The Cathedral at Chihuahua

Tuesday 17th August - Thursday 19th August 1999

From Santa Fe, we made our way to the border town of El Paso in Texas. We planned to stop here for one night before making our way onwards into Mexico. We stayed at the Gardner Hotel and International Hostel, which was a friendly enough place, albeit a bit basic. Still, Internet access was half the price of the hostel in San Francisco, so I was able to do a last check on my email before we moved on to Mexico.

It was while in El Paso that we were told by a fellow traveller that Mexico had recently introduced a new system for tourist cards which were required for entry into the country. We had checked in London and had been told that we could pick up free tourist cards at the border, but the system was changed while we were in the US. Unfortunately the Mexican consulate in El Paso had not yet been issued with the requisite forms, since they had only been required for a couple of months. So we decided to walk across the border into Ciudad Juarez. When we got over to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande (the Rio was not much in evidence at this time of year) there were no border controls and we could simply have walked straight through. However, we found a friendly border guard and, following a "conversation" in which his extremely limited English was matched only by our non-existent Spanish, we managed to get ourselves two tourist cards and agreed to pay the $15 fee in a bank the following day.

The next day, Tuesday, we caught the Greyhound bus which was supposed to go from El Paso bus station to Juarez bus station. However, following examination of our bags by customs (they have a system where each entrant into Mexico presses a button like a traffic signal - a green light means go, a red light means that your bag will be searched), we went into immigration to have our tourist cards stamped. When we got out, our bus had left. Eventually we managed to get another bus to Juarez bus station, where we had only a few minutes to wait for our onward bus to Chihuahua.

Chihuahua itself is a fairly unremarkable town - the dogs of that ilk were not anywhere in evidence - save for its pivotal role in the Mexican revolution as the headquarters of Pancho Vila, who became a local hero. However, as our first stop in Mexico, it was our first real taste of Hispanic colonial architecture. The most prominent example unsurprisingly was the Cathedral, which was just a couple of blocks away from where we were staying. Due to frequent Indian raids, it took over 70 years to complete from 1717 to 1789. The baroque façade at the front entrance is a sight to behold, although the cathedral in Zacatecas is even more stunning.

The side façade of Chihuahua Cathedral

Our initial experiences of Mexico boded well for the rest of our journey - people were mostly extremely friendly and highly tolerant of our appalling-but-rapidly-improving Spanish. The only downside was that on our first night we made the mistake of venturing out at dusk in shorts and t-shirts, only to become a main meal for a large number of biting insects. This was not a mistake we will repeat! Our hotel was cheap (although not as cheap as Lonely Planet would have us believe), and, although not actually dirty, was sufficiently grotty and grimy to deter us from risking a shower. By the time we got to Zacatecas, we were both badly in need of some cleaning!

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