Zacatecas

The members of the Spanish language club that came include: Patrick Neimeyer, Ferol White, Carol Sullivan and her daughter--Helen, Robert Buet, Troy Warner, John Stormberg, Christopher Braun, and myself--Charline Wareham. This group certainly had its share of things going awry. It started even before we left, when three of the five of us, who had planned to ride the bus, couldn't get tickets. We quickly altered our plans and caravaned with the others who had already planned to drive. There were several things that didn't go according to plan, but there were several that did, and all of them were fun. It seems to me that the most fun and memorable occasions were the surprises--the things that went wrong.

Everything in the city was within walking distance, if you were ready for the exercise. Then there were the city buses, if you were ready for the "ride." Zacatecas has a trolley that extends between the two bluffs, Cerro de la Bufa and Cerro del Grillo, which overlook the city; this trolley is called the teleferico. You can ride it to get a birds-eye view of all the colonial architecture and magnificent cathedrals. There is also a mini train ride through the famous silver mines of Zacatecas that leads to the trolley station.

Riding the trolly across the city was one of the first things on our agenda. The map of Zacatecas is very easy to read, and we all decided to meet there later that day. Carol and Helen decided that they wanted to walk to the teleferico. Telling about it later, they both bubbled over with laughter, "Well,... this local man, about sixty, offered to show us the way, so we followed him. We meandered up some narrow winding alleys and under some cyclone fences that had been shaped into arches, I guess, by the traffic of all the locals trailing along there for years. It would seem that it was a short-cut, because we were the first to arrive for the scheduled rendezvous." The group that I was with never made it to that rendezvous; we ended up on the wrong bus, sitting on a dirt parking lot at the edge of town. It was the end of the route, and the driver got off with us still sitting on the bus in a lot with many other busses. He couldn't understand what it was that we were trying to ask him anyway, so he left us to figure out what to do. We did ride the teleferico later in the week.

We took several wild, comical bus rides. Getting to the dirt parking lot at the outskirts of town was quite the "experiencia cultural". When we waved the bus down to get on, the driver came to a complete stop, but was motioning for us to hurry aboard the vehicle. Although we could not understand everything that he said, it was clear that he wanted us to get on-- fast. I grabbed a rail and was trying to dig in my bag for coins as the bus took off. I could not find my coins as the driver was urging us to pay in an agitated voice. I had to hold on as the bus made the turn with the door open.

Troy told us after we finally all paid and sat down, "I had one foot on the bus and one hand hanging onto the handrail when the bus took off. I was literally still hanging out of the door." A little farther down the road, I noticed as we rounded one corner that the driver did not make a stop, but he was at a slow enough pace in his turn that one of his regular riders just jumped off. I am assuming it was a regular rider, because it was done with ease and looked like an everyday event. All four of us riding were amazed; we laughed and talked in our foreign language as if no one could understand us. Probably, no one did.

After a couple of those "amusement park" bus rides, and while we were riding on yet another bus--on our way to the Aztec ruins in La Quemada--John read me a passage from a book that he was reading, Aura, by Carlos Tuentes:

"You've got to be prepared. You put your hand in your pocket, search among the coins

and finally take out thirty centavos. You've got to be prepared. You grab the handrail--the

bus slows down but doesn't stop--and jump aboard."

This is a very accurate portrayal; we did learned to be prepared.

Of course when it comes to things going awry, I have to mention the near-bullfight when we were the stars. Four of us went to see a bull fight, but found that the event had been canceled. We did get to see where the bulls where kept, and we got a private tour behind the scenes. After the employees there opened the arena up to us, the games began. Christopher pranced into the ring, posing for photographs. Then, someone through him a red cape and we got a big surprise.

Zacatecas, Mexico

I have been studying photography at ACC since 1993; in that time, of course, I have studied many other subjects also. One of those subjects was Spanish. I helped form an ACC club that was designed to help us use the language that we were learning. We called our club "Nuestra Tertulia".

This account is of a Spring Break in 1997 when "Our Club" took a pleasurable and educational trip to Zacatecas, Mexico. After looking through information in several books, over a period of several meetings, this is the destination that we, as a club, had decided on for our Spring Break sojourn.

The Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit disclosed these facts:

The state of Zacatecas has a population of about 1.3 million in its area of 73.252 square kilometers in the northern central highlands. This population is centered around the Capitol City by the same name. The cities population is 195,000; its altitude is 2445 meters; and it is known for its silver mines and colonial architecture.