243 More San Miguel

Monday 14th October 2013
Miles today 0  Total 24,742

Happy birthday Philippa.
Unfortunately today, I have been struck by the lurgy.  Both Ray and I have been feeling a little under the weather, tired, run down and Ray has been coughing quite badly the last few days, but nothing really developed until today.  I slept most of the day and night and so we have decided to stay another night and probably tomorrow.

Tuesday 15th October 2013
Miles today  15 Total 24,757

Due to the fact we are staying another night, we had to move rooms.  Apparently there is a coach load of kids coming in to the hotel.  I am still feeling a bit fragile, but we want to get out and do some sight seeing.
 .........  Later........
I (Ray) went to the local launderette and had a toss up between doing it myself for £1 or getting them to do it for £2.25. Guess which I did !
We then jumped on Wallace and rode to a little village called  Atotonilco. It has a square and a Cathedral with a live monastery run by Nuns. The Cathedral is the location that following the "Cry of Dolores", the declaration of independence mentioned in the previous Zacatecas posts, Miguel Hidalgo traveled to and took an image of the Virgin of Guadelupe to use as his banner for the impending revolution that eventually ousted Spain as the colonial power.

Miguel Hidalgo

The Cathedral altar

One of the wings

Looking the other way from the above photo.

The outside of the Monastery/Cathedral.

The village is tiny and very quaint. After visiting the Cathedral, which UNESCO describes as the Mexican Sistine Chapel. We went to the adjacent cafeteria which was run by the Nuns.

Opposite the Cathedral was the village main street

And Wallace making an appearance.

We then rode back to San Miguel and wandered around the town center for a bit.

The San Miguel Cathedral in the daylight.

The inside was beautiful.

Again, one of the wings.

...and the other.

It's not true, they do not dance on their hats !

The gardens opposite were beautifully kept.

We then wandered back to the hotel and collected the laundry on the way. As we approached the hotel I was reminded that Mexico is a mixture of poverty and affluence.

On arrival back at the hotel we discovered that the coachload of kids was actually 2 coachloads and it was complete mayhem. Fortunately the room they moved us to accounted for this and we could not hear them too much.