| | |  Travel & Outdoors 
Traveling Mexico's Path to Freedom
 Alan Solomon - Sun-Times
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August 25, 2010
| | A mural in Mexico City depicts Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rallying his countrymen to rise up and shake off the shackles of Spain some 200 years ago. Mexico will celebrate its bicentennial in September. (Alan Solomon) | |
Morelia, Mexico — On Sept. 16, it will be 200 years since Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a most unusual priest, gave the battle cry for Mexicans to rid themselves of the ruling Spanish by any means necessary.
The US has the Fourth of July - Mexico has Diez y Seis de Septiembre.
For those of us without an emotional connection to 1810, the bicentennial is an excuse to get down into Hidalgo Country. Even now. (We know what you’re thinking — we read the other sections of this paper — and we’ll get to that.)
Hidalgo didn’t live long enough to see what his insurrection wrought. He was beheaded less than a year into the fight. Neither did his successor, Jose Maria Morelos, another priest and Hidalgo’s former student, who kept his head but died by firing squad a few years later. It would be 1821 — 11 years after Hidalgo stirred things up — before there would be an independent Mexico.
The cities and towns that were part of Hidalgo’s world are, today, fascinating places to visit. Here’s a clue: The historic centers of five of them have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
We begin in one of the five: Mexico City.
Yes, it’s where the planes land, but we’re here because the very bell that Hidalgo ordered rung in the village of Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo), which drew hundreds to El Grito (or “the call”), is here now. It hangs above the door of the Palacio Nacional on the city’s huge main zocalo. It’ll be rung at 11 p.m. on Sept. 15 — as will bells all over the country. Fireworks, music and revelry will follow. Why the night before the 16th? Because that’s when it rang 200 years ago, and because that’s the tradition.
UNESCO may love Mexico City’s historic center, but the Hidalgo story is told most eloquently — complete with murals, portraits and artifacts — away from the center, in the city’s Museum of History, set within Chapultepec Castle. The Emperor Maximilian and his beautiful Carlotta (that’s another story) played house there in the 1860s. You can peek into their bedrooms after your glimpse into the 1810 insurrection.
To the road.
Morelia is a pleasant four-hour journey via an excellent tollway. Hidalgo was schooled in Morelia, he taught here and he plotted here. His insurgent army briefly occupied and sacked the city. Morelos, born here, was among his brighter students.
Morelia, in short, is an essential stop.
“Everything,” says Deborah Lopez Garcia, a local guide we’ll meet again later, “began here.”
When the Spanish built Morelia (originally called Valladolid; it was renamed in 1828 for its local hero), the intent was to recreate a mid-1500s Spanish city in mid-1500s New Spain. What survives today is a mid-1500s Spanish city with better bathrooms. It’s one of the UNESCOs, and it’s elegant — not only its cathedral (one of Mexico’s best) but its public squares and gardens.
This was a college town when Hidalgo taught at (and later ran) El Colegio de San Nicolas. His statue stands in its courtyard. It still is a college town.
It’s also very much a living city. Locals and visitors enjoy coffee and ice cream beneath its porticos and sip beverages to live music at tables alongside its gardens. At night, beside the illuminated cathedral, the Plaza de Armas is a delightful mix of elderly strollers, young people in courtship-mode, balloon vendors and squealing children.
It is the capital city of the state of Michoacan — and here’s where we address the unpleasantness.
Michoacan is home to a drug-related situation that has generated heavy media coverage, including stories about extortion and beheadings. Two years ago — on the night of Sept. 15, 2008 — some of that violence touched Morelia. Eight people died and 100 were hurt in a grenade attack; one of the grenades landed in the Plaza de Armas.
But.
Since then, Morelia and the other cities and towns on our Ruta Hidalgo have been left alone. The classic indicators of urban turmoil, anywhere in the world — angry graffiti, outsized police presence, deserted streets at night — you don’t see them in these towns. And tourists have not been targeted anywhere.
“Many people that have come from America,” says Lopez Garcia, “they say, ‘You feel safe. You walk safe. You can see harmony. You can see a lot of people in the public places.’”
All true. But keep checking the paper.
Back on the road.
Guadalajara, from Morelia, is another comfortable four-hour drive on another tollway. It’s the country’s second-largest city, but our historic Guadalajara is walkable. For a time in 1810, it was Hidalgo’s headquarters. In 2010, it has many charms — Mexico’s largest mercado (market), carriages, a plaza devoted to mariachis (the music got its start here, in Jalisco state), churches and squares, an angry Hidalgo statue in the Plaza de la Liberacion, and more.
Not to be missed: a mural by Jose Clemente Orzoco over a stairway within the Palacio del Gobierno on the Plaza de Armas. Hidalgo dominates. It is, in a word, stunning.
Guanajuato, from Guadalajara, is a drive of about 3½ hours. The adventure begins, if your hotel is in the historic center (UNESCO, again), with trying to navigate the car through a maddening maze of crooked one-way streets to your lodging. Get help. Hire a kid. Leave the car parked. Trust me.
It is a small city built above a river that’s been diverted; the riverbed is now a subterranean street that, like the rest of the city’s streets, is not for amateurs. But the town is gorgeous, a nonviolent riot of colorfully painted homes and businesses, plus churches, gardens, museums (including muralist Diego Rivera’s birthplace and another museum devoted to Don Quixote) and authentic cantinas.
Hidalgo’s insurgent army’s first military victory was here. It was bloody, with most of the blood belonging to Spanish-born locals who had huddled for safety in the town granary, La Alhondiga.
Later, after Hidalgo’s defeat and execution, his head (and those of three other conspirators) were put in cages and hung from the building’s corners, where they stayed until independence 10 years later. The head has been reintroduced to the body and buried in Mexico City. The hooks that held the cages are still there, labeled.
La Alhondiga today is a museum with more fine murals.
Guanajuato’s source of wealth was mining. The hour-long drive to Dolores Hidalgo passes the still-functioning La Valenciana silver mine (tours available) and the Church of San Cayetano, with its glittering interior. It’s worth a stop.
Dolores Hidalgo was just “Dolores,” and Hidalgo officially was just an overqualified parish priest, when his call of “Death to the Spaniards!” from the town’s church inspired the insurrection that set off the series of events leading to Mexico’s independence.
The church is little changed; a Hidalgo statue is the centerpiece of the shaded zocalo facing it, though the square today is as known for stands selling exotic ice cream flavors (shrimp, pork-skin, etc.) as it is for the statue. The town also is a center for talavera pottery.
Stay for lunch, then move on toward San Miguel de Allende, stopping along the way in the village of Atotonilco.
Atotonilco isn’t much of a village, but this was the route Hidalgo and his undisciplined army took after El Grito. Here, from the village church, he grabbed a canvas banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe and made it his army’s standard, its symbol. A replica of the banner is in the church; across the dirt road, women fashion handmade tortillas into gorditas for 10 pesos (about 80 cents) and warm them on wood-fired stoves.
About an hour from Dolores — even with a gordita stop — San Miguel (yes, UNESCO) was San Miguel el Grande when Hidalgo and troops took it over. It was the hometown of Ignacio Allende, a key Hidalgo ally later executed alongside him (and whose head got its own corner of the Guanajuato granary); it was renamed in his honor. Allende’s home is a museum, and bilingual signage speculates the original plan was to have Allende make that call for independence — which would have changed both history and, possibly, this itinerary. But stuff happened.
San Miguel is a wonderful town, clean and colorful, full of galleries and boutiques, restaurants and great places to stay, and ex-pat gringos who make actual conversations like this: “I’m leaving, just so you know, for Turkey on the 18th ...”
Back on theme: Check out the historical murals in the Allende house and in the Instituto Allende, the latter offering language and art classes between junkets to the Mediterranean.
Finally (before returning to Mexico City), 90 minutes and one more Hidalgo statue from San Miguel, there’s Queretaro.
Queretaro (UNESCO!) might have been responsible for Hidalgo’s place in history. Here — this was before Hidalgo’s declaration — La Corregidora (the mayor’s wife), under house arrest, learned a Hidalgo-Allende plot against Spain had been discovered and got word to a servant, who found the conspirators in Dolores and gave them the bad news.
In part because Hidalgo, on his home turf, could rally his own parishioners into a meaningful force, the group made him The Man — and gave Mexico a bicentennial to celebrate.
Her house, the Palacio del Gobierno, is on the Plaza de la Independencia and can be toured. Her statue is in the nearby Jardin Corregidora. Steps from that is another little park, the Jardin Zenea.
On this Sunday night, as on most Sunday nights, the town band is playing. It’s after 9. At least 30 couples, most old enough to be grandparents, are dancing to the music arm-in-arm on the warm summer evening as dozens more, of every age, stand on the fringes or sit on benches or wherever they can, and watch and enjoy.
“What is the dance?” a reporter asks an old man on the fringes in his best bad Spanish.
“Bolero,” he says, in what undoubtedly is very good Spanish. “The song is ‘Camino Verde.’”
On Calle Corregidora, which borders the park and is blocked from traffic, children are kicking a soccer ball around just for the fun of it. Overlooking all this cheeriness is Templo de San Francisco (1540), the historic center’s largest church, lit up nicely.
As the bicentennial approaches, this is Mexico at its sweetest — the Mexico without the headlines — and it’s not just in Queretaro.
You’re invited to the dance.
• • •
IF YOU GO:
GETTING THERE: Convenient gateways into this loop of Bicentennial-related towns include not only Mexico City but Guadalajara and Leon. Several airlines offer service to Mexico City and Guadalajara. Non-stop flights can be outrageous (a recent check found an Aeromexico round-trip flight between Chicago and Mexico City for $793.) One-stops offer substantial savings — sometimes half as much as non-stops.
GETTING AROUND: Except for Mexico City, where driving is an act of faith, and Guanajuato, which is a challenge to anything larger than a burro, a car is best. Roads between cities, especially tollways, are excellent. Same goes for signage, and services (including rest rooms, usually clean) are plentiful. But the tollways are expensive; our tolls just between Mexico City and Guadalajara, about 330 miles, totaled $56. You can take free highways, but they'll be slower and more congested; switching between toll and non-toll roads is a good compromise. Gas prices run about $2.75 a gallon. First-class bus service is an excellent option and a good value; fare for this itinerary on ETN (www.etn.com.mx), a leader in the region, would run about $120.
STAYING THERE: Hotels in Mexico City and Guadalajara are available in all price ranges, though in both cities, the better hotels are away from the historic centers. In all towns on this itinerary, good lodging convenient to cathedrals, museums and dining is plentiful at prices in the $100-$120 range (double occupancy), usually including full breakfast. Many of the smaller lodgings in the old colonial cities lack elevators; you'll get help with the baggage, but if steps are a factor, choose carefully. Some we especially liked on this trip: In San Miguel, the Villa Mirasol Hotel (www.villamirasol.com); in Morelia, the Hotel de la Soledad (www.hsoledad.com); and in Guanajuato, the Meson de los Poetas (www.mesondelospoetas.com).
EATING THERE: All these towns are sophisticated enough to offer good, healthful meals in a variety of cuisines — including regional Mexican styles that may be unfamiliar. Trust your hotel for recommendations, and just to be safe, follow the usual precautions for Mexico: drink bottled water, avoid salads, be careful with the ice, try street food at your own risk, etc. Some we especially liked on this trip, all in the historic centers: In Queretaro, Restaurante Bar 1810 (Mexican; Plaza de Armas; 442-214-3324); in San Miguel, Mare Nostrum (Italian; Umaran 56; 415-152-7420); in Mexico City, El Cardenal (Mexican; Palma 23; 5521-3080).
MORE INFO: Mexico Tourism Board, 225 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago. 312-228-0194; www.visitmexico.com. |
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