Traveling el Camino Real to Querétaro

This past week we decided to take the old road from San Miguel to Querétaro, which runs past the pueblo of Jalpa.  We had been warned that the road in the rainy season can be very difficult so we took our Ford truck, which is not as comfortable as the other car but very reliable in tough terrain.

This route has you turn off the main road to Querétaro at the road for Jalpa, which is still a very normal Mexican road (good surface except a lot of pot holes) and after a while we came to the pueblo of Jalpa. 

The first thing you come across in Jalpa is this wonderful old church as shown below.

In front of the church is the pressa which is very large and on this wonderful day provided excellent reflections of the hills across the pressa.

On the grounds surrounding the church are a number of old ruins that kept calling out to us.  We tried to discover what they could have been used for but we will never know.

 

 

Across the pressa there is also this beautiful cross on the hillside.

As we were leaving the church, we saw this elderly woman come to the front door of the church to offer her prayers for the day. 

We had heard that there was a wonderful old hacienda call the Hacienda Jalpa which has been recently renovated and from it's web site looks very wonderful.  However we did not get down to the hacienda so we can not comment on it, maybe next time.

We headed back to the truck to continue our journey when we see the same elderly lady who was at the church walking down the road.  We stopped and asked if she would like a ride and of course she said yes.

Talking with her it seems that she has lived in Jalpa for her entire life and now lives in a small rancho about 15 kilometers from Jalpa.  Her life is taking care of her family, most of whom still live in Jalpa so she walks into Jalpa on almost a daily basis.  While in Jalpa she will visit with her family and do her grocery shopping and then walk back home.  I would guess she was happy to get a ride from three gringos and shorten her long walk.

Upon leaving Jalpa the road changes from modern construction methods to those used in years past, empedrado and dirt.  These road really do slow your speed down as the empedrado is very bumpy and the dirt roads were very muddy from all of the recent rains.

 

After what seemed like a long while driving on the empedrado and dirt roads we came to this small outdoor alter which looks like it celebrates mass only on the 6th of May at 8:30.  It was in the middle of nowhere but it was so cute that we just had to stop and take some photos.

 

Continuing on we came to another small pueblo (which we do not know the name of) that was obviously having a festiva soon.  There were these four crosses and all the banners.  Everything looked so joyous and happy.

Slightly after this pueblo we started the decent into Querétaro and the return to large metropolitan problems (over crowding, traffic, etc.).  However for a couple of hours we were able to transform ourselves back to the country as it existed many years ago.  Yes there were some cars but most people traveled by foot or burro and they were not worried about the latest fashions, crisis on wall street or other world events, but only about their families and friends.  It was a great trip.