Exploring the King's Highway in Mexico
Several years ago, Pat and I happened upon Camino Real Heritage Museum between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, NM.
It was an absolute treasure and introduced us to the Mexican portion of the King's Highway that they called the "Camino Real de Tierra Adentro". This museum is located on an isolated mesa overlooking the Rio Grande River valley to the east. We were very impressed with both the displays of the museum and its splendid, panoramic view of mountains to the west and valley to the east. Unfortunately, this museum was closed several years ago before we attempted to make a return visit. As far as I know, it is still closed to visitors. Too bad!
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| King's Highway from Veracruz to Santa Fe |
We had previously been introduced to the Camino Real that passes through Texas into Louisiana and Junipero Serra's trail in California, and had traveled many miles of these trails and visited many of the missions. But, this New Mexican museum made us consider actually following this trail through Mexico -- from Veracruz and then up through Puebla, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Durango, Corralitos, Chihahua, and finally Presidio, Texas. We deviated from the trail between Chihuahua and El Paso, with plans to finish that portion on some future trip.
https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/El_Camino_Real_de_Tierra_Adentro/map_Mexico_Historic_Sites.html.
"El Camino Real's story begins with the 1546 discovery of a large silver vein in Zacatecas, Mexico. Twenty-seven years earlier, Hernán Cortés and his Spanish army had invaded Mexico, defeating the mighty Aztec Empire to control the region they called New Spain. The Spaniards’ mission was twofold: to exploit the region’s mineral wealth and to convert its native populations to Christianity. News of the rich mineral deposits at Zacatecas drew Cristóbal de Oñate, a Spanish soldier and aide to Cortés, 200 miles north from Guadalajara to develop the site."
It was a long, hot road for us but only took us a few weeks -- whereas, up to 6 months was required by the Spaniards on foot, horseback or wagons.
We began this 2008 adventure in Veracruz where the highway begins and where Winfield Scott landed his troops in the War with Mexico. He shelled the city into submission without actually invading it.
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| Assault of Veracruz |
Pat and I explored the Veracruz harbor and found a group of jolly teenagers who readily posed for a photo.
Back in 2002, we had traveled the King's Highway as we left the Gulf coast of Mexico and climbed into the mountains through the city of Orizaba and then to Puebla where we rested for a few days. We entered this large metropolitan building to find a group of youngsters dancing some kind of formal Mexican dances. We found it very entertaining and colorful.
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| Pat pointing to Popocatepetl |
We obtained an excellent view of snowy/smoky Popocatepetl volcano before entering the outskirts of Mexico City. There the traffic police stopped us and tried to steal our motorhome. See:
https://winisterling.blogspot.com/2008/09/bad-day-in-mexico.html for the sordid details.
After finally escaping the Mexican City Traffic Cops, we left the King's Highway and returned to Texas through San Luis Potosi and Monterrey.
Then, in 2008, we again rejoined the King's Highway on our way north from Southern Mexico and visited the attractive, colonial city of Guanajuato where we worried that our motor-home would not fit in the many city tunnels. So, we skirted around the downtown tunnels till we found this Morril RV Park, where we had this splendid view of the city.
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| Morril RV Park view |
After several days in Guanajuato, we began the longest and driest stretch of the King's Highway. Along the way it was possible to sometimes see the old cobblestone road that was used for hundreds of years.
Freight wagons on the highway -- back when.
And, we saw lots of ganado (cattle) and vaqueros cowboys) in the pastures and along the road.
And, long, high-desert highways where we sometimes chased dust devils.
At Zacatecas we found one of the best RV Parks in Mexico at the Hacienda del Bosque Hotel.
Then it was on to Durango where the citizens seem to have a love affair with that old bandit, Pancho Villa. Maybe he is revered because he raided the US town of Columbus, NM and then evaded the US Army when they tried to capture him in Mexico. A little revenge for losing the Mexican/American war?
In the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, Durango would be a great scenic and historical place to visit if the cartels were gone.
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| Durango Plaza |
At the town of Hidalgo del Parral, we took a side-trip to Creel and Copper Canyon -- a major tourist stop in Mexico. It was cold.
We saw little of Chihuahua town because we took the loop around it -- then headed for the US border at Ojinaga/Presidio along the Conchos River that runs into the Rio Grande. This river cut this deep Peguis Canyon through geological time to form a "sister" canyon to the Boquillas and Santa Elena Canyons of Big Bend, NP.
When we drove across the border at Presidio, that ended our tour of Mexican portion of the King's Highway. Wish we could do it all again -- almost. We really don't wish to see masked soldiers speeding down the highway in the back of a pickup anymore.
Table of contents: https://winisterling.blogspot.com/2018/01/table-of-contents-asia-europe-latin.html
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