chihuahua, Mexico

¡Ay Chihuahua !


Angelic Chihuahua
Passersby wearing vaqueros hats pass in front of the Governor's Palace of Chihuahua.
Cathedral tour
Chihuahua residents walk past the city's Metropolitan Cathedral.
dark singer
Street singer, on a semi-shady corner of Chihuahua City.
Reflected History
Towers of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Chihuahua reflected in the mirrored surface of a government building.
Pseudo-Street Artist
A street artist with a bad voice but immense attitude, he tries to make a living in the historic center of Chihuahua.
Chihuahua Fashion II
Seller of vaqueros boots and accessories, at the entrance of his store.
Piton boots
Shine shiners add shine to traditional Chihuahua python boots.
angel of freedom
Huge statue of the Angel de la Libertad, above one of the hills that surround Chihuahua.
Ten and Ulloa
Statue of Hispanic settler Deza y Ulloa against the carved facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Ten and Ulloa III
Silhouette of Deza y Ulloa against the glass of a government building in Chihuahua.
Chihuahua fashion
Couple restocks on vaquero clothes at a Chihuahua store.
Rarámuri friends
Two Rarámuri women, next to a mural celebrating Chihuahua and the Rarámuri indigenous culture.
Chihuahua Mural
Mural of a chihuahua dog on the heights of a city building.
"Muralista en Llamas"
Passersby pass by the painting "Muralista en Llamas"
Pachucos Mi Barrio
Chihuahua pachucos dance in the late afternoon.
Rico's Tacos
Pick-up van passes by Rico's Tacos restaurant.
Metropolitan Cathedral
The great church of Chihuahua shines in golden tones against the blue of the post-sunset.
Wall Calle Guadalupe
Another enigmatic mural from the city of Chihuahua.
Jalopy Pancho Villa
The old car in which Pancho Villa was riding when he was shot dead.
Government Palace
Lines and shapes of the interior of the Governor's Palace in Chihuahua.
Mexicans have adapted this expression as one of their favorite manifestations of surprise. While we wander through the capital of the homonymous state of the Northwest, we often exclaim it.

The former Casa Trias who welcomes us is one of the oldest and haciendas oldest in the city.

Not only. Its façade integrates the southeastern limit of the Plaza de Armas, the heart of Chihuahua.

Blessing it, as is supposed in any city with Hispanic colonial origins, the metropolitan cathedral, a majestic Catholic temple and, for centuries on end, towering, for some decades supplanted by the building of the Congress Information Unit.

Despite the architectural outrage, the cathedral preserves its function in the lives of Chihuahuas intact. The bells of the two twin towers mark time by time outside. With such determination that, next door, they serve us as unwanted alarm clocks.

Early in the morning, but with some lapse, due to the elevations to the east, the warm sunlight hits the top of the cathedral and recharges the city for the day ahead.

Piton's Emblematic Boots and the Shoeshineers Who Care for Them

Little by little, shoeshine men take up their posts around the garden in the heart of the square, ready to renew the shine of the python boots with the fact that, in addition to hats, jeans and shirts, a good part of the men in the region make up the looks of jeans traditional manly of northern mexican.

Chihuahua is, in fact, one of the main suppliers of this regional fashion. As soon as we leave the Plaza de Armas for the surrounding commercial streets, we see stores filled with these boots and hats, displayed and promoted like the idolized items they have become.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, Pedigree, Chihuahuense Fashion

As python boots in particular, they are sold and used in a panoply of materials worthy of a vigorous ¡Ay Chihuahua.

We find them in leather, ostrich, crocodile, snake, anteater, armadillo, eel and blankets, among others.

Depending on the materials, the art used and, of course, the brand's reputation and solidity, prices can range from a few dozen to more than three thousand euros a pair.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, fashion Chihuahua IIThe more highly regarded the models, the more the shoe shiners are committed to them.

Sometimes twenty minutes on end, enough for shoe owners to sit back, read half the newspaper and debate the topics of the day, the political scandals, the clashes between cartels and the repercussions of the other, more recent and viral, pandemic.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, shoe shiner

Chihuahua: a City Increasingly Mural in Mexico

We continue along Calle Guadalupe Victoria, out of the Plaza de Armas, towards Hidalgo, another "square" around a statue and garden, justified by the presence of the Government Palace.

We take a last look at the towers of the Metropolitan Cathedral. When we do, we unveil the first Chihuahua Chihuahua.

Instead of the real portable dog and shrill barking that conquered the world, his modernist painting, almost psychedelic, filling the entire facade of a yellowish building.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Chihuahua mural

At the same time, one of the trenzites children that we are used to seeing in tourist villages in northern Mexico.

Days later, we would board the chepe, this yes, a real train, full of history, worthy of one of the most adventurous railways to the face of the earth.

On both sides of the street, there is a succession of shops with a little bit of everything. Spaces, other disparate illustrations contribute to the ambition of the rulers to make Chihuahua a mural city that stands out from so many others in Mexico.

 

The next one we pass, in the shadow of a wall under a concrete slab, has the musical title “Qué Bonito is Chihuahua”. Promotes some of the state's attractions.

Minor villages, a waterfall that we interpret as that of Basaseachi, located in the Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), the second tallest in Mexico, at 246 meters.

In the center, an indigenous person from ethnicity predominant in the mountains and ravines of the state, Rarámuri plays the violin, as if to set the work of art to music.

By chance, when we examine her, two friends of the same ethnicity appear from down the street. They stop there, conversing in their own dialect, each one in a leafy, gaudy, long dress, rising almost to the base of the chin.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Rarámuri friends

Tribute to Alfaro Siqueiros and the Pioneer Muralists

We proceed in reverse directions.

Further down the street, the murals are repeated: the “Muralist in Llamas” by Lizeth Garcia Portillo, shows an imprisoned painter. It is David Alfaro Siqueiros, pioneer of Mexican muralism, along with Diego de Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.

Throughout his life and work, David Siqueiros proved himself an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist, prodigious but fiery. He was accused of attempted murder of Leon Trotsky, for which he was imprisoned and exiled in Chile.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, "Muralista en Llamas"

Upon his return to Mexico, he was sentenced to a few more years in prison, after all, the main and dramatic motif that had caught our attention, on the off-white wall.

Finally, the Calle Guadalupe Victoria leave us with the Gobierno Palace in front of.

When we enter it, we find a large mansion with three terraced floors, an immensity of arches opening onto a central courtyard tiled in grey.

uahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Palacio del Gobierno

The Historical-Political Museum of the Palacio del Gobierno

Around the ground floor, there is an entire museum of Mexican and Chihuahua history, which even has a Altar of the Fatherland dedicated to what is considered his father, Father Miguel Hidalgo.

Here too, murals abound, no more or less than 360m2 of paintings by Aaron Piña Mora. Hidalgo appears in another of them, in the center of a mural that immortalized the moment of his execution, at the hands of a platoon of Spanish soldiers, on July 30, 1811, precisely in Chihuahua.

we leave the Government Palace through the opposite façade to the entrance, straight to Calle Libertad which, there, separates it from another imposing building, formerly the pre-firing dungeon of Miguel Hidalgo.

Today, the building houses the Casa Chihuahua, a museum dedicated to traveling exhibitions.

As we see it, at the entrance, the bronze sculpture of the gorilla "Alter Ego", three meters and a ton, seems to envy the ice cream devoured by a young couple and their two children, sitting on a wall opposite.

We continue in hyperbolic mode, towards Plaza de la Grandeza and its better half, Plaza del Angel, from which a golden angel stands out against the blue sky.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Angel de la Libertad

the last address by Francisco “Pancho” Villa

We got into Av. V. Carranza. We zigzagged at right angles through the city's geometric grid in search of the Casa de Pancho Villa, the last home inhabited by the Mexican revolutionary, with what was considered his wife number twenty-three.

The count has proven to such an extent that the current museum insists on displaying a list of its loved ones.

Unobscured, the house is now owned by the Mexican army.

There are soldiers on guard in the troop of visitors around Villa's numerous belongings, especially the car in which he was following when he was ambushed at the behest of the Mexican president of 1924-28, Elias Calles.

uahua, mexico city, pedigree, pancho villa car

The jalopy remains parked for history in a courtyard of the mansion, pockmarked by the many bullets fired at Villa as he was on his way to a family party taking place in the village of Parral.

It's with a party that we find the Plaza de Armas when we return to it, later in the afternoon.

The fall of dusk reinforces the contours of Antonio de Deza y Ulloa, the founder of Real de Minas in San Francisco de Cuéllar, the city that would give rise to Chihuahua

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Deza y UlloaThe statue in which the governor seems to indicate the place where he ordered the construction of the village is centered between the bandstand at the heart of the garden and the Metropolitan Cathedral, against the detailed lacework of its façade.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Deza y Ulloa

On the opposite side of the garden, hundreds of residents and visitors share a pagan celebration of the day and life that contrasts with the ecclesiastical solemnity inside the church.

To the Rhythm of the Pachucos Dances of Chihuahua

Leads the movement the duo of pachucos Mi Bárrio, active and motivated as never before, after several months were barred from animating the square due to the pandemic.

Sergio Boy, generates and inspires mambo steps and other rhythms, in bright outfits and zoot fashions.

Mi Barrio and the pachucos they are often survivors of the Mexican heirs – especially El Paso – of the gang subculture that proliferated in the United States during the 30s. Sergio Boy invites spectators to participate.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Pachucos

At spaces, he interrupts the elegant dances to produce another unusual Selfie, with a small SLR aimed at itself. Meanwhile, dancers from other collectives inaugurate parallel dances.

The Uncontrollable Sweetness of Chihuahua

We circle around, excited by the city's unexpected popular exuberance. We passed by stands of elotes (cooked corn on the cob) of churros, tacos and other snacks.

One of them is surrounded by candied fruits of all colors and shapes, resplendent in double due to the incandescent lighting that emanated from the interior. As we approached, we noticed that a huge swarm of bees, attracted by the sweetness and intoxicated by the light, had taken over the apparently deserted stall.

Upon realizing our presence, Javier, the owner, questions us. Polite, strives to sell. When we asked him what the beekeeping phenomenon was, he shrugs his shoulders and bursts out laughing.

“Qué quieren que haga? I am your slave. Come and go when you want. They only stung me once. Here!” and shows us a swelling in the head.

A family appears, determined to oblige the kids. Pressured to win the day, Javier reenters the bank. To our amazement, he serves them the sweets and passes them change among hundreds of bees in a crazy orbit. Return to the outside unharmed.

There, as in its old Plaza de Armas, Chihuahua surrenders at night and in the footsteps of happiness of the Chihuahua people.

Chihuahua, Mexico City, pedigree, Metropolitan Cathedral

Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), Chihuahua, Mexico

The Deep Mexico of the Barrancas del Cobre

Without warning, the Chihuahua highlands give way to endless ravines. Sixty million geological years have furrowed them and made them inhospitable. The Rarámuri indigenous people continue to call them home.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

The Home Sweet Home of Mexican Social Conscience

Mayan, mestizo and Hispanic, Zapatista and tourist, country and cosmopolitan, San Cristobal has no hands to measure. In it, Mexican and expatriate backpacker visitors and political activists share a common ideological demand.
Yucatan, Mexico

The End of the End of the World

The announced day passed but the End of the World insisted on not arriving. In Central America, today's Mayans watched and put up with incredulity all the hysteria surrounding their calendar.
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
San Cristóbal de las Casas a Campeche, Mexico

A Relay of Faith

The Catholic equivalent of Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Guadalupe moves and moves Mexico. Its faithful cross the country's roads, determined to bring the proof of their faith to the patroness of the Americas.
Champoton, Mexico

Rodeo Under Sombreros

Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.

Mexico City, Mexico

mexican soul

With more than 20 million inhabitants in a vast metropolitan area, this megalopolis marks, from its heart of zócalo, the spiritual pulse of a nation that has always been vulnerable and dramatic.

Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico

From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes

On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
Mérida, Mexico

The Most Exuberant of Meridas

In 25 BC, the Romans founded Emerita Augusta, capital of Lusitania. The Spanish expansion generated three other Méridas in the world. Of the four, the Yucatan capital is the most colorful and lively, resplendent with Hispanic colonial heritage and multi-ethnic life.
Overall, Mexico

The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins

Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.
Campeche, Mexico

Campeche Upon Can Pech

As was the case throughout Mexico, the conquerors arrived, saw and won. Can Pech, the Mayan village, had almost 40 inhabitants, palaces, pyramids and an exuberant urban architecture, but in 1540 there were less than 6 natives. Over the ruins, the Spaniards built Campeche, one of the most imposing colonial cities in the Americas.
Lion, Elephants, PN Hwange, Zimbabwe
Safari
PN Hwange, Zimbabwe

The Legacy of the Late Cecil Lion

On July 1, 2015, Walter Palmer, a dentist and trophy hunter from Minnesota killed Cecil, Zimbabwe's most famous lion. The slaughter generated a viral wave of outrage. As we saw in PN Hwange, nearly two years later, Cecil's descendants thrive.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 3rd- Upper Banana, Nepal

An Unexpected Snowy Aurora

At the first glimmers of light, the sight of the white mantle that had covered the village during the night dazzles us. With one of the toughest walks on the Annapurna Circuit ahead of us, we postponed the match as much as possible. Annoyed, we left Upper Pisang towards Escort when the last snow faded.
coast, fjord, Seydisfjordur, Iceland
Architecture & Design
Seydisfjordur, Iceland

From the Art of Fishing to the Fishing of Art

When shipowners from Reykjavik bought the Seydisfjordur fishing fleet, the village had to adapt. Today, it captures Dieter Roth's art disciples and other bohemian and creative souls.
The small lighthouse at Kallur, highlighted in the capricious northern relief of the island of Kalsoy.
Adventure
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands

A Lighthouse at the End of the Faroese World

Kalsoy is one of the most isolated islands in the Faroe archipelago. Also known as “the flute” due to its long shape and the many tunnels that serve it, a mere 75 inhabitants inhabit it. Much less than the outsiders who visit it every year, attracted by the boreal wonder of its Kallur lighthouse.
Ice cream, Moriones Festival, Marinduque, Philippines
Ceremonies and Festivities
Marinduque, Philippines

When the Romans Invade the Philippines

Even the Eastern Empire didn't get that far. In Holy Week, thousands of centurions seize Marinduque. There, the last days of Longinus, a legionary converted to Christianity, are re-enacted.
Pemba, Mozambique, Capital of Cabo Delgado, from Porto Amélia to Porto de Abrigo, Paquitequete
Cities
Pemba, Mozambique

From Porto Amélia to the Shelter Port of Mozambique

In July 2017, we visited Pemba. Two months later, the first attack took place on Mocímboa da Praia. Nor then do we dare to imagine that the tropical and sunny capital of Cabo Delgado would become the salvation of thousands of Mozambicans fleeing a terrifying jihadism.
Meal
Markets

A Market Economy

The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
One against all, Sera Monastery, Sacred Debate, Tibet
Culture
Lhasa, Tibet

Sera, the Monastery of the Sacred Debate

In few places in the world a dialect is used as vehemently as in the monastery of Sera. There, hundreds of monks, in Tibetan, engage in intense and raucous debates about the teachings of the Buddha.
Spectator, Melbourne Cricket Ground-Rules footbal, Melbourne, Australia
Sport
Melbourne, Australia

The Football the Australians Rule

Although played since 1841, Australian Football has only conquered part of the big island. Internationalization has never gone beyond paper, held back by competition from rugby and classical football.
Faithful light candles, Milarepa Grotto temple, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Traveling
Annapurna Circuit: 9th Manang to Milarepa Cave, Nepal

A Walk between Acclimatization and Pilgrimage

In full Annapurna Circuit, we finally arrived in Manang (3519m). we still need acclimatize to the higher stretches that followed, we inaugurated an equally spiritual journey to a Nepalese cave of Milarepa (4000m), the refuge of a siddha (sage) and Buddhist saint.
Horseshoe Bend
Ethnic
Navajo nation, USA

The Navajo Nation Lands

From Kayenta to Page, passing through Marble Canyon, we explore the southern Colorado Plateau. Dramatic and desert, the scenery of this indigenous domain, cut out in Arizona, reveals itself to be splendid.
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

life outside

Table Mountain view from Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa.
History
Table Mountain, South Africa

At the Adamastor Monster Table

From the earliest times of the Discoveries to the present, Table Mountain has always stood out above the South African immensity South African and the surrounding ocean. The centuries passed and Cape Town expanded at his feet. The Capetonians and the visiting outsiders got used to contemplating, ascending and venerating this imposing and mythical plateau.
Magnificent Atlantic Days
Islands
Morro de São Paulo, Brazil

A Divine Seaside of Bahia

Three decades ago, it was just a remote and humble fishing village. Until some post-hippie communities revealed the Morro's retreat to the world and promoted it to a kind of bathing sanctuary.
Horses under a snow, Iceland Never Ending Snow Island Fire
Winter White
Husavik a Myvatn, Iceland

Endless Snow on the Island of Fire

When, in mid-May, Iceland already enjoys some sun warmth but the cold and snow persist, the inhabitants give in to an intriguing summer anxiety.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Literature
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Merida to Los Nevados borders of the Andes, Venezuela
Nature
Mérida, Venezuela

Merida to Los Nevados: in the Andean Ends of Venezuela

In the 40s and 50s, Venezuela attracted 400 Portuguese but only half stayed in Caracas. In Mérida, we find places more similar to the origins and the eccentric ice cream parlor of an immigrant portista.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Okavango Delta, Not all rivers reach the sea, Mokoros
Natural Parks
Okavango Delta, Botswana

Not all rivers reach the sea

Third longest river in southern Africa, the Okavango rises in the Angolan Bié plateau and runs 1600km to the southeast. It gets lost in the Kalahari Desert where it irrigates a dazzling wetland teeming with wildlife.
Thira, Santorini, Greece
UNESCO World Heritage
Thira Santorini, Greece

Fira: Between the Heights and the Depths of Atlantis

Around 1500 BC a devastating eruption sank much of the volcano-island Fira into the Aegean Sea and led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization, referred to over and over again as Atlantis. Whatever the past, 3500 years later, Thira, the city of the same name, is as real as it is mythical.
Heroes Acre Monument, Zimbabwe
Characters
Harare, Zimbabwewe

The Last Rales of Surreal Mugabué

In 2015, Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe said the 91-year-old president would rule until the age of 100 in a special wheelchair. Shortly thereafter, it began to insinuate itself into his succession. But in recent days, the generals have finally precipitated the removal of Robert Mugabe, who has replaced him with former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Vietnamese queue
Beaches

Nha Trang-Doc Let, Vietnam

The Salt of the Vietnamese Land

In search of attractive coastlines in old Indochina, we become disillusioned with the roughness of Nha Trang's bathing area. And it is in the feminine and exotic work of the Hon Khoi salt flats that we find a more pleasant Vietnam.

Pilgrims at the top, Mount Sinai, Egypt
Religion
Mount Sinai, Egypt

Strength in the Legs, Faith in God

Moses received the Ten Commandments on the summit of Mount Sinai and revealed them to the people of Israel. Today, hundreds of pilgrims climb, every night, the 4000 steps of that painful but mystical ascent.
white pass yukon train, Skagway, Gold Route, Alaska, USA
On Rails
Skagway, Alaska

A Klondike's Gold Fever Variant

The last great American gold rush is long over. These days, hundreds of cruise ships each summer pour thousands of well-heeled visitors into the shop-lined streets of Skagway.
Tabatô, Guinea Bissau, tabanca Mandingo musicians. Baidi
Society
Tabato, Guinea Bissau

The Tabanca of Mandinga Poets Musicians

In 1870, a community of traveling Mandingo musicians settled next to the current city of Bafatá. From the Tabatô they founded, their culture and, in particular, their prodigious balaphonists, dazzle the world.
the projectionist
Daily life
Sainte-Luce, Martinique

The Nostalgic Projectionist

From 1954 to 1983, Gérard Pierre screened many of the famous films arriving in Martinique. 30 years after the closing of the room in which he worked, it was still difficult for this nostalgic native to change his reel.
Fishing, Cano Negro, Costa Rica
Wildlife
Caño Negro, Costa Rica

A Life of Angling among the Wildlife

One of the most important wetlands in Costa Rica and the world, Caño Negro dazzles for its exuberant ecosystem. Not only. Remote, isolated by rivers, swamps and poor roads, its inhabitants have found in fishing a means on board to strengthen the bonds of their community.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.