Mexico 2012 RV Trip - Day 84 - March 19, 2012 Huatabampito

Today’s adventure turned into a day trip instead of an overnight stop. We left Huatabampito for Alamos this morning, originally planning to spend two nights.

In the late 1700s Alamos was the supply and cultural center for the surrounding mining area. Much of the wealth in the colonial town was spent on beautiful colonial casas (houses) and buildings. It has recently been designated as one of 14 Pueblos Magicos in Mexico and the colonial atmosphere is now protected by law. We parked the RV and walked into town because we had read that it was difficult to negotiate the streets.

The first, and smaller of the two plazas in Alamos is Plaza Alameda. The public market is located there. The Plaza de Armas is the larger of the two. Today there was quite a bit of tourist activity going on everywhere because many of the schools in the area were on holiday. On one side of Plaza de Armas is La Parroquia de la Purisima Conception church. Opposite the church was the city tour train. Even though we had walked most of the city already we decided to take the $10 peso per person (80¢USD) 20 minute tour.

The Palacio now serves as the city hall building and museum, as well as a host to local concerts and programs. We went through the museum and looked at the displays. Unfortunately for us, there was no signage in English, so it didn’t take us too long!
Several of the old casas have been converted into hotels and businesses. We found out too late that there are tours of some of the colonial houses, but only on Saturdays, so we enjoyed them from the outside.
 
We went by the museum and birthplace of Maria Felix. Everyone on the tour was greatly impressed and cameras were snapping away. Those of us who have NO idea about Mexican films just thought it was fun that she was considered the Marilyn Monroe of Mexico.

The building below is the Casa de Chocolate. Sounds delicious! We wish we could have toured it. It is a large historic home built in the 16th Century. There are ten fireplaces in the main house and three in the guest cottage, as well as three long covered courtyards. Sounds like a great place, but we could only see the outside!

Our last stop before heading back to Huatabampito was the Panteon (cemetery). It was the custom of most wealthy families to bury their dead inside the church. In 1751 there was a huge outbreak of cholera in the region and the cemetery was not large enough to bury everyone that had died from the disease. This “new” cemetery was opened in 1794. Notice all of the above ground concrete crypts. It was huge.

After all our walking we were tired and thirsty so we decided to try a “horchata de coco.”  It was a delicious sweet drink made with rice milk and coconut. If you ever get a chance, give them a try.

Because we had seen everything we wanted to at Alamos, we decided it wasn’t worth it to spend two nights there. We came back to Huatabampito for the night at our beach front parking spot and we will figure out what we are doing tomorrow in the morning! We drove 134 miles round trip.

GPS 26.69439°N, 105.59395°W