EL FUERTE

Once we'd all recovered from our crazy ride to El Fuerte the day before, Saturday morning we piled into Bill and Carol's Jeep - Willie - and headed downtown. 

El Fuerte dates from 1564 founded by the Spaniards. As a colonial city it is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the state of Sinaloa. It is also the gateway to the Copper Canyon. Ahhh - the Copper Canyon - boy would we LOVE to do that train trip one day. Just add it to the list.

If you were with us on last years adventure you know that I can really dish out the photos when I find a place we like. And we really LOVED El Fuerte. So - if you are going to see this post to the end - find your comfy chair and a few snacks - this may take awhile. El Fuerte is filled with photo opps.

The first building we saw as we began our stroll. Now - you really have to LOVE all the colours on Mexican buildings.

Do the colours match?! Who cares!!!

Where exactly are Mexican electricians trained?

When was the last time you saw a sombrero on someones head? - other than a drunk tourist that is.

El Fuerte's central plaza. One of my favourite things about Mexican towns and cities - their plazas. Such a pleasant way to deal with life.

A little girl gets to walk around the fountain.

The Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Temple.

El Fuerte's Palacio Municipal, built between 1903 - 07.

As Carol mentioned to us - all Mexican Municipal Buildings have murals or artwork of some kind. 

The Palacio Municipal on the exterior.

Next we came upon the Hotel Posada del Hidalgo. The building dates from 1650 built by Franciscan Friars as a rectory and used for that purpose until the early 1800's when it became the private house for the Ybarra family for the next 200 years.

You would not BELIEVE how good it felt to be in the shade of these walls!

The newest addition at the Hotel Posada - the Casa Veija - is believed to be the birthplace of Don Diego de la Vega - that's Zorro!

And if you can believe we actually missed meeting Zorro at the special Zorro Happy Hour!

May as well go home now.....

You've just gotta love a country that grows bananas - platanos. Cassia learned that word today while meeting a little girl eating a platanos.

Meet Mr. Prawn.

And across the street ......

Derek was your photographer for the Hotel El Fuerte. He did a great job. But even so pictures in know way do this place justice. It is filled with antiques, artwork, and beautiful furniture.

Get that!

We then walked back towards the plaza.

A closer look at the Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Temple.

One of the side streets next to the plaza. Very clean - right?!

Just can't get enough of those electrical lines. The lamp isn't half bad either.

We took a quick detour (did someone say detour!) into an interior market. 

Snake skin anyone?

Always lots of fruit and veggies around.

Down the next street and we found the Jeep back. A few streets over and we found the TelCel store - but no parking. So Bill expertly drove us to the entrance to the stairway down to the El Fuerte River - which at this point we didn't even KNOW there was an El Fuerte River. Nice.

But HOT! A quick looksee and back to the air conditioning.

We did return to the TelCel store and jumped out while Bill and Carol stayed in the Jeep - you know - parked on the street. Derek and I did our best to explain that we were looking for an internet stick. To no avail. While Derek was retrieving Bill to help with our conversation I had found a picture of the stick in a magazine sitting on the ladies desk. Nope - no telcel sticks here.

Chased back to our RVs by the heat - we returned later in the afternoon. Bill and Carol had heard the night before that there was to be some sort of celebration or festival in the plaza that night.

We toured the plaza by night. Beautiful with the lights.

And we enjoyed a really wonderful dinner at the El General restaurant. Sadly nothing was happening at the plaza but that was just as well - we enjoyed walking around in the cool air of the evening.

Bill and Carol were also kind enough to get us hooked on introduce us to churros. Have you had churros? They are a 'you just can't have one thing'. Deep fried batter rolled in sugar and cinnamon. I thought Derek was going to come apart at the seams!

The NEW churro guy - Bill's churro guy went off to Guasave.

Pretty neat to watch the process. Quite the skill to pump this stuff out.

Bill talking with the churro guy.

Hard to photograph but there was a trolley decked out at the front like a train. 

Boy, Cassia was pretty taken with it. 

The next day, Bill, Carol, Cassia and I went to visit the Museum - a replica of the old fort. 

The fort houses lots of old photos of El Fuerte and it's history.

And.... a great view of the river .....

and of the downtown.

Of course, Carol posted about our tour of El Fuerte too! You can check out her photos as The Golden Years. 

What a GREAT day. As I mentioned - we love the beach but there is nothing like walking around a beautiful Mexican town. Even better?! We were the only gringos there. It was nice to be ensconced in a typical Mexican day.

El Fuerte ..... you should go.

Teresa

TODAY'S INTERESTING LINK:  If you want to read more about the history of El Fuerte - visit The 3 Amigos site for a map and description of the downtown walking tour.

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