounded by almost 4000 acres of coffee plants. The Vargas family story starts in 1929, when Don Clarindo Vargas, the patriarch, was operating a store in San Isidro, a town in Sabanilla Canton. In 1929, he foresaw the approaching economic disaster known as the Great Depression. Deciding to change occupations before he lost everything, Don Clarindo closed his store and put his money into a small dairy farm. After all, people will always need to eat. After about 20 years as a dairy farmer, he decided to switch to coffee, despite his lack of knowledge of the business. The plucky Costa Rican started small, planting only about 7 acres at first.


Our guide during the coffee tour reveals ripening coffee cherries beneath the leaves. Since the cherries don't all ripen at the same time, a picker will return to the same plant several times over the course of the season. Our guide was very knowledgable about the planting and processing of coffee, as well as fluent in English. Don Clarindo and his growing family labored steadily on his coffee farm for a number of years. The payoff came in 1959 when his son founded Beneficiadora Santa Eduviges, a multi-faceted business that includes the Doka Estate. Santa Eduviges is named after the patron saint of homeless families. Doka Estate's coffee plants now cover 3954 acres. The Estate is only one of a number of plantations owned by Santa Eduviges.


Banana trees are used to provide shade to coffee plants in some fields. Bananas were introduced to Costa Rica by Minor Keith. He was a US businessman who built the first railroad from the Central Valley to the Caribbean port of Limón, greatly increasing coffee exports. Today 90% of Costa Rica's crop is exported and only 10% of its coffee is consumed locally. In the early years, planting and harvesting coffee was the Vargas family's sole focus. Over time, they became involved in processing  and drying the beans. Still later, they began to directly export their crop. Although much of the processing machinery used at Doka Estate originated in the 19th century, Santa Eduviges also has a website and uses the internet to support its international sales.


There are several layers inside the red skin of the coffee cherry. Each layer requires a separate stage of processing. During the 1980s and 90s, the company began to offer its product for sale to its own employees who, by then, amounted to 200 full-time and 3000 seasonal workers. In 1997, Santa Eduviges launched Café Tres Generaciones (Three Generations Coffee), a chain of four coffee houses located in various parts of Costa Rica. Patrons of these shops consume 20% of the coffee that Doka Estate produces. In addition, internet purchases are a growing part of the sales total.


Old-fashioned belt-driven machinery processes the beans. The coffee cherries move down from level to level in an ingenious method that employs gravity to assist.  As the cherries move through each process, the various layers covering the coffee bean are removed. At the last stage, the beans are spread out on a large concrete platform to dry before being collected in large sacks. This is the oldest coffee factory in Costa Rica and has been declared part of the country's Historic and Architectural Heritage.


A water wheel slowly turns next to the coffee plantation's restaurant. The water flows from the pipe above the wheel. The weight of the water dropping into each of the vanes along the rim of the wheel causes it to revolve. Waterpower was one of the earliest non-animal forms of energy harnessed by humans for industrial purposes. The earliest description of a vertical water wheel, like that shown above, is by Vitruvius (31 BC - 14 AD). He was a Roman who wrote a treatise on all aspects of engineering. This one differs from the Roman version only in that the Costa Rican wheel is made of metal. Otherwise, the design and function are virtually identical. You may recall seeing a similar red water wheel at the ox cart factory in Sarchi (Part 4 of this series).


And, speaking of ox carts, this is one of several kept in a shed at the Doka Estate. It may well be the same one you saw in the family photo. Coffee first arrived in Central America in 1740. It came first to El Salvador, but didn't reach Costa Rica until 1796. The first export destination for Costa Rican coffee was Chile. Ironically, Costa Rica's coffee was bought by European merchants who re-exported it and sold it under the label "Chilean Coffee from Valparaiso."


An obstacle course stands in the middle of Doka Estate's coffee fields. Some of the services offered by the coffee plantation include tours, a Bed and Breakfast, a restaurant, and a facility for "team building". This obstacle course is part of a program offered to businesses so that employee groups can build trust and become better teams. Quite an odd thing to find sprouting among lush green coffee plants.

This completes my posting on the Doka Estate. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, that you will leave any comments or questions in the Comments section below, or email them directly to me. However, if you do leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

A Mantled Howler monkey pauses while feeding to stare down intruders. Notice how he uses his tail to help brace himself on a tree limb so that he can safely use his left arm to gather leaves. I took this shot from the deck of a tour boat on Costa Rica's Rio Frio (Cold River) near the Nicaraguan border. Rio Frio begins in northern Costa Rica in the middle of the Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge and flows north to where it crosses into Nicaragua. The river trip was part of our Caravan Tour and our tour director promised we'd see abundant wildlife in the area. She didn't exaggerate. When viewing this posting, keep in mind that the animals seen below represent only a small portion of those we encountered. To locate Rio Frio on a Google map, click here.


The River Cruise

The boats' seating areas are covered as rain protection, but they have open viewing decks. This craft, almost identical to ours, pulled up next to us at a prime spot. From long experience, the boat guides know precisely which areas, and even which trees, are favored by the animals.


Lanny (l) and Val (r) are a delightful South African couple we met on the tour. Their warmth and sense of humor shines through in this photo. In the background, our river guide speaks into the microphone while the boat pilot stands at the wheel. Our tour director advised us to dress for rain, and for good reason.

The Rio Frio's lush banks

The river flows tranquilly past low banks lined with a trees and other vegetation. The overhanging limbs are populated with a wide variety of birds, reptiles, and monkeys.

A huge bromeliad clings to a low-hanging tree limb. The species seen above is epiphytic not parasitic, meaning that it does not live at the expense of its host. Epiphytic bromeliads draw the moisture and nutrients they need from the air. Bromeliads are a huge plant family containing 3,170 species, which includes pineapples and orchids.


Palm trees were especially numerous. This one was huge, with dramatically spreading fronds.


Palm fruit clusters thickly under the fronds of another palm tree. This appears to be a Pejibaye palm (Bactris gasipaes) native to Costa Rica and other Central American countries. It is sometimes called a peach palm and can live from 50-75 years. The fruit is edible and this species is domesticated in some areas.


Monkey business

A Howler monkey rapidly climbs a tree as our boat approaches. The Mantled Howler is also called a Golden-mantled Howler due to the light colored fur on its back and sides. The monkey's scientific name is Alouatta palliata. It got its nickname from its loud howling--actually more like hooting. The monkey howls to identify itself and to locate others of its species in the area. The sound, arising from all directions in a late-night chorus, can definitely unnerve a tourist who is not familiar with which animal is making the noise.


Mantled Howlers live in family groups. Some of these groups can number as many as 40 individuals, but most are far smaller. Generally, young males are evicted from the group by the alpha male when the youngsters reach maturity. If you look closely at their dark fur, you can see streaks of the heavy rain that was falling at the time.


The Howler above has just stripped the leaves from the stem it is holding in its hand. These animals feed primarily on tree leaves, which aren't terribly nutritious. Consequently, they spend a lot of time resting in the crotches of rainforest trees, far above the ground. Although their diet is low in nutrition, the abundance of leaves gives this species an advantage over other monkeys whose food is not so readily available.


A baby Howler peeks from under its mom's arm. The young monkey reminded me of all the human children I have photographed while they shyly peered at me while half-hidden by a parent's body. Kids are always curious, whether human or animal.


A White-headed Capuchin munches a seed pod. This monkey (Cebus capucinus) gets its name from the white fur on its face and upper arms. To the Spanish, it resembled the hood, or capuche, of a monk's habit. The Capuchin's are smaller and much less husky than the Howlers. They were also much less numerous in this area.


Birds along the river

An Anhinga spreads its wings to dry its feathers after a downpour.Anhinga anhinga is the formal name of this large bird. It is also called the American snake bird, from its long sinuous neck. It feeds by diving into the water to catch fish.


A Boat-billed Heron perches on a limb and scans the river for lunch. The diet of Cochlearius cochlearius includes fish, rodents, eggs, crustaceans, insects, and amphibians. There is certainly plenty for it to eat along Rio Frio. The Boat-billed Heron got its nickname from its broad, scoop-like bill, somewhat resembling a shallow-draft boat.


Another Anhinga huddles in the pouring rain. Notice the webbed feet, somewhat like a duck's, which enable it to swim swiftly on and under the water.


Two Mangrove Swallows sit on the end of a long branch sticking out of the water.Tachycineta albilinea is a non-migratory bird that lives in the coastal regions of Central America and Mexico. It is one of the passerine species which are distinguished by three toes pointing forward and one back. This arrangement enables these birds to perch on branches more effectively than non-passerine species. Passerines make up more than half of all bird species.


A Little Blue Heron sits on a snag as it surveys the passing river. I particularly liked the delicate blue coloring of its feathers. Egretta caerulea is a close relative of the Snowy Egret and actually resembles the other bird until it molts and gains its blue adult coloring. This coloring protected it from the feather hunters who decimated the white egrets in the 19th century. The Little Blue Heron likes the water and seeks out river banks, swamps, ponds, and the shores of marshy lakes.


A Great White Egret stares intently into the water, looking for fish, snakes, and amphibians. I recognized this fellow immediately because the shores of the lake where I live abound in Great Whites (Ardea alba). It has a very wide distribution in the warmer, tropical temperate regions of the world. The Great White Egret is distinguished from other white egrets by its size and also its yellow beak and black legs and feet.


Colorful Reptiles

A Green Iguana (Iguana iguana) relaxes on a branch as it advertises its availability for a mate. During the mating season, this iguana turns from its normal green color to the bright orange seen above. The color helps make it more easily visible to iguanas of the opposite sex. Despite their fearsome appearance, iguanas are entirely harmless to humans.


The Green Basilisk Lizard looks like an escapee from Jurassic Park.Basilicus plumifrons is sometimes called the "Jesus Christ Lizard" because of its seeming ability to walk on water. This comes from small fringes on the tips of its toes. These unfurl when it hits the water, creating a tiny air pocket under each toe. The Jesus Christ lizard can sprint 1.5 m (5 ft) per second across the surface. They can make it about 4.5 m (15 ft) before they sink, but then they have excellent swimming abilities.


Slothfulness made easy

A Three-toed Sloth relaxes in the crotch of a tree. Bradypus variegatus is active during the day, although "active" is a relative term for a sloth. They are very slow-moving animals. This is caused by their diet, which is almost entirely leaves from the trees in which they perch. Such a low-nutrition diet gives them a slow metabolism. That, in turn, requires a thick covering of fur to help conserve body heat. The sloth lives almost its entire life--eating, sleeping, socializing, and mating--in the tops of trees. Just about the only exception is when, once a week, they descend to the forest floor to urinate and defecate into a small hole they dig. The whole process takes about 30 minutes and is the only time when their slowness makes them really vulnerable to predators. It is a mystery why they don't eliminate their body wastes while safely sitting in a tree. Despite this weekly period of danger, sloths often live 20-30 years in the wild.


This sign and cement obelisk indicate where Rio Frio crosses into Nicaragua. Other than a couple of strands of rusty barbed wire, there was nothing else to indicate an official boundary. This point marked the outer limit of our river tour. When the boat operator turned the craft and backed up the river, we were--for about five minutes--illegal immigrants into Nicaragua. However, there was no one to challenge our presence in this remote spot and we soon began our return journey.

This completes Part 7 of my Costa Rica series. I hope you enjoyed visiting the animals along Rio Frio and, if so, you will leave any comments or questions you may have in the Comments section below. Alternatively, you can just email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim