Sights in Mexico
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Playa La Entrega
Playa La Entrega lies toward the outer edge of Bahía de Santa Cruz, a five-minute lancha trip or 2.5km by paved road from Santa Cruz. This 300m beach, backed by a line of seafood palapas, can get crowded, but it has calm water and good snorkeling on a coral plate from which boats are cordoned off - although the coral is in danger of being smothered in silt churned up by the cruise ships entering the bay.
'La Entrega' means 'The Delivery': here in 1831, Mexican independence hero Vicente Guerrero was handed over to his enemies by a Genoese sea captain. Guerrero was taken to Cuilapan near Oaxaca and shot.
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Museo Arqueológico de Campeche & Fuerte de San Miguel
This stunning colonial fortress is home to an excellent archaeological museum, where you can see objects found at the ancient Mayan sites of Calakmul, Edzná and Jaina, an island north of the city once used as a burial site for Mayan aristocracy. Among the displays are stunning pieces of jade jewellery and exquisite vases, masks and plates.
The star attractions are the jade burial masks from Calakmul. Also displayed are stelae, seashell necklaces and clay figurines. Equipped with a dry moat and working drawbridge, the fort itself is a thing of beauty. The roof deck, ringed by 20 cannons, affords wonderful harbour views.
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Calcehtok Caves
The Calcehtok caves are said by some to comprise the longest dry-cave system on the Yucatán Peninsula. More than 4km have been explored so far, and two of the caves’ 25 vaults exceed 100m in diameter (one has a 30m-high ‘cupola’). The caves hold abundant and impressive natural formations, human and animal remains and plenty of artifacts, including many haltunes (stone basins carved by the Maya to catch water). Archaeologists have found and removed ceramic arrowheads, quartz hammers and other tools, and you can still see low fortifications built by the Maya who sheltered here during the War of the Castes.
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Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso
Built in the 16th century as a Jesuit college, this later became a prestigious teacher-training institute. In the 1920s, Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros and others were brought in to do murals. Most of the work on the main patio is by Orozco; look for his portrait of Cortés and La Malinche underneath the staircase. The amphitheater, off the lobby, holds Rivera’s first mural, La Creación, undertaken upon his return from Europe in 1923. Mural tours (in Spanish) are given at noon and 4pm. Nowadays, the San Ildefonso hosts outstanding temporary exhibitions and houses the Salón Cinematográfico Fósforo of the national university.
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Museo Pedro Coronel
The extraordinary Museo Pedro Coronel is housed in a 17th-century former Jesuit college and is one of provincial Mexico’s best art museums. Pedro Coronel (1923−85) was an affluent Zacatecan artist who bequeathed his collection of art and artifacts from all over the world, as well as his own works. The collection includes 20th-century works by Picasso, Rouault, Chagall, Kandinsky and Miró; some entertaining Hogarth lithographs; and fine ink drawings by Francisco de Goya. There are pre-Hispanic Mexican artifacts, masks and other ancient pieces from all over the world, including some important Japanese screens.
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Quiahuiztlán
You’d want to be buried here too: this pre-Hispanic cemetery is situated on verdant foothills with a sweeping vista of the coast and is guarded by a towering rocky outcrop, locally known as Cerro los Metates. The site has two pyramids, more than 70 tombs (each resembling a small temple) and some carved monuments. It’s a gorgeous, 25-minute walk to the part that overlooks the ocean. Plus, you can experience this sacred Totonac site in solitude and amid nature, unlike other, touristed ruins. If you want to arrive by a Hwy 180 bus, have the driver drop you at the Quiahuiztlán turnoff. From there it’s a pretty 3km walk uphill.
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Casa de Montejo
The Casa de Montejo is on the south side of the Plaza Grande and dates from 1549. It originally housed soldiers but was soon converted into a mansion that served members of the Montejo family until 1970. These days it houses a bank, and you can enter and look around during bank hours. At other times, content yourself with a close look at the facade, where triumphant conquistadors with halberds hold their feet on the necks of generic barbarians (though they’re not Maya, the association is inescapable). Typical of the symbolism in colonial statuary, the vanquished are rendered much smaller than the victors.
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Jardín Juárez
Adjoining the northwest corner of the Plaza de Armas is the smaller Jardín Juárez, where the central gazebo (designed by tower specialist Gustave Eiffel) houses juice and sandwich stands, and hosts live band concerts on Thursday and Sunday evenings from 18:00. Roving vendors sell balloons, ice cream and corn on the cob under the trees, which fill up with legions of cacophonous grackles at dusk.
Even more entertaining are the guitar trios who warm up their voices and instruments before heading to the cafés across the street to serenade willing patrons. You can request a ballad or two for around $75.
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Museo Casa de Juárez
One of the few Mexican national heroes with an unsullied reputation, the great reforming president Benito Juárez (1806−72) was born a humble Zapotec villager in Guelatao, 60km northeast of Oaxaca. His parents died when he was three. At the age of 12, young Benito walked to Oaxaca and found work at the house of Antonio Salanueva, a bookbinder. Salanueva saw the boy's potential and decided to help pay for an education he otherwise might not have received.
Salanueva's simple house is now the interesting little Museo Casa de Juárez. The binding workshop is preserved, along with memorabilia of Benito.
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Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo Chapel
Between 1925 and 1927, Diego Rivera painted murals for the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, an agriculture school just outside Texcoco that occupies the estate buildings of a former hacienda. Two dozen of Rivera’s panels cover the walls and ceiling of the hacienda chapel These sensual tableaux intertwine images of the Mexican struggle for agrarian reform with the earth’s fertility cycles. One depicts buried martyrs of reform symbolically fertilizing the land and thus the future. The curator will give you a brief description (in Spanish) of the murals upon request.
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Basílica de Zapopan
Zapopan’s pride and joy, the Basílica de Zapopan, built in 1730, is home to Nuestra Señora de Zapopan, a petite statue of the Virgin visited by pilgrims year-round. The faithful get extreme during the Fiestas de Octubre, when thousands of kneeling old women crawl behind as the statue is carried here from Guadalajara’s central cathedral. The kneeling pilgrims then make the final trek up the basilica’s aisle to pray for favors at her altar. The Virgin receives a new car each year for the procession, but the engine is never turned on (thus remaining ‘virginal’). It’s hauled by men with ropes.
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Museo Nacional de la Muerte
This is one ‘near death’ experience not to be missed. The Museo Nacional de la Muerte exhibits all things relating to Mexico’s favorite subject – death – from the skeleton La Catrina to historic artifacts. Over 1200 artifacts are on display. They span several centuries, from Mesoamerican to contemporary artistic interpretations, across seven rooms. In the bowels of a recently discovered cistern, a miniature crystal skull is on display. It’s believed to be from Aztec times and there are only two in the world. This wonderful place is far from macabre but a colorful, humorous and insightful encounter.
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Sima de Las Cotorras
Located inside the Reserva de la Biosfera Selva El Ocote, the Sima de Las Cotorras is a dramatic 160m-wide sinkhole that punches 140m down into the earth. In the early morning, a green cloud of screeching parrots spirals out for the day, trickling back before dusk. With binoculars you can see a series of red pre-Hispanic rock paintings that decorate one side of the cliff face, and you can also hike or rappel down inside this intriguing subterranean hole. Lodging is available, as well as a good restaurant serving scrumptious tamales and handmade tortillas.
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Antiguo Palacio del Ayuntamiento
The two buildings on the south side of the Zócalo may look similar with their stately arcades and handsome carved window frames, but the Ayuntamiento (the one on the right) predates its twin by over 400 years. The mayor has his office there, while various city departments occupy the east building. Recently restored and opened for public viewing, the grand Salón de Cabildos, on the upper level of the Ayuntamiento, was the place where the city council traditionally convened to settle local disputes. The entry hall contains a gallery of portraits of all 62 Spanish viceroys.
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Templo La Valenciana
Near the mine is the stunning Templo La Valenciana (aka Iglesia de San Cayetano). One legend says that the Spaniard who started the mine promised San Cayetano that if it made him rich, he would build a church to honor the saint. Another says that the silver baron of La Valenciana, Conde de Rul, tried to atone for exploiting the miners by building the ultimate in Churrigueresque churches.
Whatever the motive, ground was broken in 1765, and the church was completed in 1788. Templo La Valenciana's facade is spectacular, and its interior dazzles with ornate golden altars, filigree carvings and giant paintings.
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Casa de las Tortugas
To the right at the top of the stairs is the Casa de las Tortugas, which takes its name from the turtles carved on the cornice. The Maya associated turtles with the rain god, Chac. According to Maya myth, when the people suffered from drought so did the turtles, and both prayed to Chac to send rain.
The frieze of short columns, or 'rolled mats,' that runs around the temple below the turtles is characteristic of the Puuc style. On the west side of the building a vault has collapsed, affording a good view of the corbeled arch - remember that the Maya never mastered keystone arch design - that supported it.
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Museo Textil de Oaxaca
Of the many colonial-era museum renovations, this new textile museum is one of the city’s best, focusing on preserving Oaxaca’s traditional textile crafts through exhibitions, educational programs, bilingual lectures and weaving workshops. The elegant collection of global weaving traditions is world class. Entry, lectures and workshops are free, though some classes have a materials fee and a limit of 15 students. Travelers hunting for one of the region’s brilliant textile pieces should inquire here for advice on weavers who use sustainable methods and endangered natural fiber dying processes.
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Las Nubes
A bit of a trek but well worth it, Las Nubes is a heavenly retreat among scores of cascades and rapids on the turquoise Río Santo Domingo. Some of the river pools are great swimming spots – it’s M$10 per person to swim here if you’re not staying the night. A swinging bridge straddles a fierce section of water-carved canyon, making an excellent vantage point from which to swoon over the grandest waterfalls. There’s an adrenaline-pumping zip-line (M$50), and you can spelunk and rappel from February through June. A 15-minute hike up to a mirador rewards you with blue-green jungle views.
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Av Revolución
Virtually every visitor to Tijuana has to experience at least a brief stroll along raucous Av Revolución, also known as 'La Revo'. It's a mishmash of nightclubs, bellowing hawkers outside seedy strip bars, brash taxi drivers, tacky souvenir stores, street photographers with zebra-striped burros, discount liquor stores and restaurants.
If you're walking north to south but find the sensory assault from high-tech sound systems too overwhelming to return the same way, try the more conventional shopping street of Av Constitución, paralleling La Revo one block west. It has a far more local flare.
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Templo Mayor
Before the Spaniards demolished it, the Teocalli of Tenochtitlán covered the site where the cathedral now stands and the blocks to its north and east. It wasn’t until 1978, after electricity workers happened on an eight-ton stone-disc carving of the Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui, that the decision was taken to demolish colonial buildings and excavate the Templo Mayor. The temple is thought to be on the exact spot where the Aztecs saw their symbolic eagle, perching on a cactus with a snake in its beak – the symbol of Mexico today. In Aztec belief this was, literally, the center of the universe.
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Museo de Arte Sacro
Convento de San Francisco de Asís in Conkal now houses the new Museo de Arte Sacro. This is a small but well-done museum of religious art and artifacts, including 18th- and 19th- century altarpieces and carvings of saints, good historical and archaeological exhibits detailing the foundation (and later restoration) of Yucatán’s monasteries, and contemporary profane and religious artwork. Some of the latter is surprisingly racy. All labeling is in Spanish. Be sure to check out the architecture of the convent itself, including the noria (irrigation system) out back.
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Playa Médano
Cabo San Lucas has three main beaches. The most popular is Playa Médano, which runs northeast for about 3km (2 miles) from the Hacienda Beach Resort (under renovation). The water is crystal clear and calm, making it ideal for swimming (or, as the case may be, wading with a margarita glasses in hand). Buoyed swimming areas keep the jet skis, parasailers and fishing pangas away from the swimmers (at least in theory), and cruise ships float off shore.
With several bars right on the beach, it's a great place to chill out, pound your favorite cocktails and basically feel merry in the sun.
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Parroquia de la Purísima Concepción
Álamos’ parish church is the tallest building in town. It was built between 1786 and 1804 and despite having only one tower, bears a resemblance to the slightly earlier ‘White Dove of the Desert’ mission church in Tucson, Arizona. The altar rail, lamps, censers and candelabra were fashioned from silver, but were all ordered to be melted down in 1866 by General Ángel Martínez after he booted French troops out of Álamos. Seven or so subterranean passageways between the church and Álamos mansions – probably escape routes for rich families in times of attack – were blocked off in the 1950s.
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Cañón de la Huasteca
About 10km west of Monterrey’s city center, this spectacular canyon is studded dramatically with 300m-tall rock formations and gorgeous desert landscapes. It’s astounding that such isolated, sublime natural space can be so near a major city. Close to the entrance, the picnic area and swimming pool get very busy at weekends, but take a walk (or drive or bicycle ride) up the paved road into the canyon and you’ll likely have more peace and quiet. If you want to bike through the canyon, tour operators can provide guides and hobbling rentals. There are both pavement and dirt tracks to ride.
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Parque Ecológico Chipinque
Stretched along a mountainside with a knife-like ridge at the south edge of the city, this park is the most accessible section of the Parque Nacional Cumbres de Monterrey, offering urbanites ample opportunities for hiking and mountain biking. You’ll be quite amazed that such a fantastic, well-maintained nature park is so near the city. The 36km of trails are lovely, and it doesn’t take long to get into some pretty dense pine and oak forest. Butterflies are particularly prolific here, with 174 species represented. Rappelling and ‘mini-bungee’ jumping are also offered.
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