Learning Our Way Around a New City, Querétaro

We've been in Querétaro for a week now and have gone to a few museums. The old palaces that house the museums are more impressive than the collections.

Based on nothing more than a poster advertising a dance festival called Oximoron, we went to see a performance by Genius for Anjali Dance Company from England. In Spanish, the program described five scenes that would illustrate through dance important episodes in the life of Beethoven: the discovery of the child prodigy, his training, exposure to Hayden and Mozart, his mother's death from tuberculosis, his own eventual hearing impairment. 

The curtain rose to show a three-sided room, open toward the audience and made of 20 foot long vertical strands of tinsel, illuminated by colored lights. Dancers who weren't particularly athletic or graceful entered the tinsel-walled room and struck poses, then went back to the other side of the tinsel. The dancers were dressed in black shirts and shorts, with black knee-high socks, black bow-ties and red gloves. The entering and exiting went on for about 15 minutes. Then some of the dancers bit the necks of other dancers. We're thinking, what does this have to do with Beethoven? Then it was over, the dancers took a bow, left the stage, and returned to the stage several more times for several more joyous bows. Then the lights went up and a 20 minute intermission was announced.

Years ago, my siblings and I gave my father a certificate stating that a star had been named for our family. My father's reaction in his Maine accent was, "Whaught is the puhpose of this supposed to be?" Steve and I have found that question handy on numerous occasions, and when the intermission was announced, we looked at each other and asked that question. 

We noticed there were some people with Down Syndrome in the audience, and unlike us, they were not baffled by the performance at all. They were enthusiastically circulating and chatting with other patrons. We decided if there was going to be a 20 minute intermission between each incomprehensible scene of Beethoven's life, we would only last for one more scene at most. 

Finally the auditorium went dark and the curtain went up again. The tinsel room was gone.  Now the dancers were dressed in white, in sort of 18th century costumes. An announcer stated in English what we had read in the program about the scenes from Beethoven's life. This made a little more sense. We stayed to the end, but left still confused. 

I looked up this dance company later and found it is composed of people with learning disabilities. Prestigious choreographers have created works for them and heaped lots of praise on them. And I finally learned the tinsel room dance was not about Beethoven, it was called Bloodsucker and it was about vampires. Okay then. 

Yesterday was a splendid day. We hired a guide named Rodrigo to take us to the Sierra Gorda, a nature preserve a few hours east of Querétaro. Rodrigo has taught Spanish in Rhode Island and Florida, as well as teaching Peace Corps volunteers in México. So his English is very good. He also speaks French, and gave a lecture in French to some young people from France the day before our trip.

We knew that we wanted water shoes (zapatos acuaticos) to wear in the river we would be visiting, and we went to five stores in Querétaro looking for them the day before our trip to Sierra Gorda. This odyssey involved a search of three stores in the historic district followed by taxi ride to a spectacular mall, which was out of everything but three pair of children's zapatos acuaticos in pink. We ended up back at the first store and bought two pair that are a little too large. We hope they stay on when we walk in the river. 

As we left the city, we passed many miles of factories. The air was filled with smog. Our first stop was Peña de Bernal, the third highest monolith in the world after Gibraltor in Spain and Sugar Loaf in Brazil. Even though it was 9:30 by the time we got to the sweet little town of San Sebastián Bernal, it was still covered with fog. Rodrigo said he had been to this town hundreds of times, and had never seen Peña de Bernal obscured by fog. 

We started climbing and for about an hour we had the place to ourselves. There were some stone steps, but at times we walked across slick rock covered with powder that made it sort of scary. It's only about 7/10 mile to the end of the trail, but the elevation change is about 690 feet, so it's pretty steep, with some parts that I did on hands and knees so I wouldn't have so far to fall, but I never did fall. For you Tucsonans, this is about the same elevation change as Tumamoc Hill, but in one half the distance. It's vertiginous. The fog cleared and we could see mountain ranges many miles away beyond the villages and a huge gravel mine.

We went as far as we could go without climbing gear. When we got to the end of trail, other tourists started arriving, and they happened to be the French people Rodrigo lectured the day before. The French did a lot of hooting and hollering the whole time they were on the monolith, and I told Rodrigo they are as noisy as Americans. He said the French were always like that. I didn't know that. 

After our descent, we had a wonderful lunch in a cafe in Bernal. Gorditas stuffed with mushrooms, nopales and cheese, plus some beautiful flat blue corn tamales made with sour cream. 

Then we started the long winding drive up into the mountains to Sierra Gorda. It's like driving up Mt Lemmon in Tucson: we went from desert with magueys (used to make mescal, tequila and a sweet drink called pulque),  agaves and huge cactus with dozens of arms, like organ pipes, into scrub oaks, then the pines. Our destination was Río Escanela and Puente de Dios (Bridge of God).

This area is mostly undeveloped, with pine-covered mountains descending thousands of feet into narrow river channels occupied by villages of indigios who scrape out a living by charging access fees and selling handcrafts to tourists. 

We spent so much time at Bernal, Rodrigo was concerned we wouldn't be able to get into Río Escanela because we arrived at 3:45. The indigios were gracious and changed us 50 pesos ($2.75) for a guide to take us along their gorgeous river to a sight that was more amazing than we expected.

The water in the river is clear, and where white sand has settled out, it looks turquoise, which I usually associated with travertine, but Steve said it's due the manganese or magnesium in the water. It's always handy too have a geologist along on a hike. At the spot shown in the photo above, the river is about nine feet deep and people jump off this walk way into it. We were too hurried to get to the bridge to be able to do that.

We crossed the river on several rickety plank bridges and crawled through a few tunnels in the stone cliffs on the side of the river. Finally, after about a mile, we arrived at Puente de Dios. It looks like a cave with drapery stalactites, and water gushing from the ceiling, but now the cave is open at both ends, and the river flows through it. We went under the bridge, which straddles the river for about 100 feet, and waded into the river up to our knees. We were enthralled. 

When the sunlight comes in both sides of the bridge, the sandy river bottom reflects the light to the roof of the bridge and it glows.

I walked a bit in the river wearing my leather tennies before I switched to the water shoes we purchased with great difficulty in Querétaro.  Today I had my tennies cleaned while sitting in Plaza de Armas listening to a saxophonist play jazz at nearby restaurant. The shoe shiner did a great job for $1.50. They weren't this shiny when they were new. 

Most of the restaurants and many stores here have signs posted at the entrance stating the are looking for help. They are very specific in their ageism. Waiter or waitress aged 18 to 25. Cook aged 20 to 30. I'm glad I don't have to look for a job in México.