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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Sombrerete, según me cuentan, tuvo su época de esplendor económico, allá por los años cuarenta, ya que cerca de allí se descubrieron depósitos de mercurio, lo cuál atrajo a un buen número de residentes extranjeros. Aunque tal apogeo llegó a su fin al término de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, hoy en día Sombrerete es una población que cuenta con algunas obras arquitectónicas dignas de admirarse, entre ellas el Convento de San Francisco y el Templo de Santo Domingo.

Fué en el patio del Convento de San Francisco donde el año pasado se llevó a cabo una reunión familiar a la que con gusto asistimos, dicho evento tan memorable logró reunir a casi 180 personas, ente primos, tíos y demás familiares.

El año pasado fué bueno en lluvias, así que el paisaje que pudimos admirar desde la carretera  lucía un verdor poco usual.

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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.

Para ver una sección del libro, favor de llenar la forma ubicada a la derecha.

Si desea añadir un enlace a mexicoandus.com desde su página de internet, oprima el lado derecho de su “mouse” en la imagen de “MexicoandUs” y grábela en su página; cheque el recuadro en la forma para indicar que ya lo llevó a cabo.

También puede ver una sección más pequeña del libro directamente en amazon.com donde puede comprarlo. El precio de lista es de $20.99 Dólares. Amazon ofrece descuentos de acuerdo con sus propias políticas.

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