Pachuca de Soto (Hidalgo)

When I arrived at Maria's and Manni's place I accompanied them to an appartment they rent out via Airbnb. We tried to fix a door so that it can be easily closed and then I joined a job interview of a young man who applied to help them with the rental of the appartment. In the afternoon I went with Valentine, a neighbour of Maria and her friend Oli to Mineral / Real de Monte, a little town and Pueblo Mágico very close to Pachuca. As Pachuca is located at an altitude of approx. 2,500 meters above sea level nights are pretty cold in the winter. As I didn't believe that it's going to be that cold during the night I went to bed with insufficient blankets and woke up every few hours as I was freezing a lot. Maria was a wonderful host and so the next day we knocked at Valentine's door to borrow two additional blankets for me and at the door of another neighbour for another two blankets.

The next morning I accompanied Maria to the market Primero de Mayo, the place in Pachuca to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. In the afternoon I did another day trip with Valentine and Oli to Huasca, la Hacienda Santa Maria Regla and los Prismas Basálticos.

Further experiences with Maria and Manni were a consulting project of a hostel/hotel in Real de Monte, which should be made more attractive and also have an internet presence. After that we had some Pastes (Cornish pasty), the local speciality which you can buy all over the state of Hidalgo. On the way back we made a stop at the monument of the Cristo Rey which overlooks Pachuca from a hill. When, in 1940, a group of miners got stuck in a lift shaft they prayed with fear and faith: "Christ, King, if we are saved, we will build a monument for you! This is the origin of the sculpture which is made of marble and is 33 metres high (as a symbol of the 33 years Jesus lived on earth).

The center of Pachuca offers a lot of beautiful squares and parks. The most famous square is the Plaza de la Independencia. On it the most important icon of the city, the Reloj Monumental, the Monumental Clock of Pachuca is located. It was built to commemorate the Centennial of Mexico's Independence and was inaugurated on 15 September 1910 (Noche de Grito). Before the construction of the clock for many years the Plaza de la Constitución was the main square of the city.

Apart from the 15th century the region of Pachuca grew immensely due to the mining industry. Because of that, another important building of Pachuca is Cajas Reales, built to guard the fifth of miners' finds that belonged to the king. At the beginning of the 18th century most of the mines were flooded by water and didn't work anymore. From 1824, Cornish miners and English investors came to Pachuca to invest and work in the mines here. They brought technology, notably the famous high-pressure steam pumping engines which turned many of the area's water-logged mines into huge silver producers. Pachuca remained a major mining center until the mid-20th century, with the city's fortunes going up and down with the health of the mining sector.

It was the Cornish who first introduced soccer to Mexico. The first game of what would go on to be Mexico's national past time (futbol), was first played in Mexico by Cornish miners at Pachuca in 1900, a fact that is celebrated each year. The first soccer club in the country, the Pachuca Athletic Club, was also founded in that year. Because of that Pachuca also is home to the Football Museum and the Hall of Fame of famous football players.

Cornish miners brought not only football but also the recipe of the pastes with them. As a midday meal in the mines they needed to bring something which could be prepared in advance. An advantage of the pastes is their thick braided edge. Originally, this was done to provide the miners a way to hold the turnover without getting the filled portion dirty, as there was no way to wash their hands before eating. The shape and pastry portion have remained the same but today, the fillings are Mexican: mole verde/rojo, beans, chicken “tinga” pineapple, rice pudding and many more.

From Pachuca I made many more day excursions to the nearby village of Mineral del Chico and the National Park "El Chico". Nearly all these places can be reached by minibuses which depart all from the same street in Pachuca near the city center. There are no departure times, but the buses depart when they are fully occupied. Over the weekend I got a visit from Pau from Puebla who was exploring some more places around the region of Pachuca together with me. Ana was so hospitable to accommodate her in her house as well. Further places I visited with Maria, Manni, Ana and Pau were the Acueducto del Padre Tembleque and the archaeological zone Xihuingo.

With Fede, a friend of Ana, I visited the Pisal de Byron Gálvez, a square beautifully designed with colourful stones with the title "Homage to the Woman of the World". It is the largest pedestrian mural in the world. Its dimensions are 80 meters wide by 400 meters long, giving an area of 32,000 square meters. It is divided into 16 modules containing 2,080 figures made with approximately seven million mosaics of twelve different sizes.

I got to know Fede at a breakfast with Ana. Due to the fact that he also owns a drone which isn't working at the moment but he had to take some aerial photographs to finish a work for a customer, I went with him to take these photographs with my drone. After that, spontaneously, we spent the whole day together.

We also went to the Macromural de Pachuca which is also called "Pachuca se pinta" and is located in the neighbourhood Palmitas. In three stages, starting in 2014 and ending in 2018, hundreds of houses were painted to make this quarter more attractive. This work of art was decisive for numerous other projects of this kind in other cities of Mexico.

I really appreciated the ecological way of thinking of both Maria and Ana. In contrast to many other Mexican people they do a lot to preserve the environment. A sad fact is that in almost any place in Mexico even if it isn't visited by many people you will find trash like plastic bottles or bags, cans and other items indicating the presence of careless people. When we were visiting archeological sites we collected as much of the trash we could carry in our hands and bags and handed it over to the police as there was a lack of waste bins. Furthermore they are separating waste in their home and have a little organic compost. Besides Ana has a water filter (picture) which transforms the undrinkable tap water of Mexico into drinking water.