As we were saying, we got into Zacatecas and hit the streets to see this lovely town, which was a major mining town that the Spanish jumped on with relish. Silver in them thar hills, you know.
The hotel of the day is the Casa de la Moneda, which means the mint, as it sits on the grounds once occupied by the mint. Not your world class hotel, but it sure had location, location, location. It was right in the heart of the historic centro.
We got up bright and early to head off to the day's activities, which were to visit La Cerro de la Bufa and the Eden Mine. Here are Noemi and Sara Gutierrez, Magaly Rios, and Edith Lopez all dressed up in their "roughing it" clothes. They had sweaters along for the mine.
When we got to the top of the mountain the first thing we saw were three statues showing heroes of the battle of Zacatecas which was fought in 1913-14. This is Poncho Villa, the leader of the rebel forces. That's Tim Arlitt in front of him to give you some idea of the scale of the statue.
We toured the museum of the battle of Zacatecas. Here are Erika Flores, Robert Zamora, Clarissa Ramirez, Magaly Rios (kneeling), Robert Treviño, Edith Lopez,, Fernando Ruiz (black cap), Sara and Noemi Gutierrez. They are gathered around a cannon that was used by the Federal forces to run the rebels out of town.
Erika and Robert decided they should climb to the top of the Bufa, so off they went. Some guys gave them the bright idea and they made it all the way to the top.
Pretty soon, Jessica Carrejo and Melissa Guerrero were climbing too.
Tim Arlitt and Robert Treviño actually made it to the top. Here they are on the way down.
Here's a view taken from the Cable car we took down to the other side of town where we could enter the Eden Mine.
We walked over to the entrance and waited for our guide to take us into the mine.
After a 40 minute tour we stopped to wait for the train to haul us out of the mine. The mine guide is the guy shown in the grey shirt with the name tag.
Most of us caught the bus and went down to tour the historic Quinta Real, a five star hotel that was built in the old bull ring there. The aquaduct that was built to bring water down from the mountain for the town in the 17th century is shown.
Just couldn't resist the beauty of this picture. The aquaduct taken from just in front of the hotel.
A bunch of starving kids (an one old professor) found a wonderful place to eat lunch for only four bucks. Here, Magaly is faced with making decision about what to eat…next.
On the left we see Erika offering the guys further up the hotel a bottle of soda since they were obviously thirsty, but they had some of the product from the Modelorama.
Posted on 5/16/2001
