Exploring the highlights of Sierra Gorda, Queretaro y San Luis Potosi

From our home base in San Miguel de Allende, we took a 3-day excursion into the Sierra Gorda mountains, which form part of the Sierra Madre Oriental (Eastern Sierra Madre) mountain range.  The Sierra Gorda contains many square miles of preserve and is highly diverse in terms of flora and fauna.  Because the mountains are high and limit the amount of ambient moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico from traversing the whole area, the eastern parts of the sierra are generally much more moist and green, while the further west you go, you find the vegetation to generally become scrubbier with arid conditions.  However, it is hard to generalize, as the sierra is full of micro-climates for each hill and valley.  At high altitudes, there is an abundance of evergreen trees, and encino oak trees. 

Day 1 - Driving through the steep mountains on switchback roads, we got the opportunity to watch the change in vegetation first hand as we changed between elevations and from one side of a mountain to another. The vistas were spectacular.  The drive was white-knuckle inducing, depending on the particular curve or traffic nearby.  We left San Miguel early, at about 6:15 AM and had the opportunity to watch the sun rise as we drove from the comparatively flat regions surrounding San Miguel, past the huge monolith of the Peña de Bernal (see our post from 3 years ago), and on into the wild lands of the Sierra.  We made it in to the heart of the Sierra in the late morning.

Our first stop was hiking up to an outlook called “Mirador de Cuatro Palos” near the town of Pinal de Amoles.  This is one of the highest points nearby (2797 M above sea level), and you could look across the Sierra in many directions, including a nice view of the “Montaña de la Media Luna” mountain. 

The company we hired to provide our tour and transportation has a specific mission to support and enhance the environment of the Sierra Gorda, including the preserving the regions ecology.  One of the ways it does so is by educating the people living in the Sierra about their treasures and how to preserve them, as well as by supporting the sustainable businesses that emerge in the area.  They help through bundling of initiatives so that they can receive grant funding, provide continuing educational support and guidance on how to grow and administer a business through different economic cycles and so on.  As part of this mission, we stopped at a local microenterprise for lunch.  It was a cozy adobe building, with light filtering in through various glass bottles placed in the walls.  Lunch was made fresh upon our arrival, based on selection of what the kitchen had on hand.  What we had was incredibly tasty.  And we followed up our lunch with a bag of locally harvested pine nuts, still in their shells.  The kids were fascinated by the hand washing station (a 5 gallon bucket with a spigot) which would drain into a basin for gray water recycling and the composting toilet behind the restaurant.

After lunch, we hiked along a gorge at a lower level of elevation along the Chuveje river to the nearby waterfall.  Vegetation here was quite different: full of wild fruit trees, flowers, poisonous plants, alamo trees along the river (a type of poplar tree), and numerous wild bromeliad plants (flowering plants, related to the pineapple) in the branches of the nearby trees. 

Finally, we ended day 1 in Jalpan de Serra, a medium sized little town in the Sierra, with the first of 3 Franciscan mission churches that we would visit in the Sierra.  The church was built in the mid 1700’s using local labor in an attempt to evangelize the area.  The original inhabitants of the Sierra Gorda were among those most resistant to religious conversion at the time.

We had the opportunity to explore Jalpan de Serra’s picturesque downtown a bit before retiring to our eco cabins for the night.  These cabins, Centro Tierra, are made of local and sustainable materials: adobe, straw, local woods, etc, and share a location with several classrooms and meeting spaces all in support of increasing awareness about sustainability in the area.  They were at the home base of our tour company, Sierra Gorda Ecotours.

Day 2 began with a tasty breakfast at another local microenterprise in the great outdoors.  One thing I personally noticed both at lunch the day before and at breakfast this morning, was that my coffee tasted a little different than at home.  Turns out that in this region, it is common to mix coffee beans with roasted garbanzo beans and other coffee substitutes.  The result is tasty: nuttier and less acidic than straight coffee beans.  Good; just a bit of a surprise for the taste buds, that sparked a curious conversation with our guide.

From there we drove across the sierra to the Mission Church of Concá.  Of the 3 churches we would visit (5 total in the region), this was the oldest.  What distinguishes from the others, is that the indigenous crew creating the carved stone sculptures on the façade created each art piece in accordance to their personal experience and how they understood the bible stories being shared with them.  For example the faces of the saints bear a strong resemblance to the facial features of the indigenous community.  The depiction of the dog-like dragon being slain at the feet of archangel Michael, doesn’t look like other related depictions found in more traditional European artist renditions.  As we went from mission church to mission church, we could see the similarities in each façade, as well as the evolution of the artistic renditions as the (same) crews adopted more and more European traditional looks to the saints depicted within each edifice.

When we read a little more about the building of the missions during this time, it turned out that the Spanish had been attempting to evangelize Mexico from the early 1500’s onward, but the Sierra Gorda had been one of the areas of greatest resistance.  Each time an effort was made to build a church, the locals would tear it down shortly thereafter, and do away with the religious personnel.  Efforts in the area were renewed in the 1700’s, with an attempt to more or less gently convert the population of these mountains to Catholicism, by sending in additional reinforcements along with the clerical personnel.  Here, the efforts were headed by the Franciscan order.  One asks, what made this geographic region, which is so difficult to traverse and which was so resistant, so tremendously important to the distant crown that they would continue the struggle for over 200 years.  It seems to have boiled down to an economic motivation; the natural resources that were (are) beneath its surface.  It is known, that believed that there are several precious metal veins that lie within the mountain range.

Near Concá, there are several natural springs of water.  What was interesting about this particular spot was that you can watch the water bubble to the surface in several spots, all at the roots of an Ahuehuete tree.  This type of tree generally grows near a water source and can become incredibly wide around. 

Our stop at the natural springs got us thinking a bit more about water, so we followed up with a swim in the Concá river.  The particular spot, las adjuntas, that lends itself to bathing and picnics is immediately before the Santa Maria river meets with the Ayutla.  The Santa Maria is warmer, originating in Guanajuato and shallower and is spring fed.  The Ayutla river runs colder, bluer, and deeper, coming from the mountains.

We were ready for lunch after our swim, so our next stop was at “Casa Ecológica”, a series of little ecological cabins on the outskirts of Jalpan.  We had a lovely lunch with the proprietress, all of locally sourced foods, most (if not all) of which were from her property.  We had an opportunity to discuss her life and construction philosophies, as our lunch extended beyond the planned timeframe.

However, it was incredibly interesting.  The cabins of Casa Ecológica are made of adobe, specifically clay, straw and wood shavings.  Wood shavings are used instead of sawdust, as it seems to hold up better over time.  The roof is of corrugated steel, but under the steel are layers of straw, wood shavings, and carrizo (a type of reed, similar to bamboo).  These additional layers, provide significant ceiling insulation, complementing the natural insulating effects of the adobe, and providing a very comfortable environment.  The foundation of the buildings is of river rock, and were built this way with the guidance of an Argentinian architect.  This ancient technique (in lieu of more common concrete options) provides a natural shock absorption and ability to move with any seismic events.  There is lots of natural light through traditional windows, through glass bottles incorporated all over in the construction, and strategic openings to the great outdoors.  The bathrooms are composting toilets.  Water for showers and so on is collected on site.  We toured at least half a dozen structures during our lunch stop, and the kids quickly voted that they would love to come back on a return trip sometime!

Getting out of there a little later than anticipated, we hit the road for San Juan Duran, which were the next set of Eco Cabins which awaited us for the night.  After about a 3 hour drive through the mountains, we arrived after dark in our high altitude abodes.  Our cabins were clean though a bit more rustic than the last.  Our first reality check that we were truly in an eco zone, other than zero cell signal, was when we searched the cabins for a place to plug in our cell phone chargers so that our dying cell phones would have battery for alarm clocks and cameras early the next day.  No outlets to be found.  A bit surprised, we headed to dinner at the main building, where our mystery was quickly solved.

Our hosts have no electricity running to the establishment.  Instead they rely exclusively on solar power, and have a small battery backup.  When the battery is dead, everything goes dark.  They graciously agreed to let us charge our electronic lifelines on their battery during dinner.  Dinner was incredibly tasty and served by candlelight.  The back kitchen had just a dim LED bulb or two to supplement the candles.  The side kitchen was on candles only.  The warmth of the staff was first class!  Dinner was followed up with a campfire.   We had a very early morning start planned for the next day, so the younger kiddos and mom headed to bed first.  (By this time, the lights in the cabin had run out of battery and we got ready for bed in the dark.)  The older kids hung with dad at the campfire a little longer.  They were having a great time until an unexpected (and unseen in the dark) neighbor noisily joined the conversation.  Juliana and Joshua both flew out of their seats as though their pants had been lit afire, when a donkey started braying immediately behind them.  We were just lucky that it didn’t result in soiled pants.  J  After the initial shock, it provided lots of laughs.

Day 3 – Our third and final day in the Sierra Gorda began well before dawn.  Everyone was up and suitcases packed (in the dark again) in time for a 5AM breakfast appointment.  The clouds had cleared from the sky overnight, providing us with an unprecedented view of the stars.  We headed to a candlelight breakfast of hot coffee, hot chocolate, and hot punch along with sweet breads and said goodbye to our lovely hosts.  We needed to get to a vertical cave in the neighboring state of San Luis Potosi before the cave sparrows would awaken and leave for the day.

After about another hour or two down a set of really rough roads, we arrived to the embarkation point, where we had to hike down about 500 stairs (and boulders) to the mouth of the vertical cave.  There a crowd gathered in near silence waiting for the birds to awaken and take flight for their daily trip to the coast.  This particular vertical cave is home to thousands of cave swallows.  We could hear them in the depths, but you couldn’t see them until they began circling in a corkscrew spiral around the perimeter of the cave on their way up.  Their wings moved so fast, that in our attempts to take their photos, they appear like bugs in the sky.  Only a slow-motion video allowed us to truly watch their movements.  In between the flocks of birds, we had another special treat, and watched a flock of green parakeets exit the cave as well.  After hiking back up to the main road, we headed to our last few stops before heading home.

First was a stop at the Sir Edward James Sculpture Park in Xilitla.  Edward James inherited a fortune during his youth and was a great philanthropist in the area.  It is said he had a very difficult childhood and in his 40’s decided to create a childhood fantasy garden of sculptures.  He kept a large staff of workers busy for many years, paying them many times more than any other employer in the area.  

The garden itself is a work of surrealist art, and it reminds you very much of Alice in Wonderland.  The influence of his friends and contemporaries, such as Dali, Picasso, Escher, as well as Sigmund Freud are abundant.  The park is filled with a wide variety of fantastic plants and the structures are covered in moss and plants, giving them the effect of an ancient and fantastical ruin.

On the way from Xilitla toward our final stop of Landa de Matamoros, at the edge of the Sierra Gorda, there is a spot along the edge of the highway filled with marine fossils.  We made a quick stop to explore the red earth and look for a few fossils along the way.

Our last stop in the Sierra Gorda was the Mission Church of Landa de Matamoros.  Of the 3 mission churches we saw this trip, this was the last of the 3 constructed.  The development of the workmanship is apparent, as the statues on the façade are much more consistent with typical European depictions of the saints.  A lot of the same features and symbols are incorporated into the façade, and each church is uniquely beautiful.

Heading out of the Sierra Gorda, we came away with the realization that this is just yet another of the many hidden treasures available in the region.  It is definitely off the beaten path for the standard tourist, and even many locals in the nearby big cities have never explored the Sierra in depth.  It is another of the places where we felt we had only scratched the surface, and where one could most certainly spend additional time.