WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO?
Zacatecas
During
your stay in this city, stroll its streets, plazas and lanes full of history
and enormous architectural richness. They will transport you back in time to
the era of La Colonia, when Zacatecas converted it into one of the most important cities in
the region thanks to its vigorous mining activity. Then take an excursion
through the route known as El Edén-La Bufa, that
begins in the tunnel Esperanza (Hope) in El Edén
mine. There you can board a train that
runs the entirety of the 600 meter (1,969 feet) tunnel and will allow you to see the innermost parts
of the earth while discovering spectacular rock formations. It passes various
drop-off points before arriving at an elevator that will take you 36 meters (118 feet) to the El Grillo mine
gallery. There you will encounter the cableway station that will take you to
the top of Cerro de La Bufa, from where you will have a magnificient
view of the Zacatecan capital. Later on, visit the Plaza
de la Revolución
Mexicana
(Plaza of the Mexican Revolution) where you will find statues of Pancho Villa, Pánfilo Natera and Felipe Ángeles. Also
stop by the chapel Capilla de la Virgen del Patrocinio,
the Observatorio Meteorológico
(Meteorological Observatory), and the Mausoleo de los
Hombres Ilustres (Mausoleum of Illustrious Men). If
the trip to the Bufa sparked your appetite, look for
a restaurant and order asado de boda
(chopped pork loin bathed in a red sauce of ancho chili peppers) accompanied
by a mezcal de Huitzila
(an alcoholic beverage distilled from the agave plant). Later, find your way to
the city square to visit the Cathedral, a Baroque style monument with three
aisles and Neoclassic alters, and also the church Templo
de Santo Domingo that houses eight Baroque altarpieces carved in wood.
Yet another site is the Museo Pedro Coronel, a museum housed in the former headquarters of the
school Colegio de la Compañía de Jesús. To
end the day on a good note, go into any restaurant in the city and dine on a
mouth-watering bowl of the pozole rojo (a regional red version of the hominy soup) along
with an ice-cold beer.
