A Walk Back in Time - 500 Years Back!!!

Up, Up, and AWAY we go!
(Quite literally "up" - as in from sea level to a 4600' elevation  in the Sierra Madre Mts.),

Off to San Sebastian del Oeste
(But, first, a tribute to the "Omelette-nista Extraordinaire"

Buenos días, Amigos! This morning, Thursday, 1/29, we had our usual brunch omelets, except with a "kick": Mexican omelets. 

As good as it gets!!
Huevos frescos, espinacas, queso, ajo, champiñones, fresas,
un poco de perejil y ...
Salsa casera de Ladd

Yesterday, Wednesday, 1/28, was "Road-Trip Day"! We drove up the mountains to the historic town of San Sebastian Del Oeste. It is about a 90-minute drive from "our" casa. This 400+ year-old town is affectionately called "A Gem Between the Mountains." San Sebastian Del Oeste was founded in 1605 by the Spanish mining for gold and silver. Even the scenery climbing through the mountains was incredibly beautiful! While exploring San Sebastian Del Oeste we saw amazing adobe-brick houses, Colonial architecture, old haciendas and churches, coffee and agave plantations, cattle ranches, and much more. (As you will see from the next four pictures, we got "up close and personal" with some of those cattle being driven down the road by gauchos!)  

Mom V. was with us so we didn't want to "over do" the outing, but we plan to return to take Bob and Sandy and tour the "Distillery" and coffee plantation. We did visit the beautiful old church and ANOTHER school! The primary grades were already dismissed, but we heard voices from within the secondary school. We went to the office and attempted to ask the two Mexican secretaries in our oh-so-poor Spanish if we could look around at the classes. The two women spoke little/no English, and after struggling for a couple of minutes, the male worker (custodian? guard?) told us he spoke English. 

His English was excellent as he had lived in the United States, and his two sons were born there. He then translated what we had requested for the two secretaries. You could tell by their body language they were hesitant to let two "locos Americanos" just walk in off the street to tour the secondary school in session. However, the male worker apparently said it would be fine, and they agreed...if he accompanied us.

 There are only 52 students in this secondary school and we saw 2 classes in session. The first appeared to be the youngest, perhaps 9th-10th grade. They were working independently and silently as a teacher looked on. They did not say anything to us, but just looked and smiled. We looked into an empty computer lab, set up with about 30 new desk-top computers. So modern and up-to-date in this old, adobe school building! 

Then in the last classroom we found where the noise was coming from that we heard outside the school. This room seemed to have the "upper classmen/women", perhaps 11th-12th graders, and although they had books, notebooks, there didn't appear to be instruction happening. Perhaps it was a "study hall"...albeit not a silent study hall...LOL! As the students all stared at us, we again struggled to explain in Spanish our interest in visiting there, when one of the students told us, "We speak English", and they all laughed. Then I told them, in English, that I knew they must be "Seniors" because they were chatting and making the noise we heard outside. Fully understanding me, they all laughed again, and some girls pointed to one boy to let us know he was the noise-culprit: perhaps the "class clown"! 

We did not want to make the 90-minute trip down the mountain in the dark, so after walking around the town we decided to head back to the casa for dinner. What a wonderful trip back in time! 

This cattle-driving gaucho was not as surprised to see us as we were to see him...AND HIS CATTLE!

HERE THEY COME!

Up Close and Personal!

Not fazed by us, around they go.

 

San Sebastian Del Oeste Centro

All fresh flowers in the church...amazing perfume!

Quaint little Chocolate and Cafe shop

The Secondary School we visited

 

This sign reminded us of the sign on the show "M.A.S.H."

Mexican Guardrail at the edge of the cliff!

Incredible vistas everywhere

Ladd and Mom V. said he wouldn't look at me for a picture, but when I spoke to him in Spanish, he did! Gracias, Senor Bovine!

 

Memorial at the base of the bridge

Just in case you missed the symbolism, a modern backhoe sits idle while the (elderly) "worker bee" toils....

...one shovelful, one stone at a time

Some prayers said for family and friends!

 

Basket Weavers at work in the shade

Finally, while we were able to get some really cool video on my new Kindle Fire, we're (well Ladd is), still trying to figure out how to resize it to include on the blog, so....

In the meantime, here's a link to a Sister Travelista's (although I'm pretty sure she stole the term "Travelista" from MOI!) video that should give you a pretty good idea of some of what we saw - enjoy!