on the road: 45th Anniversary - Alamos, Sonora, Mexico

For our 45th wedding anniversary, we decided to take a vacation from our vacation and head south and east to Alamos in the Sierra Madre mountains. It is about a 4 hour trip, traveling through the big cities of Ciudad Obregon (very industrial) and Navajoa (very agrricultural) and a few small towns. The roads were great - not perfect, but very good.

Coronado camped here in the mid 1500s, unaware that there were rich silver deposits underground. Until the 20th century, the silver mines created a wealthy and prosperous mining center here. Alamos was an important waystation on the famous Camino Real that connected Santa Fe, New Mexico with Mexico City. It is what I would imagine San Miquel de Allende might have been many years ago. We ran into very few Americans, the streets are still dirt or cobblestone, the buildings are untouched by modern architecture and it has a rich social and cultural life.

December 13, 1969-December 13, 2014
It's been a great ride!

We had no trouble getting to Alamos except for nearly colliding with crazy drivers in the cities. When we got to Alamos, I did not have the directions with me for our hotel and couldn't remember the name very well (geez, it's a bummer getting old!). We thought it would be easy since it was a small town and it was the best hotel in town. Not so! We wandered around very narrow streets, ended up on one too many one-way streets going the wrong way, asked for directions from dozens of people who tried their best to understand us gringos to no avail. We were on the verge of losing it, (which would have been a major drag), when we came upon Umberto, a taxi driver, for the third time. He could see our frustrated faces, pulled us over and somehow managed to tell us to stay put while he wandered around trying to find someone who spoke English. He came back with a distinguished looking Mexican gentleman, whom we had seen standing on the balcony of a hotel (not ours!) several times while meandering around town. He knew exactly what I was talking about, said that the taxi driver would lead us there and YES!, he did! Whew! We tipped him 100 pesos (about $6.80 - we were told to tip him 30 pesos)- it was worth $100 to us!

The hotel is the Hacienda de los Santos and they have a B and B annex called the Posada Tacubaya (cheaper and dog friendly!). We were ecstatic-it was everything we had hoped for.

Our room-The Bugambilia

Our hallway- a huge room with our own bath
which was almost as big as the room

The courtyard

The pool

One of the sitting areas in the Posada-we had a fire here one night.

Christmas tree in the entrance to the Posada

More courtyard area

We had a pinyon fire in the room and even had a dog
bed here when we arrived! Note where Boo chose to sleep!

When we first got to our room, we needed a margarita or two before we could relax, so walked a few blocks to a delightful little place called Teresita's Panaderia and Bistro (dog friendly, of course). After finally calming our nerves with a BIG margarita, we ordered a wonderful Chile en Nogada for lunch and relaxed on the patio by a wall of waterfalls and had a great conversation with the owner, Teri, who is just delightful.

Teri is American and has lived here for 25 years. She started
out selling baguettes and now runs a B and B, a bakery and
a restaurant. She advertises, "....don't leave your dog at home.
We love dogs!" YES!

The rock wall waterfall and patio area

We had our own little sitting area on the patio.
I love that door in the background. And it
must be beautiful here at night with the lights
on the umbrellas.

After one more margarita, we headed home, took a nap (I wonder why!) in our fabulous room and then went down to the plaza for the night's celebration. The whole town was celebrating with us.

Dinner at La Portal
That's the church in the background. Alamos is known
for these portales, columned verandas.

This weekend happens to be the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is believed that a man named Juan Diego encountered the Virgin Mary on a hillside. Mary asked Juan to tell the bishop to build a church in Mexico City. The bishop, not believing Juan, asked to see a miracle to prove the truth of what he had seen. When Juan returned to the hill, he saw roses, instead of cacti, where the Virgin had stood and brought the roses to the bishop. Juan showed the roses and a likeness of the Virgin on his cloak to the bishop who now believed him and built the church, as instructed. It is believed that the Virgin spoke the native Nahautl language to Juan which convinced many indigenous people to convert to Catholicism because of this event. I don't know why, but I love this story - who doesn't love a miracle :-)!