A weekend in Alamos

May Day (1st May) is a holiday in Mexico, as is Cinco de Mayo (5th May) so we decided to use the extra long weekend to take a short trip to Alamos, a colonial town a few hours south of us. We have been wanting to go for a while and since time was running out we seized the opportunity.

The drive down was a fairly straight and flat one, passing through a few small towns, but mostly the view was a lot of this:

which was quite nice and peaceful to look out at for a few hours, when the kids weren’t screeching or asking for food.

The traffic was fairly light, but there were a few trucks on the road. We followed this open truck for a while before I realised what was inside

So, after the obligatory ice-cream stop we made it Alamos.

Alamos, founded in the 1600s was once a bustling metropolis, fuelled by silver mines in the region and it used to be the capital of the large province (now 2 states) in the 19th century. It fell into disrepair in the early 1900s following the Mexican revolution but was revived in the late 20th century by American investors who restored many of the old colonial buildings and turned them into museums, hotels and restaurants. It has since become a popular tourist town and an American enclave, many of whom run the tourist industry establishments.

Its a small, quaint town with a large cathedral overlooking the main plaza, cobblestone streets and many, many beautiful haciendas. The houses sit right on the street with arched, full-length windows secured with wrought iron, and open up into gorgeous interior courtyards often with lovely gardens and little pools.

We stayed in a 150 old converted house now operating as a B & B, eclectically decorated and serving yummy breakfasts. (I’ve put some pictures of the food over at my kitchen blog)

We only stayed a few nights so we mostly wandered the cobblestone streets, gawked at the pretty houses and ate. We also spent a fair bit of time in the little pool at the B&B. The weather was milder than at home, but it was still over 35°C every day.

When you’ve been living in a place for a while, you get used to a lot of things that were so noticeable to begin with. Going on holidays in Mexico has often reminded me of some of these things and walking through the Main Plaza and market area of Alamos I noticed again how colourful and alive everything is here. Businesses and families and life in general spill out onto the streets and interact with passers-by, unlike at home where so much happens behind closed doors. People are friendly; they talk to you and smile, and for us in particular, comment on our blonde hair. It’s nice to soak a bit of that up before we leave.

Going to Alamos ticks off another one of the places we wanted to see before we left. Last year we managed to get to Veracruz, Mexico City and Cancun, but I don’t think there’ll be any more holidays now. Of course, there’s loads more places we would have like to visit in Mexico; the train ride in Copper Canyon (said to rival the Grand Canyon) was one we missed out on, but you can’t do everything, I guess.

On the drive home we stopped at the beach for lunch and a dip in the Sea of Cortés. The scenery is always nice there, but after growing up on Perth beaches, we have pretty high coastal standards. A pebbly beach doesn’t rate that high, but the water was refreshing nonetheless. Being in the sheltered Gulf of California, there’s not much in the way of waves, which is great for the kids.

It may well be our last trip to the beach before we leave, so I took the opportunity to visit my favourite Mexican pottery shop to stock up on Talavera, the iconic colourful glazed ceramics that decorate so many houses here (and the house of every tourist who’s visited Mexico).