Further Adventures in Zacatecas

In Guadalupe, the next town adjacent to Zacatecas, one finds the Ex-Convent of Guadalupe. Now looking in my guidebook, it appears that this place and not the Ex-Convent of San Francisco, was the place that all the missionaries were trained. The ones that went north and founded Santa Fe, San Diego, San Antonio, etc.

And this makes sense because, as John the Wisconsin dairy farmer that I ran into at the ticket-booth, pointed out--the big paintings of scenes from the Bible look as if they could have been used as a means of religious instruction for illiterates. Anyway, there were a lot of paintings, many of the ones upstairs featuring the Virgin of Guadalupe as you might expect in a convent named after Guadalupe and located in the town of Guadalupe. I guess there was quite a bit of this attraction that John and I did not see, as parts of it were being remodeled and I think other parts we missed because of ignorance and not having a guide. I might have asked the attendant, but as we were leaving he was busy stowing things in lockers and attending to a group of schoolkids who had just arrived. Anyway he let us in for free because parts of the museum were closed. The ride from Zacatecas to Guadalupe is a bargain, too, just three and a half pesos. I caught up with this bus on Lopez Mateos, across from Hotel Maria Conchita and near the old bus station which has scandalously been converted to private use and making money for the corrupt and privileged few with no regard for the greater good of the community (according to a malcontent whose sign-laden pickup truck was parked in front of the governor's palace every day last week).

Zacatecas state, by the way, has a lady governor of the Perredista party, which kind of surprised me because I thought the more prosperous northern areas of Mexico were supposed to be mostly Panistas. But maybe the rural farmers outnumber the city-dwellers. And come to think of it, maybe the young idealistic students (there are three universities) side with the PRD. Who knows? Better shut up or they won't let me back in the country.

Anyway, John and I wound up staying at the same hotel and although he wasn't really as much fun to hang out with as the Australian hippie back-packers or the rugby-playing chilangos, we did take manage to visit the Museo Zacatecano together, which is about 75% Huichol yarn-paintings or appliques or whatever, collected over several years by a fellow named Enrique Martin ( which I kept hearing as RICKY Martin). Anyway, back in 1942, this Martin character supposedly made a deal to sell of of these yarn-painting deals to some private concern in Colorado for the ridiculous price of $8000, but the governor of Zacatecas nixed the deal and they wound up in this museum. I say supposedly because our guide said a lot of things that didn't sound really very likely, such as the Huicholes feed raw pumpkins to male infants and the ones who throw up or get diahrea are killed. So they wind up with lots more girls than boys and each adult male (12 and up) can marry as many as seven women. And a bunch of stuff about his childhood and background and present circumstances that seemed incredible and as if he was angling for a larger tip than he otherwise might have got. Well, we both gave him 20 pesos but I don't really feel like a sucker because he did spend about 45 minutes with us and he seemed like a nice enough fellow and probably at least about 25% of what he said might have been true. It probably sounds better if you've got a gutfull of peyote, though.