John's Mexican Journal – 11/04/2005 through 11/12/2005
Pg 6
Wednesday - We're Still Waiting For The Justice - Guanajuato to Morelia
In the morning we had huevos and frijoles again, then took the bus to Morelia. We were startled to see circus elephants grazing in a field next to the road on the left and an ostrich farm on the right.
After we'd been on the road for a couple of hours, we stopped at a little family restaurant where Fran knew the restrooms were clean and the food was safe. When you stepped out the back door of the restaurant, you got a spectacular view of a volcanic crater on the other side of a valley. We stood around and enjoyed the view while some of the braver souls tried the food. Fran says the chili relanos are the best she's ever had. She always stops here whenever she has a chance.
I don't like chili relanos and wasn’t very hungry after the big breakfast back at the hotel, so I just had a coke. I wasn't nervous about eating the food at this place because so far Fran's advice on eating and drinking have been good. We've been using the ice out of the ice machines in the hotels, ordering ice in our drinks at the restaurants, and eating credit card numbers, all with no ill effects so far. I'd even been (gasp!) drinking out of bottles without using a straw. I figured if I could do it in Cameroon, I could do it in Mexico.
I'm writing this on Thursday night and still haven't had any digestive problems. I hope my intestinal flora and fauna aren't listening and interpreting this as hubris on my part.
We continued on to Morelia, passing through small towns and villages. I'd noticed concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) sticking out of the corners of many of the houses in the smaller towns. In the country it was almost universal.
Most of the homes and residences of the poorer people look like they've been built by the homeowners themselves. The quality of the brickwork seems to suggest this, anyway. Every time someone completes a portion of a building, the rebar is extended above where they stopped work. When time and money become available again, they can pick up right where they left off and add a second or third story that's tied by the rebar to the older part of the structure.
This is eminently practical, but it's ugly as all get out. Sometimes the rebar is only extended a few inches. Other times it's extended 6 or 8 feet. Many of these buildings were last worked on decades ago and the rebar has gotten bent and twisted. The net effect is that nothing looks like it's done (it isn't) and the older buildings look abandoned halfway through construction (they're not).
Like I said, practical, but ugly.
Our next stop was in the small town of Yuriria to visit a shrine built in 1550. The shrine is huge, a cathedral in all but name. It was in pretty much the same state as when the Spanish finished building it around 1590. The main doors looked like they were hung in 1590 and never closed. It's amazing that the Spanish were this deep in the interior and building projects of this scope only 58 years after Columbus wandered into the Caribbean.
You could see two other large churches from the front door of the shrine. They seemed to be about the same age as the building behind us. I asked Fernando why the Spanish built so many churches when it seemed like the entire area could be served by one. He told me that the Spaniards built so many because they wanted to preempt indigenous holy places to facilitate conversion of the natives. Every place the indigenous people had a temple, the Spanish plopped down a church.
We arrived in Morelia and checked into our hotel, right on the main plaza of the city. The Hotel Virrey de Mendoza was built as a private home in 1565 and converted to a hotel in the 1930s. It was strange staying in a place with so much history.
Fernando took us on a short walking tour to see the historical sites around the plaza. He pointed out the Palace of Justice. "We have a beautiful building, we're still waiting for the justice."
We went back to hotel to nap before an excellent supper, and then spent the evening writing in our journals.