San Pancho Vida

Return to San Sebastián, Part Two

A couple of years ago, I visited San Sebastián and was given a peek at El Pabellón, the old fort adjacent to the town plaza. I wanted Richard to see it while he was visiting, this relic from the days of the Spanish occupation of México, when the abundant mineral riches found in the Sierras were mined and refined and sent off in guarded ship convoys to Spain to finance its wars and the Spanish Armada.

According to my sources, including Joe Thompson from Hacienda Jalisco (who told me part of this story when I visited there some time ago), El Pabellón was the first fortress in the area but was additionally a tienda de rayas, or exchange house, where precious metals could be exchanged for reales, the Mexican currency, and vice versa. A three kilometer tunnel led from Hacienda Jalisco outside of town into the fort for the safe transport and storage of the gold and silver refined at the hacienda.

The old fort has become a part of a hotel. I was dismayed to see a sign on the interior door: admittance for guests only. In my usual reluctance to take no for an answer, I chatted up the smiling young man tending the entry, who agreed to take us on a tour. José grew up in Ecuador and quickly confessed his love of Mexico and his enchantment with its history, which he is just now learning. He led us through the lobby, out into the pretty courtyard where the stable arches still stand, and through a door leading to a stone ramp I remembered from my past visit.

What was the ramp for? Possibly for hauling carts full of loot into the secure regions of the building.

Up we climbed to the higher floors, its 250 year old beams spanning the width of the low storage rooms.

From the top window, a view of the church tower, and a photo of our host.

Here, in the old officers' mess, are photos featuring the popular Pancho Villa, who reputedly visited here on his rebellious adventures.

Through that doorway, you see the interior of the gun turret, all of stone with slots in it for gun barrels. This was war, remember. Many of the Mexican revolutionaries enjoyed reclaiming their national treasures from the Spanish to finance their own fight for independence.

And now back down the very steep stairs for a few more photo ops.

We said goodbye to José and thanked him for his personal tour, giving him a propina for his time and goodwill.

Behind the hotel are many old walls and structures remaining from the original installation.

Here's the turret from the outside, all shaggy with the moss of the ages.

One more photo for you as we bid adios to San Sebastián, this one of the cross on the church tower glowing solo in the night sky.

                                                                         All photos by R Butler or me

Next week: Cocodrillos and mangroves and birds, oh my!

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Road Trip: Return to San Sebastián del Oeste

What, I ask you, can be better than a spur-of-the-moment road trip to a sweet old mountain mining town? Not much, in my opinion. Last week, Richard and I loaded up the car with warm clothes and headed east into the Sierra Madre range to San Sebastián del Oeste, as I couldn't imagine not showing this hidden treasure to a visiting gold prospector with a good camera eye.

I've written of San Sebastián before in a post filled with photos. One's camera refuses to stay in one's pocket there, especially in morning and early evening light. The whole town is a feast for the eyes.

How can one resist its old walls and doors and flowers that look artificial but aren't?

I'd called ahead for a room at my favorite Hotel del Puente (322-297-2834), an old hacienda with big strange comfortable rooms ranged around a lovely courtyard. It's reasonably priced at 300 pesos a night...which amounts to around USD $25 at the current exchange rate.                                                                                               

We were especially enamored of the giant original keys that open the room doors, keys too big to lose, mostly because they're too heavy to carry around.

I'd also called ahead and left a message for Walter, the proprietor and chef at the wonderful Montebello restaurant. He called me back the following day, confirming a table for two at 6:30. I figured we'd be hungry early after a day of driving and exploring, and we were. A good thing, given Walter's homemade Italian fettucine alfredo and cheese raviolis in fresh tomato sauce, his delicious salad, and his own homebaked bread which is some of the best bread I've ever eaten anywhere. It doesn't even need butter, which is a high compliment coming from me.

We spent the same on a lovely bottle of Italian wine as we spent on the hotel room, a Verdicchio Classico he had chosen in Guadalajara because it came from very near his home in Italy. After the meal, Walter presented us with tasters of his personally concocted liqueurs: limoncello, orange, and our favorite, an herbal quaff with basil, mint, and anise. Yum.

I have only one rule about going to San Sebastián any time of year: be darn sure Montebello is open. You can call 322-297-2883 for reservations. They are usually closed on Wednesdays.

The next morning, we set out again, cameras in hand. 

After breakfast, we had the great luck to get a tour of the old fort, a story in itself which will wait for next week. See you then!

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                                                                All photos by R Butler or me

Road Trip: San Sebastián, Part 2 -- Two Visits

When he heard we were going to San Sebastián del Oeste, Jack asked if I could stop in at the coffee place just outside of town and see if they had any green coffee available.

"Green coffee?" I asked, wondering if this was a concoction to go with green eggs and ham.

"The unroasted beans," Jack explained. "I roast my own."

"Well, I'll be Starbucked," I said, although maybe not aloud. "I never met anybody who roasted his own beans."

So Tuesday morning, after breakfasting at the restaurant overlooking the plaza and enjoying some local coffee that I found quite delicious (round and full but not acidy or speedy), Dick and Jesse and Judith and I pulled up outside this place...

...not realizing how Mr. Rogersy our visit would be.

The first thing I noticed was a patio with lots of tan stuff spread on the concrete floor...

...which turned out to be...green coffee!! although it doesn't look especially green. It was drying in the sun, getting ready to be roasted (or not, if Jack rescues some of it first). See that darker stuff on the floor in the background? That's the coffee still in its husk, also drying. Because...THIS is what it looks like when it's still on the coffee bush!

Isn't that pretty?? The ones on the left, the darkest red ones, are ripe and ready to pick. We'll call it "pre-coffee".

So the pre-coffee is spread out to dry and turns dark in the sun, and then they tumble it around to remove the part that used to be red. Underneath are the tan (green) actual coffee beans. 

Then, unless Jack and Franny are in town, the beans are roasted in this roaster:

(Jack's roaster is smaller. I do not have a picture of it. Yet.) 

Sometimes, here at La Quinta, they mix in Oaxacan chocolate and cinnamon when they grind the coffee. It smells divine. You can buy their organic coffee with or without chocolate and cinnamon, along with "dulces tipicos de la región", which means typical candies and sweets of the area, as you may have guessed.

We all bought coffee, roasted. Dick bought some coffee beans with a white sugary coating that he liked, even though he said they made him jittery. Jesse bought some peanuts with a red candy coating which he liked but couldn't eat too many of because he had a toothache.

That woman you see on the bag is Mary Alvarado, who Judith said had twenty-one children, so I guess she at least deserves her picture on a bag of coffee.

They named the place after her, too, which I think is only fair, as she birthed all the workers. We think that fellow in the photo up above holding the basket of green beans is her youngest child. 

The purported youngest child told me, by the way, that he had plenty of green coffee beans that could be purchased in 5-kilo bags, 10-kilo bags, 20-kilo bags, or even 100-kilo bags. We'll have to check in with Jack one of these days and see how much he bought.

Our next stop, with the car all smelling like coffee, was a couple of miles down the road. Hacienda Jalisco was built around 1830, when the Spaniards were at full tilt mining the silver in the surrounding hills.

The sprawling casa is now an inn, with spacious rooms, fireplaces, antiques and artifacts from its Spanish history and also from its more recent history. In the early 1960's, its guests included John Huston, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor, who hid away there during the filming of Night of the Iguana. Yes, the inn has a table covered with maps and ledgers from the mining operation. But it also has this game that Huston and Burton and Taylor played at night beside the fire:

Wow! Did you know Rummikub had been played that long? I didn't. Apparently it was first invented in Israel in the 1930's and is now...but I digress. Back to the Hacienda. This is the museum.

Here's one of the old bedrooms on the main floor.

The guest rooms are upstairs, are large and high-ceilinged, and although they have nice modern bathrooms, it would be easy to fantasize that you were back in the 1800's, especially because Hacienda Jalisco is still without electricity and is lit by oil lamps. Lodgings include breakfast and dinner, with many of the ingredients grown right there on the property. There's a lovely patio with a firepit to relax around in the evenings, maybe play a little Rummikub.

There's also a room, down some spooky stairs, that was once the entrance to a three kilometer tunnel that ran all the way to the garrison in San Sebastián so the Spanish could move the silver without attracting the attention of the pre-Revolution bands of rebels who needed the silver to throw out the Spanish. The tunnel worked for a while. Then the Spanish were compelled to skedaddle and the mines came to an end, as all things do--including this post.

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The La Quinta coffee plantation and shop does not have a website, but you can find them on the right hand side of the road on your way into town, or on the left hand side on your way out.

Hacienda Jalisco has a website with some nice pictures and a way to contact them in case you want to go there and pretend it's the 1800's, which seems like fun to me, even though there are no Spaniards or rebels running amok any more.

Hacienda Jalisco

Next Week: I haven't the faintest idea. You'll have to check in and see what I come up with. 

Road Trip: San Sebastián del Oeste

It's only the first week of March, but Judith, who plans ahead, is already thinking about a reprieve from the dense drippy heat of summer in San Pancho. A casual remark about checking out San Sebastián as a July escape was all it took to start us discussing another road trip...and the thought of eating homemade Italian pasta in the mountains clinched it. Judith, Jesse, Dick and I threw our warmest clothes into overnight bags and headed east. 

Two hours later, over the partly new, occasionally lumpy, and often snakey highway, we were on the long cobblestone road into this tiny colonial town. San Sebastián del Oeste wasn't always a small town. The first precious metals were discovered in the area in the mid-1500's, and by the late 1700's and throughout the following hundred-plus years, San Sebastián was a thriving silver and gold mining center, run by the Spaniards, of course, with all loot going to Spain. Its population was somewhere over 20,000. Then, in 1910, the Mexican Revolution ended the mining operations and San Sebastián went to sleep.

It is sleepy still. But, oh, the beauty of it!

 

 

 

 

 

We checked in to Hotel del Puente, with its pretty courtyard. We paid cash in advance (300 pesos per couple! That's about $12 a person) and were issued giant skeleton keys that opened the doors to our modest but comfy rooms. 

 

At 4600 feet in the Sierra Madre, San Sebastián is chilly at night, so we changed into long pants and socks and sweaters and went to dinner at Montebello (formerly Real y Minas), Walter and Coco's lovely Italian restaurant. We feasted on homemade pastas--ravioli, lasagna, angel-hair in olive oil and garlic--and shared a bottle of red and a basket of Walter's divine bread.

The next morning, while my companions and most of the town were still asleep, I tiptoed out to explore some more. Imagine my surprise at finding this little fellow in someone's yard. He even let me rub his ears and scratch him under the chin. 

My camera just would not stay in my pocket. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

Hotel del Puente is two blocks past the plaza just before the stone bridge. They have no website, but their phone number is (322) 297-2834.

Montebello is closed Wednesday during high season. When you go, be sure to ask Walter for a taste of his own special liqueurs.

Montebello

Next week: Part 2 -- A Three Kilometer Underground Passageway...and a Nice Cup of Coffee