Yuirira, Mexico

There’s a relatively new highway connecting Salamanca to Morelia in central Mexico.  We have often driven the old mountainous route which took a long hour-and-a-half to cover the 40 or so miles between the two cities.

Now the trip is streamlined on a new highway that seems not to have all the kinks worked out of the toll system.  We paid 30 pesos at the first toll booth, then received a refund of 5 pesos at the next one.  First time that ever happened at a toll booth!

We had our destinations mapped out ahead of time.  There is a museum in Yuriria that we wanted to visit.  Deciding which exit was the closest was a little difficult as our 2008 map wasn’t yet updated to show the new highway.  We got off near our destination but headed the wrong way off the exit.  Soon we were in the middle of a small city asking directions of a police officer directing traffic in the middle of town.  He got us turned around and headed in the right direction and allowed us to make a hair-raising U-turn in the main intersection of town.

Yuriria had a pleasant look as we headed toward the city center.  It looked typical of a medium-sized rural town, with the usual movement of people along the streets and the many shops along the main route into town.  What we didn’t expect was the huge convent and church that contained the museum we were searching for.

This town possesses a greatly kept secret!  A huge convent built in 1550 (only 30 years after the conquest)!  I am including some pictures, as words cannot adequately describe it.  What a treasure.  And the town’s people seemed proud to display it as our family disembarked from our vehicle and began to survey the huge building.

We spent a couple of hours inside and outside the building.  It was simply a treasure.  We were careful to keep an eye on the time, as we had one more museum to explore in Cuitzeo before closing time (about an hour away), and then off to Morelia for the evening.