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Short Excursions from Morelia

Pátzcuaro

We've been to Pátzcuaro a couple of times already and continue to enjoy its old buildings, cobbled streets, craft markerts and beautiful plazas. Pátzcuaro was the old capital of the indigenous Purépecha people, and there are many many people in Pátzcuaro and the surrounding towns that still speak Purépecha as their first language.

This is where Margaret first started photographing things the central market:

"Tuna" here is actually a cactus fruit!

The preferred drink for the kids is fresh limeade. We are working on perfecting the recipe for this; now we just need the big glasses!

Ihuatzio

In this tiny town on lake Pátzcuaro, there is an interesting archeological site with a couple of restored pyramids (less than an hour from Morelia). After Pátzcuaro, this site was once capital of the Tarascan league and the pyramids date from 1200 to 1400 AD, I think. There are other bigger ruins farther afield, but it is nice to have these nearby.

Tzintzutzan

Slighly further along lake Pátzcuaro is the town of Tzintzutzan, another former captial of the Tarascan league. All of these little villages specialize in crafts of different types, and we enjoyed seeing the crafts in the plaza here, too. There are other (round) pyramids in this town, but they were closed when we passed through.

One thing we did enjoy is the old churchyard, with olive trees that are said to have been brought from Spain in the 1500s by Vasco de Quiroga. They are believed to be the oldest olive trees in the Americas.

Santa Clara del Cobre

A few kilometers south of Patzcuaro is the little town of Santa Clara, known for its hand forged copper. The mines are now closed, but there are still many artisans that produce all kinds of copper items, from fine art to trinkets. On the day we went, they were having their annual copper festival, with a street fair and demonstrations by some of the artisans.

We weren't brave enough to try this cake, but it was pretty stunning to look at!

Los Azufres

East of Morelia, in the mountains, there are numerous hotsprings in the region known as Los Azufres. The drive there (though two national parks) was less than 100 km, but the road had so many twists and turns it seemed to take forever! We stopped briefly to enjoy the view at Mil Cumbres ("thousand peaks") but by that time we just wanted to get to the hotsprings . . .

At Los Azufres there are several different spas and hotels with hot pools. You can choose what temperature water you want to bask in. Even on a weekday there were plenty of people.

hot springs 1

Everywhere there was evidence of geothermal energy stations like this one. President Vicente Fox had been nearby the day before to talk about alternative energy sources in Mexico.