TRIP TO MEXICO: OVERVIEW AND POSTSCRIPT

Myself in front of  Pancho Villa's

Statue on Cerro La Bufa, Zacatecas.

NOTE:  For some reason many of the pictures here got rudely cropped when I published this post.  So I suggest that you click on each one to see the full version....

I just got back home yesterday following a veritable whirlwind visit to Mexico.  It actually was a pretty amazing journey, and it never would have happened were it not for the efforts of my Mexican Revolution research friend, Juany Gutiérrez and her husband Leo, who put together a truly demanding itinerary and then followed through with it practically to the letter, including a very adventurous trip by auto to the city of Zacatecas.

Now I am charged with the task of composing a complete overview of this remarkable week-long journey through the heart of Mexico.  I'd have liked to have done regular trip reports as the days went forward, but this was really not possible, given the realities of following Juany and Leo's rather rigorous schedule. 

 Anyway, I arrived in Mexico City at about 3 p.m. local time on April 4th, on a direct flight from Salt Lake City.  Passing through Mexican customs went a lot more smoothly than I had expected, and sure enough, once I passed through the last passport check and emerged into the waiting area of Benito Juárez International Airport there in Mexico City, there were my hosts Juany and Leo both beaming smiles to greet me.
After a meal in one of the airport's restaurants my hosts brought me to the adjacent bus station and we got tickets for the next bus departing for their home city of Pachuca, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo.  Pachuca is some 130 km northeast of Mexico City, so the bus ride took us less than two hours.  The above picture was taken shortly after my arrival and shows my hotel, which is the bright orange building.  It's known as the Hotel Ciros, and boasts of a three-star rating.  It was definitely comfortable and quiet.  I ended up staying there a total of five nights, out of my total of seven spent in Mexico, so I suppose that you could call it my "home base."

Now, the reality of this trip happened to be meant for Mexican Revolution historical research, and one thing that Juany had concentrated on when she put together our itinerary were crucial visits to important resource centers like the one pictured above, which houses the famed Casasola Photographic Archives.  Agustín Victor Casasola had been perhaps the most prolific of all the photographers to document the events of the Mexican Revolution, and his reputation in that regard is every bit as significant as that of Mathew Brady during the United States Civil War.  The archives that today bear his name house countless images of Mexican history, including the revolution, and Juany had made arrangements for us to pay an extended visit there starting at noon on Tuesday, April 5th. 
The above picture shows the entrance to Casasola, an older building in Pachuca which had originally been a convent.  We were duly signed in and were then assigned an agent who led us through the specific photo archives we had requested on a computer monitor, and we noted specific pictures of interest to our project.  Specifically, these were, archival photos of Felipe Angeles, and we announced that we were looking for photographs that we could later ask permission to publish in a biography of General Angeles, which is more or less the goal I have set for myself  - to eventually publish a new biography of General Felipe Angeles in English.
In the end, the Casasola people gathered together the 37 images Juany and I had chosen and put them in order on a CD in low resolution, complete with identifications and with specific archive catalog numbers, so that when I would make my final choices in writing, then they would be able to send me high resolution copies with the permission to publish included.  It was a very good start to my first day of research in Mexico.

That night, Juany's husband Leo took us to the new Rotonda de los Hidalguenses Ilustres, a monument that had only been dedicated last November - which was the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence and the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution.  The Rotonda is a memorial to the twelve most illustrious people in Hidalgo's history, and the earthly remains of all twelve - eleven men and one woman - have been placed beneath their appropriate headstones in a semi-circle.  Included here are the remains of Felipe Angeles, whose headstone is shown in the following photo:

The idea of honoring the twelve most important citizens of the state is worthwhile, but in this case, I think that the government of the state of Hidalgo really made a mistake when they decided to place the Rotonda in the middle of one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city of Pachuca!  That's right, this "hallowed" monument is not located in some revered spot like a state cemetery but is surrounded by automobile (and taxi, bus, and truck) traffic...certainly not a place for reflection or meditation!
Well, on Wednesday, the 6th of April, Leo, Juany and I took a trip by auto into the heart of the state of Hidalgo, driving northward from Pachuca to visit the towns of Zacualtipán (pop. 25,000) and Molango (pop. 10,000).  Zacualtipán was the birthplace of Felipe Angeles, and while there we visited the municipal building where Juany had arranged for the town's chief administrator to dig out the original Felipe Angeles birth certificate (which Juany photographed) and then we went to the site where he was born.  The picture below is of the statue of Felipe Angeles which is located at the entrance to the city, and both Juany and myself took multiple pictures of it from various angles.

From Zacualtipán we continued northward en route to the town of Molango, where Felipe Angeles had spent some time in his childhood and youth while his father, Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo, had been the town's political chief.  Juany had contacted the current municipal manager before our arrival with document information she had already so that they could pull out the documents she wanted.  These were: (1.) a marriage certificate for Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo and Maria Martinez (dated 1883), and (2.) the death certificate of Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo (dated August 29, 1899).
Before we left Molango, we got the town's archivist to allow us to rummage through their archival boxes in ther basement, and we found a whole host of municipal documents (1884) signed by the elder Angeles - these were documents that their archivist didn't even know existed!  In that endeavor, Juany and I were pressed for time, as they were to close in 15 minutes!  So while I flipped the pages, Juany frantically photographed what we'd found.  Tragically, she was plagued by failing batteries, so much of what she had photographed turned out blank.  She will return to Molango one of these days and do a much more thorough search through that basement archive.
Anyway, it is interesting to note that in the town plaza of Molango, there are only two statues: one of them is General Felipe Angeles, and the other is his father, Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo...

 Statue of General Felipe Angeles, in the plaza of Molango

 Statue of Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo, in the plaza of Molango

As we were leaving Molango, Leo stopped the car to take some pictures from the vista point above the town.  The below picture of me was taken by Leo, with Molango in the background...

On our next day (April7th - Thursday) Leo had to work, so Juany and I took the bus into Mexico City where we visited Mexico's Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), which is housed in the historic building that once was the infamous Lecumberri Prison, also known as "The Black Palace of Lecumberri."  This building is seen in the following photograph:

 The old Lecumberri prison had been originally dedicated by General Porfirio Díaz in 1900, and it housed a number of famous inmates including Pancho Villa.  Villa, by the way, was one of only two persons ever to escape from the place, the other being an American named Dwight Worker, who had been convicted of cocaine smuggling and had excaped in 1975.  Perhaps the most significant historic event associated with the Lecumberri prison took place during Mexico's most lamentable time - the so-called Decena Trágica, or "Tragic Ten Days," when the just-deposed President Francisco I. Madero and his Vice President José María Pino Suárez were murdered while en route to Lecumberri.
It was decommissioned as a prison in 1976, and in 1980 it became the new home for Mexico's national archives.
Juany and I spent most of the afternoon at the Archivo General del la Nación, but most of the time was spent getting ourselves registered and in their system.  When the lengthy process was finished, they gave each of us an ID card with our photos included.  These ID cards are good for five years, so if I want to return sometime, I will not have to spend two hours re-registering.
We did get to finally see some documents, and Juany photographed a few of them, and I suppose that she will be sending me copies of those documents when she can find the time, but for the most part, for me, it was a lot of effort for few results (it's not the first time I have spent a whole afternoon perusing documents in vain).
Afterwards, Juany took me to see the famous Zócalo, which is the main plaza in Mexico City.  The trip there was by taxi, and our driver took us through some very narrow streets, which also happened to be clogged with people (Mexico City, its super-metropolis being something like 20 million souls, is like the fifth largest megalopolis in the world, behind places like Tokyo, Sao Palo, Mumbai and the like).  When we were dropped off in the Zócalo, it was the only time when I felt a tug of fear, mainly because it was such a crowded place!  Below is a picture of the Palacio Nacional, in the Zócalo:

 On Friday, April 8th, we set out on what would be the most adventurous part of our itinerary:  The drive northward to visit the city of Zacatecas (pop. 135,000).  In June 1914, Zacatecas was the scene of Pancho Villa's greatest victory in the Mexican Revolution.  His fabled División del Norte virtually decimated the federal army forces who defended the city, and the victory essentially broke the back of the usurper General Victoriano Huerta's army.  The victory stands out also as General Felipe Angeles' greatest triumph as well, because he was the strategic mastermind behind the defeat of Huerta's forces.  Because of the significance of the victory, Mexico erected a stunning monument to the battle on the top of the Cerro de la Bufa, or La Bufa Peak, which was where the hardest fighting took place, and which overlooks the city.  Included in the monument are three spectacular statues: the first one is of Pánfilo Natera, the commander of the División del Centro, who had been besieging Zacatecas when Villa and Angeles arrived; then there is the striking statue of Pancho Villa (seen in the first picture, above) and also the statue of Felipe Angeles.  In the following picture you can see both the Angeles and the Villa statues - Angeles in the foreground, and Villa farther back. Partially obscured is the Natera statue, on the far right: 

 Here I am, on the crest of La Bufa, with the city of Zacatecas spreasding out below me:

 Here is another view of the statue of Pancho Villa:

 -And here is a better view of the statue of Felipe Angeles:

Well, besides these amazing statues, La Bufa also is home to the superb Museo de la Toma de Zacatecas, or "Museum of the Capture of Zacatecas," which presents artifacts and photos from the famous battle.  It was worth the long drive to get there, especially since both Juany and I are actively researching the life of General Felipe Angeles.  We will now be collaborators in our historical research, and I know we will be sharing much in the future. 

Anyway, the Zacatecas trip was pretty much the high point to a very busy and demanding week of discovery.  It took one full day of travel by car to get there, and another full day to get back to Pachuca, which we did on April 10th.  Then on the 11th, Juany accompanied me once more on the bus from Pachuca into Mexico City, where I caught my flight back to the United States - and home.