I kept hearing about the town of Delores Hidalgo, and today was the day I was going to find out more about this town's namesake. Delores Hidalgo is located about thirty miles north of San Miguel on a widely traveled road. Many of the country roads are very similar the the roads that we drive everyday in Stevens County. Imagine Williams Lake road and you get a pretty good idea of the way the mexican roads curve or how they go uphill and down. But that's where the similarities end, as I'm not sure there is a speed limit and centerlines are for sissies. The bus I took north would straddle the line, pass on what appeared to be blind corners, and drive what felt like 70 miles an hour. I might of mentioned this before, but I've been on tamer rollercoasters at Silverwood. We finally made it to the outskirts of town where the driver drove at a more reasonable speed...I survived another busride...I notice that I'm starting to cross myself when I get off busses now. Must be the catholic in me.Of all the towns I've had the opportunity to visit, this one seemed to be one of the busiest, where the sidewalk merchants spread out what must have been several miles. It was like they emptied all the goodwill and salvation army stores from hundreds of miles around, spreading the stores' contents out on the sidewalk and covering the goods with blue plastic tarps for shade. As I'd been seen before, Sunday is by far the busiest day in town, as many must leave from church and head off to the market.
Once I got of the bus, I began to look for the Jardin, the town square. It's become a pretty simple formula, just look for the tallest church spires, and you will find the town square. It worked exactly the same here, with a tall double spired church, a large treed park with black cast iron benches, complete with a center bandstand. But noticably absent, was the traveling Mariachi Bands, that I'd seen in the previous two towns I'd been in. They must have been given the day off.
My first order of business was to find the ice cream vendors. I was told by numerous people, that if I did anything, I had to have an ice cream cone. That was a pretty easy assignment, as there were about ten vendors, on all but one of the four corners. The hardest part was deciding which flavor to have. But my choice was instant once I saw it....TEQUILA! Ok, it sounds gross but you know what...It was awesome. I propose the tequila song was actually praising the ice cream rather than the drink. The ice cream was more like gelati, an ice cream-like confection made with milk, sugar and flavoring. My tequila flavored cone had more of a citrusy taste, like that of a lemon or orange. All I know is, mine went quickly. One last thing about cones, everyone had one. Young children, old grandmas, lovers on benches, tough looking cowboy types, all were enjoying their cones. Eat your heart out Baskin-Robbins!
I've been meaning to mention, and haven't in 35 days, about the camera that I've been using to take all the pictures you've seen here. I just use my camera phone, which takes a pretty decent picture, without alot of fuss. It's always convenient, either in my pocket or backpack, doesn't have any controls to fuss with, has almost unlimited photo storage capacity, and I can take a day's worth of pictures on one charge. The only down side is, the quality is probably not good for printing anything other than a 4 x 6 pictures and I don't have any zoom capability. But it's worked well for about 95% of the pictures I've taken. One last thing...it's easy to take pictures without being too obvious.
Ok, back to today's adventure. I spent about an hour in and around the park checking out all the touristy things, the church, the museums and other buildings. Maybe this would be as good as time as any for a little history lesson. I'm going to cheat just a little and quote something off the internet- just so I get the story right. Here goes...and if history class in high school made your cringe...feel free to fast forward. Basically it's this...In the square that I was standing, the Mexican independance movement started.
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The laid back atmosphere of present-day Dolores Hidalgo is a far cry from the morning of "The Cry" that signaled the start of the country's independence from Spain. On that Sunday in 1810, the town (then known as just Dolores), was swarming with church-going Indians and peasant farmers. Father Hildalgo roused them and criollos (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico) to rise against the gachupines (the ruling class, born in Spain). He urged the crowd to follow him into battle. It wasn't a prepared, written speech, so no one is certain exactly what Hidalgo said, but he probably included phrases such as "long live freedom." The scene is reenacted yearly on September 15 throughout Mexico.
After "The Cry," Miguel Hidalgo (he wasn't an active priest at the time he led the revolution) and his countrymen marched 20 miles to San Miguel el Grande (now San Miguel de Allende), to join the forces of criollo military general, Ignacio Allende. About 1,000 troops strong, they marched toward Guanajuato (which is now the state capital). Within a week, their ranks swelled to 25,000 and ultimately to 80,000. Yet, it took another 11 years, and much bloodshed on both sides, before Mexico achieved independence from Spain.
Quoted from Dolores Hidalgo: Mexico's Cradle of Independence - An article by Geri Anderson in Mexico Connect
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Ok, that wasn't so bad was it. Back to adventures in Delores Hildalgo. I heard much about the ceramic shops here so I set out in search of them I took a shor tcut across about ten blocks to the main street that the bus had taken and found over a mile of ceramic shops of all sizes on both sides of the streets. Delores Hildago is noted for it's brightly colored ceramics. For sale here were all kinds of brightly colored crafts - ranging from kitchen sinks, to geckos and frogs, planters and clocks, kitchen knick-knacks and picture frames, and what must have been literally thousands of other items. On my next trip I'm coming down with a semi-truck and bringing back loads of gifts for my friends...promise!
All this walking was making me hungry and decided to search out a seafood
restaurant that got good reviews in the Lonely Planet. The El Delfin or The Dolfin in English, is a nice bright airy restaurant located about a block from the town square. A seafood menu in only printed in Spanish can be a dangerous thing, especially in my hands. What I ordered and what swam to my table were two entirely different things. I should have done what I've done in similar situation, pointed at what someone else was eating, it worked well in Vancouver's Chinatown. I thought I was getting a sea bass filet...turns out it was the whole sea bass, tail, fins, head complete with eyeballs. My motto is...your food should never be looking back at you. I swear my fish blinked just as I was picking up my fork...must have been the tequila ice cream!
My first order of business was to find the ice cream vendors. I was told by numerous people, that if I did anything, I had to have an ice cream cone. That was a pretty easy assignment, as there were about ten vendors, on all but one of the four corners. The hardest part was deciding which flavor to have. But my choice was instant once I saw it....TEQUILA! Ok, it sounds gross but you know what...It was awesome. I propose the tequila song was actually praising the ice cream rather than the drink. The ice cream was more like gelati, an ice cream-like confection made with milk, sugar and flavoring. My tequila flavored cone had more of a citrusy taste, like that of a lemon or orange. All I know is, mine went quickly. One last thing about cones, everyone had one. Young children, old grandmas, lovers on benches, tough looking cowboy types, all were enjoying their cones. Eat your heart out Baskin-Robbins!I've been meaning to mention, and haven't in 35 days, about the camera that I've been using to take all the pictures you've seen here. I just use my camera phone, which takes a pretty decent picture, without alot of fuss. It's always convenient, either in my pocket or backpack, doesn't have any controls to fuss with, has almost unlimited photo storage capacity, and I can take a day's worth of pictures on one charge. The only down side is, the quality is probably not good for printing anything other than a 4 x 6 pictures and I don't have any zoom capability. But it's worked well for about 95% of the pictures I've taken. One last thing...it's easy to take pictures without being too obvious.
Ok, back to today's adventure. I spent about an hour in and around the park checking out all the touristy things, the church, the museums and other buildings. Maybe this would be as good as time as any for a little history lesson. I'm going to cheat just a little and quote something off the internet- just so I get the story right. Here goes...and if history class in high school made your cringe...feel free to fast forward. Basically it's this...In the square that I was standing, the Mexican independance movement started.
---------
The laid back atmosphere of present-day Dolores Hidalgo is a far cry from the morning of "The Cry" that signaled the start of the country's independence from Spain. On that Sunday in 1810, the town (then known as just Dolores), was swarming with church-going Indians and peasant farmers. Father Hildalgo roused them and criollos (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico) to rise against the gachupines (the ruling class, born in Spain). He urged the crowd to follow him into battle. It wasn't a prepared, written speech, so no one is certain exactly what Hidalgo said, but he probably included phrases such as "long live freedom." The scene is reenacted yearly on September 15 throughout Mexico.
After "The Cry," Miguel Hidalgo (he wasn't an active priest at the time he led the revolution) and his countrymen marched 20 miles to San Miguel el Grande (now San Miguel de Allende), to join the forces of criollo military general, Ignacio Allende. About 1,000 troops strong, they marched toward Guanajuato (which is now the state capital). Within a week, their ranks swelled to 25,000 and ultimately to 80,000. Yet, it took another 11 years, and much bloodshed on both sides, before Mexico achieved independence from Spain.
Quoted from Dolores Hidalgo: Mexico's Cradle of Independence - An article by Geri Anderson in Mexico Connect
--------
Ok, that wasn't so bad was it. Back to adventures in Delores Hildalgo. I heard much about the ceramic shops here so I set out in search of them I took a shor tcut across about ten blocks to the main street that the bus had taken and found over a mile of ceramic shops of all sizes on both sides of the streets. Delores Hildago is noted for it's brightly colored ceramics. For sale here were all kinds of brightly colored crafts - ranging from kitchen sinks, to geckos and frogs, planters and clocks, kitchen knick-knacks and picture frames, and what must have been literally thousands of other items. On my next trip I'm coming down with a semi-truck and bringing back loads of gifts for my friends...promise!
All this walking was making me hungry and decided to search out a seafood
restaurant that got good reviews in the Lonely Planet. The El Delfin or The Dolfin in English, is a nice bright airy restaurant located about a block from the town square. A seafood menu in only printed in Spanish can be a dangerous thing, especially in my hands. What I ordered and what swam to my table were two entirely different things. I should have done what I've done in similar situation, pointed at what someone else was eating, it worked well in Vancouver's Chinatown. I thought I was getting a sea bass filet...turns out it was the whole sea bass, tail, fins, head complete with eyeballs. My motto is...your food should never be looking back at you. I swear my fish blinked just as I was picking up my fork...must have been the tequila ice cream! As I'm putting titles on the pictures I took today, I came across one of a policeman directing 
traffic. It remeinded me of the unique, almost birdlike sounds, that each traffic cops whistles make as they stand out in the middle of the intersection, directing the flow of traffic. On several occasions, I almost began looking for the bird that made this most unusual sound. And another thing, I don'r recall seeing any traffic lights in Delores Hidalgo. Maybe they could use a couple of Colville's roundabouts.
traffic. It remeinded me of the unique, almost birdlike sounds, that each traffic cops whistles make as they stand out in the middle of the intersection, directing the flow of traffic. On several occasions, I almost began looking for the bird that made this most unusual sound. And another thing, I don'r recall seeing any traffic lights in Delores Hidalgo. Maybe they could use a couple of Colville's roundabouts. Well I finally left Delores Hildago for home and I must say the bus trip back was much less interesting than the inbound one...thank goodness. Once home I spent much of the evening just getting caught up on email, updating the blog and making a few phone calls to people at home. Monday more than likely will be my last day in San Miguel de Allende. I will miss this place, but I know that I will be back.
Here are some pictures taken today
Hasta Manyana amigos - Roberto
1 comment:
It's "Dolores" not "Delores"
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