Pyramids & Petroglyphs ~

Weekend trip to Durango.
Durango is an old historic northern Mexico town dating back to the 1500's & there are beautiful buildings in the historic center of town including the stately Cathedral~Basilica. They are proud of their "old west spirit there" the side of city buses have ads with men in wild west costumes, caballeros & saloon girls that looked as if they stepped out of the gold rush in San Francisco. John & I saw the sights and walked around a great deal there but were much impressed by the less traveled Archaeological Zona outside Durango a few kilometers in an area known as La Ferreri­a. There were more ruins than we could possibly see in the time we had to visit & there more still being excavated by local college students. We climbed the Mesoamerican ruins dating from 450 to 550 AD. We saw stone foundations of houses enclosed by stone walls and sites of larger dwellings. We also climbed up to see ruins of the Grand Pyramid at the top of the hill overlooking the whole site there on the Tunal River. The ruin sites seemed to stretch on & the wild terraine brought to mind a John Wayne movie. We had a chance to see Petroglyphs & remains from an early Spanish Colonial settlement on the same site before a storm forced us to leave & head back home. As we drove home after dark on the winding poorly lit roads closer to Torreon we missed our Texas highways & yes, the way TX DOT keeps things in good condition. It is all relative here south of the border.

Cathedral ~ Basilica Durango