Endless Summer

Emily and I, after a long overnight bus ride from Zacatecas, arrived this morning in Mazatlan to find that here, it's apparently still summer. Our hotel room is overlooking the ocean (which is gorgeous) and the temperatures are back in the shorts and flip-flops range. After a stint the cold temperatures of the middle of the country, this return to summer is a welcome relief.

Speaking of welcome reliefs (nice següe), Emily and I were very relieved to hear that Barack Obama will be the next president of our country. We actually managed to get the excellent news by connecting with Emily's dad by phone from Durango during a stopover last night. We are not as excited about some other things that happened yesterday in the election. California and Arizona, shame on both of you. You know what I'm talking about.

OK, politics now aside, let's get back to Mexico. We haven't talked at all about our visit to Zacatecas over the last couple of days. We arrived on Sunday and found our hostel, Hostal Villa Colonial, which was just lovely. Our room was up on the top of the hostal, just off of the rooftop terrace and with beautiful views looking out over the city. We got ourselves settled in and then went out to explore the town. Alas, Sunday in Zacatecas is absolutely dead, and so we didn't do much but walk around before heading back to the hostel for dinner in and sleep.

Monday morning proved to be almost equally quiet: Zacatecas is a town that seems to enjoy its rest, and it was very slow to start as we made our way out. Our first stop Monday was the Mina El Edén, an old mine in Zacatecas that used to be a rich source of silver and gold but that has been out of commission for more than 40 years. The bottom 3 levels of the 7-level mine are flooded, but the 4th level is open to visitors with guided tours. We took a narrow-guage railroad through the tunnels heading into the mine, and then after a brief walk through of the mine's museum of gems from around the world, we started the tour. More than anything, it was just very cool to get to explore an old mine, not something one finds a lot of opportunities for. The place was set up with some cheesy figures of miners working, and even some clay bats on the ceiling of one tunnel, but our guide was amusing and we enjoyed making our way through. We exited by an elevator on the other side after crossing over an underground river created by the flooded lower layers. The mine also has a nightclub inside, but we didn't end up returning for that.

The exit of the mine is close to the station for the teleférico, a gondola that heads over the city on cables and up to the big hill called el Cerro de la Bufa. The teleférico operator explained to us that bufa means "pig bladder" in Italian. Lovely. We strolled around the hill and saw the tomb of the heroes of Zacatecas (those who captured Zacatecas during the Mexican revolution) as well as the monuments to the three of the leaders of the revolution.

Our afternoon was relatively quiet. We walked down the hill and after finding lunch went for a stroll through one of the nicer parks in town, where we took some time to relax and discuss things that are pending for our return home (it's already starting to encroach on our thoughts, even though we still have more time away). In the evening, we peeked our heads into the Governor's Palace, which had a beautiful, courtyard-filling altar for Day of the Dead, as well as one of the most impressive murals we've seen. The mural is by Antonio Pintor Rodriguez, and the coolest thing about it is that the painted part of the mural blends into the carvings in stone that are underneath the mural. For example, painted tree roots blend seemlessly into stone-carved roots that emerge underneath the painting. We'll post a picture soon to give you a better idea.

Tuesday featured visits to two museums in town, each started from the collection of one of two brothers: Pedro and Rafael Coronel. We started with the Museo Rafael Coronel, which is housed in a stunning ex-convent which in some parts is almost a ruins beautifully covered by all kinds of plant life. The highlight of the museum is its collection of masks, primarily from Mexican culture over the course of many centuries. The museum has something like 2,000 masks overall. The Museo Pedro Coronel is aimed more at art, and it features in its collection some pieces by Miró, Dalí, Picasso, and many more big names. The collection is a bit random, and it switches quickly from paintings into very random artifacts from ancient Egypt (including a sarcophogus), Greece, China, India, and Africa. I never understand how these rich people happen to accumulate such things, but it's amusing to browse through the eclectic collection.

That was about it for our visit to Zacatecas. The town is very pretty, but it wasn't our favorite mostly because it wasn't very tourist friendly. The town was absolutely dead for about half of our time there, and even when things were open it seemed like only half of the businesses were running at any given time. We also, for some reason, had a very hard time finding any restaurants, and more so finding restaurants that looked appetizing. We were super excited to get to see the old mine, but I don't think Zacatecas will be on our list of places to go back to.

And now, to the beach!