Countdown: Our goal to visit every Pueblo Mágico

I visited my archetypal Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town), Tulum, successful 1981, agelong before Mexico’s eponymous governmental tourism programme adjacent existed. In the 44 years since, my hubby and I person been to 53 more. Not bad! The occupation is that determination are 177, truthful we person a agelong mode to spell earlier we scope our idealistic extremity of visiting them all.

Several obstacles prevarication successful the way, the main 1 being age. Barry’s 82, I’m 73, and arsenic my mother-in-law utilized to say, “You’re not getting immoderate younger.” 

Mexico’s Pueblo Mágico programme celebrates the champion of Mexico’s unique, characterful towns. (Real del Monte/Instagram)

What is simply a Pueblo Mágico?

The Pueblos Mágicos program, launched successful 2001, promotes tourism successful towns that connection earthy beauty, taste richness, history, archaeology, cuisine and the arts. Mexico’s national Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) — successful complaint of permitting a municipality to don the moniker — is raising the barroom this twelvemonth for obtaining and maintaining Pueblo Mágico status, with upgraded standards acceptable to instrumentality effect this year.

I’m blessed to perceive this, due to the fact that we were disappointed by a mates of the towns, unclear wherefore they deserved the designation.

We unrecorded successful the metropolis of Guanajuato, which is surrounded by the states of Querétaro, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, and Michoacán, truthful we’ve been to galore pueblos mágicos successful these states. Every January for years, earlier my begetter died, we’d sojourn him successful the U.S. and alert backmost to a antithetic metropolis successful Mexico.

In this mode we were capable to easy research different much distant pueblos mágicos, similar the java towns of Coatepec and Xico successful the authorities of Veracruz. Here are a fewer of our favorites:

Valle de Bravo 

Magical Towns similar Valle de Bravo are beauteous overmuch by default expected to beryllium historical and picturesque. But they indispensable person worldly to bash arsenic well. (Tomás Martínez/Unsplash)

Valle de Bravo is simply a municipality built astir an artificial lake, astir 2 1/2 hours by autobus from Mexico City, with a generous plaza and reddish terracotta-roofed whitewashed houses. It has a café ingeniously located close successful the mediate of a postulation circle, each model showing a antithetic presumption — of virtually nary traffic.

On the weekend, Valle gets engaged with affluent escapees from Mexico City who person 2nd homes there, but during the week it’s tranquil.

The municipality offers plentifulness to do, from walking astir the water and kayaking to visiting the monarch butterflies and climbing the nontechnical Nevada de Toluca and hiking astir its volcanic lake.

Nearby are besides 2 spiritual centers of antithetic types: About 45 minutes from municipality is simply a Tibetan Buddhist temple, said to beryllium the tallest successful the Western Hemisphere. We arrived successful the mediate of seemingly obscurity to find a immense achromatic stupa with brightly-colored Tibetan supplication flags, an intricate awning, and a aureate Buddha. Another spiritual operation connected the borderline of Valle is Marantha, a 1970s Carmelite sanctuary, with 3 chapels and stained solid windows. Its serene grounds see landscaped gardens, fountains, benches, and spiritual sculptures. 

Jalpán

Jalpan is built astir this plaza, created by Franciscan priests. (Alejandro Linares García)

The municipality is the gateway to the Sierra Gorda, a mountainous country a fewer hours from the metropolis of Querétaro. Picturesque Jalpán is built astir a plaza and location to 1 of the 5 Franciscan missions built successful the 17th century. The intricate and elaborate ngo is good worthy a visit, but there’s overmuch much to bash astir Jalpán, similar visiting the different missions and the adjacent Tancama ruins, which are among the astir important pre-Hispanic settlements successful the Sierra Gorda. Occupied betwixt 200 and 900 C.E., the ruins are situated successful a beauteous mounting astatine the basal of the Cerro Grande mountain. 

Puente de Dios, the “Bridge of God,” is simply a beauteous two-mile locomotion on a riverbank, crossing the stream respective times connected tiny woody bridges. It leads to a limestone grotto and 3 waterfalls that travel down from the extortion of a cave. The existent from the 3 waterfalls is truthful almighty that heavy floating ropes person been installed to assistance anchor swimmers. 

Cuetzalán

Quiet Cuetzalán is location to artisans and traditions unsocial to the Puebla region. (Government of Mexico)

A sleepy distant colony astir 2 and a fractional hours from Puebla, Cuetzalán is celebrated for its play marketplace and the Nahua people, who inactive deterioration autochthonal dress. On weekends, voladores ascent a 100-foot rod successful the cardinal plaza, necktie themselves with ropes, and spiral down, twirling astir the pole, One remains connected the apical of the pole, unanchored, dancing and playing a flute and drum, earlier helium besides spirals gracefully down. The spiraling is simply a ritual ceremonial that began successful pre-Hispanic times and has since been incorporated into Mexican Catholicism. 

Near the colony are waterfalls, earthy pools, caves, woods, opportunities for ziplining, and a ruin. An American missionary mates we met told america we were the archetypal overseas tourists they’d seen successful 2 years. Indeed, I felt precise acold distant from the modern satellite there.

San Sebastián del Oeste

The erstwhile Jalisco mining municipality offers a glimpse into a Mexico gone by. (México Desconocido)

A 17th-century mining town, the colony is perched precocious successful the Sierra Madre mountains astatine 1,400m (4,600 ft), astir 45 minutes from Puerto Vallarta. With its aged assemblage church, restored haciendas, and cobblestone streets, San Sebastián is often cited arsenic a premier illustration of well-preserved assemblage architecture successful Latin America. 

When Barry and I joined the section vaqueros successful their cowboy hats sitting connected the structure of the aged historical hotel, I felt similar I was successful different century. We drank raicilla, the tone cultivated locally from the agave plant, arsenic we watched the festivities astatine the Saturday marketplace below.

One of the reasons I similar each these pueblos mágicos truthful overmuch is that we saw astir nary different tourists — Mexican oregon foreign. This is astir apt due to the fact that we visited the towns midweek and due to the fact that they’re either unknown, particularly to foreigners, oregon not easy accessible. 

Now that I’ve described them, I person a beardown impulse to return. But didn’t I conscionable accidental our extremity was to sojourn each pueblo mágico? We should beryllium going to caller ones, not revisiting ones I’ve seen. So galore pueblos mágicos, truthful small time! This is what I telephone a delicious dilemma.