Road to Mexico City

Road to Mexico City 

The first day, we drive from El Paso to Chihuahua. It was desert all the way. But Chihuahua itself is a prosperous city of one million people. It is on the confluence of two rivers. It has glittering new developments. I kind of understand the drop of fertility rate in Mexico. Such developments are very impressive, and very expensive.

The second day, we arrived at Torreon, still desert all the way. 

The third day, we rested at Zacatecas, a UN designated World Heritage Site. We tried to explore the city. By accident, we drove to the top of a hill. There was a Plaza of Revolution there, with sculptures of some guys sitting prominently on horses, guns in hand. Apparently, these are the major guys on the winning side of the Mexican Revolution. From the hill, the whole city is below. We want to drive down to the city. The city, once a prosperous mining town, was built before the age of automobile. Roads are extremely narrow. But in an age of automobile, most people want their own cars. The narrow streets hence saturated with parked cars. It was a hilly area with very irregular landscape. We narrowly made the way into the town, but completely trapped at the dead ends. It seemed to take eternity before we finally escaped the old town, a world heritage site. We completely lost interest of the city. We were just glad we drove our van out of the mess.

The fourth day, we reached Queretaro, a fast growing city with one and half million people. On the way, the land became significantly greener. Queretaro is a historically significant town. In the early days of Spanish conquest, Conin, a leader of a native tribe, made a peace deal with the Spanish. The two sides lived side by side in the same town, the Spanish on the west side and the natives on the east side. The buildings on the west side are grander. But buildings on the east side are very decent. The temple of Santa Clara, one of the two most prominent churches, was built by the natives. It shows how prosperous natives were in the region.

Queretaro was where independence movement was first fermented. The mayor at that time and his wife were very active in promoting the idea of independence. 

Queretaro was also where the emperor Maximilian was captured and executed, thus ending the short lived empire. 

Queretaro is another world heritage site. But it is a lot easier to navigate. The old town is a pleasure to walk around.

We reached Mexico City the fifth day. The way to Mexico City is very green. It was raining.

The elevation of El Paso is about 1100 meters above sea level. The elevation of Chihuahua is about 1400 meters above sea level. The elevation of Mexico City is about 2200 meters above sea level. As elevation gets higher, the temperature gets lower and the saturation point of water vapour gets lower. Rain drops get more abundant. The land gets greener and human population density gets higher. Most human populations are around Mexico City. This has been the case since the ancient times. 

Similarly, Colorado is higher than Utah. Colorado probably gets more rain than Utah. Colorado is greener than Utah and its population, over six million, is higher than Utah, over three million.

While driving along Rio Grande, I notice that its water flow is much less than Colorado River. Colorado River has twenty five times of water flow of Rio Grande. Probably this is a major reason why economic and population growth in New Mexico is less impressive than Arizona, which gets much water consumption from Colorado River.