Aquascalientes

If you know some Spanish, you know that Aquascalientes means "Hot Waters." This weekend we ended up going there. It was rather funny how this came to be. We decided we wanted to take a little weekend jaunt somewhere by bus. Considerations were Pozo, Quereterro, and Aquascalientes. We spent much deliberate calculation as to which we would choose. We spun a bottle. :)

Now, some of you who grew up with me in Clarksville, know that our favorite little jr. high game was Spin the Bottle. :) Of course, when we played it then, it was in hopes that the bottle would land on the cute boy we had our eye on, so that we might take a walk around a home together (usually mine), because the parties were often at my home.

This time, Curtis and I were checking out the various bus itineraries when our friend Solomon appeared with his empty coke bottle. While we were standing in front of the bus office, discussing our dilemna, Curtis, saw the bottle and said, "Let's spin the bottle. " That was exactly what we did. :) Each of us represented one city. Ah MX. :) That's about as close as we seem to get to the backpackers we admire, who just hop on a bus and go. :)

It turned out, Aquascalientes was a good choice. You probably haven't heard much about it. We certainly hadn't. Most people seem to bypass it on the way to Zacatecas. Although we want to go there too sometime, it is a little farther than we wished to travel this weekend, so it didn't meet the spin the bottle criteria. :)

Before leaving early Sat. am., we did decide to treat ourselves to a nice motel. We have been staying at the school for 3 weeks with no tv. That part really hasn't bothered us. We get the news by internet. However, although we have a nice size shower here, it was nice to treat ourselves to a room with a larger bed, bathtub, tv, etc...We felt after 3 wks. we deserved a little treat. To tell the truth, Quinta Real was a fantastic place. Our price was around $120 with taxes for the overnight trip, but we are sure in the states it would have been closer to the $300-$400 per night rates we have seen advertised for rooms of the same caliber in Las Vegas, etc... (you know, those we never stay in. :) Not only was the motel and room beautiful (hacienda style), but the food and entertainment were phenomenal. We had the brunch there today and were not only treated to a very reasonably priced, delicious meal in a beautiful setting, but excellent entertainment as well. There was a quartet of one woman with a beautiful voice and 3 men. We enjoyed dining in the beautiful area with the wonderful music so much that we spent quite a bit of time there and ended up buying 2 cds.

One man was playing a musical instrument he had made. It was a small box high enough for him to sit on while he reached between his legs to beat on the front and sides of the "drum. " We are assuming there were different types of chambers inside it to produce several different sounds, (depending on where he would beat it with his hand).

Of course, I am really giving info. in reverse re: our trip. This was how we spent today, prior to returning to Guanjuato. Sat. was when we saw the sites of Aquascalientes, which in it's own rite, had some very interesting things to see and do.

We arrived in Aquascalientes around noon and were provided a name of a restaurant. It was around 1 pm. when we arrived there. They were serving breakfast. Their "lunch" did not start until 2 pm. Thought some of you would find this interesting. :)

Aquascalientes is the home of 2 very famous Mexican artists. One is Saturnina Herran, a woman I truly had not heard of until my Mexican art class. In the Museo de Aquascalientes are several of her paintings and drawings, mainly of Indegenous women of Mexico. They are all quite good.

The other museo we visited was the Museo de Muerte (museum of death) :). Now, at first, we thought we might just bypass this, but after reading the literature, I discovered it actually had lots of Mexican folkart. We decided to go. It was around $1 per person. They honored our teacher status. Wasn't that nice! Again, we were pleasantly surprised with the museo.

This museum consisted of 3 floors of not only Mexican folkart (wooden toys, Catrina skeletons, etc...) but great relics from the Prehispanic ages, some of the codigos the Aztecs had used-(booklike with beautiful drawings) and lots of drawings by Posada, another very famous Mexican artist. He is the one who is famous for all the skeleton figures, such as Catrina, who are enjoying dancing, feasting, life, etc...in the after life. Mexicans like to illustrate life after death in terms of viewing the person (skeletons)continuiing to have fun in the after life. Perhaps it is easier to accept death when thinking in those terms. In each room was a film explaining different artifacts according to the time period. The film was in Spanish; however, I enjoyed it because the man speaking spoke very clearly and I did understand the information.

The Palacio de Gobierno was a beautiful building in itself. It had beautiful arches/architectural design.. It is a 3 story building located around the large plaza, so typical of many larger Mexican cities. There were beautiful murals painted in this building depicting various scenes of Mexican history. In the plaza was the huge Mexican flag with a large statue of the eagle with the snake, nearby. There were the typical iron benches and beautiful fountains, with families enjoying the day.

The first thing we did was take a tour of the city via trolley. This is usually how we like to begin touring cities, to get a broad over-view of the area.

Then, we spent a little time walking around, viewing some of the shops for Quincenera and boda (wedding) dressses. We decided to take some pics to email April, our son's fiance, just so she could have an idea of the type of dresses made here. I would always go in and ask the shop keeper if she minded. They were more than gracious. The funniest thing was seeing Curtis taking off his shoes, per shopkeeper request, and slipping behind the manequins, to take pics of the dressses. :) That is another story in itself. :) Don't think he would do that for just anyone, April. :) Amor desde MX., Joy