Mine Tour

I am sure it sounds odd to wake up in a public parking lot in a city, slide open the side door and follow your eager dog out into a fresh new day. All I can say is you get used to it. 

Kids walk to school, by themselves. Their parents go to work. No one seems to notice you. 

As the city wakes to another day no one cares about the foreigners sleeping in their parking lot in their “casa rodante” a rolling house, which is what Mexicans call an RV. Oddly enough they haven’t threatened us or robbed us so far!

Layne sleeps in in the morning while Rusty and I go for a walk. If I’m lucky there’ll be hot tea when I get back.  

He sniffs around cautiously, ready to be ambushed and often reluctant to walk in certain directions if he figures there’s a dog over there. 

Most Mexican dogs have homes though only a few are coddled the way we fuss over ours. They are let out of the garden in the morning and they roam the streets not taking kindly to outsiders like Rusty. 

I follow his lead with my camera at the ready and sometimes I see things I like to frame. 

And he does attract attention: 

When he’s dropped his morning eggs which I pick up religiously as though we were in the US because I can’t imagine Mexicans like walking in shit,  he chooses the moment to head home where if I’m lucky madam is awake and as I said the tea is hot. 

On a couple of occasions I haven’t taken my camera with me and I always regret it. Real Del Monte has some architecture but where we were wasn’t that interesting around the parking lot so I did my best to look up. 

The bad news was the day before the cabin air conditioning had stopped blowing. The fan was going but the vents were closed so I figured it was something mechanical. In the meantime we ran the rooftop air and opened the cabin vents in our feet and got by. I had work to do. 

Luckily we had a strong cell signal on our Verizon phones and I could do some research. The consensus online was to remove the two passenger glove boxes and lubricate the vent switch. 

With no confidence in the outcome I started disassembling the upper and lower gloveboxes and carefully setting aside the screws. Layne sits here and I didn’t want her staring at the results of my incompetence if I got it wrong. After days of wild camping the van was a mess of dog hairs (bloody Rusty) and dust (bloody volcano) but we were already taking about waiting till Oaxaca to do a thorough spring clean. 

Much to my astonishment I succeeded in switching the vent and lubricating it not with grease but with Boeshield spray so I’ll probably have to do it again. But for now we have a/c. Color me amazed. Time to go mining. 

First back to Pachuca to the curiously naked mineral archives half an hour away down the miserably rough road. Mexico has a policy it seems of making tourists suffer crap roads to their destinations. 

Pachuca old town is narrow streets and large buses. I politely held back while the commuters with appointments pushed forward, as you do. 

Our guide Marvalla took us through the exhibit halls meticulously laid out which are part of the state archive of mining. All mining records are stored here. 

The exhibits illustrate four hundred years of mining for ore. Basically the miners were slaves used and abused by Spanish colonial governors and they dug rocks out of  the ground. The ore was pulverized in pursuit of whatever precious metals were hidden within. 

The Cornish miners had tapped out the tin mines in England and cane here to make a fortune after the Mexicans had won independence. Sure they brought pasties, easy food to hold in grubby hands deep underground. But they also brought fixed eight hour days with hour long lunch breaks, safety equipment, weekends and holidays and football to enjoy on the weekends off work. 

In the 20th century the Americans came with even more modern equipment, including  electricity, and they ran the monies till the Mexican government nationalized them after World War Two. The mines closed in 2005, tapped out. 

Part Two was a walk along a mine tunnel to explore what it was like to dig ore at the Acosta Mine in Real Del Monte. 

We wore face masks and hard hats and followed our Guillermo into the horizontal shaft. 

The floor was smooth and there were electric lights but the roof was jagged and low and occupational safety and health was miles away.  The experience was raw. 

It looked like Rick to me but it was ore ready to be mined. 

They carried 150 pound drills to dig holes in the rock to make a place for dynamite. 

The toilet with a bucket of lime. Day shift had a fun trick for night shift, they put rocks in the crap to make the bucket impossibly heavy. You can imagine the machismo enlivening the hardest job in the world. 

We were 450 meters inside the mountain and we got to sit for a while and enjoy the total darkness when the lights went out. Guillermo used a lighter to replicate the feeble lights the miners worked by. 

I was glad to get back out. 

We asked and they gave us permission to spend the night in their parking lot, away from the city. 

Better views than downtown and despite some barking dogs a good nights sleep. 

Real Del Monte

In 1825 four ships landed on Mexico’s east coast at Veracruz loaded with miners from Cornwall, England and 150 tons of mining equipment. They hauled it all across the mountains to this small hill town and changed everything for the residents and future visitors. 

First we had to get there. The journey in simple terms had us circumnavigating the capital city from Toluca to Pachuca which it next to our goal, Real Del Monte, which confusingly is also known as Mineral Del Monte has a population of 14,000 people living at 8800  feet or 2712 meters. It was known as Real (Royal) thanks to its years as mining town under the Spanish crown who as you might imagine wanted the gold silver and other minerals found in these mountains. Republican Mexico recognizes it as a source of mineral wealth so it’s official name is Mineral of the Mountain.  

I enjoyed the  drive around Mexico City and even sticking to freeways it was a good day on the road. It started with driving down the dirt road from the volcano into the city of Toluca where we got on the first of several freeways to get around  the capital and it’s nine million inhabitants. 

Mexico City scares me. Traffic is said to be hectic beyond belief and unforgiving. However what’s worse is that they have pollution laws in effect and very strict rules about who can drive on what days. To drive there you have to have a permit, available to non residents for 14 days at a time but if you drive on the wrong days or without permission you will get busted by the city police and fines are heavy. Therefore I don’t want to cross city limits in my car. One day by plane maybe as there is much to see. 

The bypass ran through miles of run down slums, the places where people go to live close to where the work is. And where the toll booths are. 

I’ve said it before but why in blazes do they make such awkward tolls? It’s a constant round of shuffling coins, for instance as here at 38 pesos for cars. Make it forty and be done. No, the toll is 38 pesos at this booth, so for less than two bucks workers are handling endless numbers of two peso coins all day. Motorcycles charged 19 pesos (1$US) have to fiddle with a one peso coin with their receipt. Idiocy. 

Great roads terrible views as we drove through the slums ringing the source of all work. 

I watched this couple on the motorcycle skip the toll in front of us. They cut into the line and slipped by in the shadow of the pick up but the toll machine noticed and the operator jotted down a note to cover her ass. Most motorcycles this  size have no tags so that’s a buck lost to the system! 

The Cornish miners who came to Real Del Monte brought their food with them and you’ll see pasty shops including this chain with stores all around this part of Mexico. We tried Pasteko pasty (paste or “pass-tay” is the name in Spanish) but they use flakey pastry which isn’t authentic. Chain stores…tsk Tsk, but they made a nice lunch break! 

To get to Real Del Monte you drive through the capital of Hidalgo State and the city of Pachuca sprawls mightily into the valley. It felt like we drove forever to get through the urban agglomeration into the mountains. Finally we saw the sign welcoming us to the tourist corridor and the roads immediately went to shit so our speed dropped to 15 miles per hour. 

Real Del Monte is supposed to be one of the top attractions for Mexican tourists, and that’s no surprise really bad it’s so close to the city. It’s a disorganized badly run town and I don’t suppose it matters much to the people in charge as the money flows in regardless. 

There is no campground so the best place to stay is in the main parking lot. It’s free on weekdays and has public toilets if you need them so you pick a spot and park. We walked Rusty and passed a monument to the creation of football in soccer mad Mexico. Yup, those Cornish miners brought soccer to Real Del Monte and Mexicos obsession was born here. Lovely monument! 

A bus driver stopped alongside and asked if it was free to park here. At first I thought he was asking for money which I thought was weird but it was even worse: there are no signs. He brought a bunch of tourists and I had to explain you paid 40 pesos a day on weekends and it was free weekdays (according to iOverlander). That’s how bloody stupid the city of this town is. And this is how they celebrate the founding of football: 

Not all the city’s 14,000 inhabitants make a good living from tourism as you can see and I definitely got the “touron” vibe here. Traffic was aggressive in the narrow streets and one more idiot in a big car sent them over the edge. Mind you I’m pretty handy with GANNET2 in the narrow lanes folding my mirrors and driving confidently with an inch to spare but I got yelled at. I was clearly a tourist moron as they used to say in Key West, a term I despised and never used when I made a good living from tourists. 

We needed a walk so even at this altitude, 9000 feet, we went into town on foot and it was quite charming. This building under slow renovation reminded me of the Bull and Whistle on Duval Dtreet in Key West. 

It’s shabby and picturesque…

…and the streets really are narrow. We drove strictly to reach tourist sites. Walking was pleasant if breathless. 

Some people collect rocks and they were catered to: 

There are few if any concessions to foreigners here. This is a Mexican tourist town. English is not spoken and is not seen at tourist sites. 

A tourist couple from the capital  we met who chatted with us for a while as we caught our breath at the top of the steps. This town comes to life on weekends but I wouldn’t want you to think we were completely alone.  

Pretty empty an hour before dark in a weekday. 

This Dad was playing video games with his daughter and stopped to practice his English. We talked about where we from and they posed for me. 

Everyone is on the phone always. 

Home sweet home. 

Diner was pasties made with proper wet crust pastry. We tried the rather bland traditional filling of meat and potatoes but they also do refried beans, green and red mole and I had a weird hot dog and ham and cheese filling. 

Green chicken mole: 

And do to bed. A cool comfortable night with no traffic and no dogs barking. Clearly this is an unusual town.