On this trip, we left the car at the hotel and took the taxi to the downtown area.  Two reasons for this.  One is the labyrinth of streets and tunnels, many which are one way, can put you way out-of-bounds before you know it.  The other is the lack of parking.  All of the narrow streets are constantly filled with parked cars.  There is parking in the tunnels, but you have to know where to go and where to come up for that to work.

Taking a taxi from our hotel was the right decision.  $4.00 (US equivalent) included tip, one way, and we were there.

Our main goal was to see the Alhóndiga near the middle of town.  The history of the building is that is quartered Spanish soldiers when the first wave of the Mexican Independence came through.  Tens of thousands of Mexicans, mostly Indians, moving along with Miguel Hidalgo, stormed the building and subdued (putting it nicely) the soldiers.

Later, when Hidalgo was captured, his head, and three others were placed on the four corners of the top of the building and remained there until Mexico secured its independence some 10 or 11 years later.  Gastly.

The city is magnificient in beauty.  Colorful buildings.  Spanish Colonial architechture.  More architecture from the 1800s.  Restaurants, museums, shops, etc.  The city is nestled in a valley.  From any of the surrounding mountain tops one can view the entire city.  Over the top of one of the mountains is Dolores Hidalgo, the city where Miguel Hidalgo had his perish for many years prior to the Independence.   How did they cross that mountain on foot?

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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.

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Además de este enfoque único, el cuál compele tanto a mexicanos como a norteamericamos, los volúmenes cuentan con abundancia de vívidas fotografías e ilustraciones. El formato paralelo inglés-español hace de estos ejemplares una herramienta ideal para aquellos estudiantes que deseen fortalecer uno o el otro de sus idiomas secundarios. Las oraciones están estructuradas en un formato de párrafos, lo que añade contexto al uso del idioma. Este no es un libro de “frases útiles”. La traducción cubre lenguaje descriptivo común así como expresiones indiomáticas que se usan en una conversación.

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Besides the unique perspective, which is compelling for native Mexicans and Americans, there are plenty of vivid photographs and illustrations.  The parallel-page bilingual format makes this book an ideal tool for students wanting to strengthen one or the other of their second languages.  Sentences are structured in paragraph format, which adds context to the use of the language.  This is not a phrase book.  The translation covers common descriptive language and idiomatic expressions used in conversational discussion.

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