Hurrah for the Circus

We have spent the last week slowly moving North and visiting a string of colonial cities. Our favourite was Guanajuato, but more of that later...We had just one night in Queretaro, a surprisingly beautiful town full of sunny plazas and the usual array of ornate churches. We especially enjoyed lunchtime gorditas from a taco stand eaten in one of the many public squares.

We drove the 40 miles to San Miguel de Allende, a picture-perfect Mexican town which is now home to over 10,000 ex-pats, many of whom turned out for the enormous Palm Sunday parade to kick off Semana Santa - a huge holiday in Mexico. 

As we entered town, we spotted a travelling circus, something Francesca and Liberty have been fascinated with since they read Enid Blyton's 'Hurrah For the Circus', three times! We booked tickets for that night and were amazed to find it was a performance straight out of Enid Blyton's era - tigers jumping through rings of fire; llamas leaping over bulls; terrible clowns; kissing camels; dressed-up dogs; whip-cracking; and mediocre acrobats. The girls loved every minute, but the RSPCA would have had a field-day!

On the way out of San Miguel, we stopped at La Gruta thermal baths where, to the girls delight, there were 4 pools, including one which required swimming through a tunnel into a cave. That evening we arrived in Guanajuato, an old silver mining town set in a steep sided valley. We all loved the narrow, colourful streets which were buzzing with the holiday crowds and festivities.

Without a doubt the strangest thing we have done so far this trip, has been to visit Guanajuato's 'Museo Mommias'.  Weird, very weird...

On the morning we were due to leave, the girls were thrilled to find we had new neighbours with a 5 year-old son, offering the rare luxury of a playmate.  Having delayed our departure to let them all play (hide-and-seek is not an easy game in two camper vans!), we opened a beer and settled for an extra night and some more time in town.

It took most of Maundy Thursday to drive to Zacatecas, another colonial mining town where we've spent today watching more parades, eating more Mexican fare and touring a disused silver mine.  Tomorrow we head towards the coast again - through Durango and the mountains to Mazatlan - the town we arrived at by ferry, from the Baja, two months ago.