Mineral de Pozos Trip

Since we had one night in between houses we decided to rent a car and head to a small town called Mineral de Pozos. This town in about 1 hour from San Miguel and used to be a major hub for silver and mercury mines. We stayed in a cute inn called Hotel Posada de las Minas. The roads are relatively easy to drive around here...there are no traffic signals and not really any lanes so you can pretty much do as you want. Also, there are just a few roads in and out of town so it is not hard to find your way around.

Alex is 2 for 2 in Mexico...he got car sick on the short ride to Pozos and it seems like he is making a routine of this these days. Luckily, the trip was short and by the time we arrived he felt ok again. We stayed in the Buena Vista room which did have a lovely view of the town and the church. Our room had several fireplaces and we all enjoyed a dinner out and then hung out around the fire playing cards. Alex and Hannah learned a new card game at camp called Egyptian Rat Screw (crazy name but a great game) so we all had a ball playing this game.This was also the place that I took my first nice, hot bath since leaving Vermont. Ah, it felt good! Casa Guadalupe had zero water pressure so even taking a shower was painstakingly long.

The next day we hired a guide to take us around the mines. Many of the mine openings are not posted, nor are they covered so this can be a dangerous place with kids. We had an excellent guide named Fernando that the hotel arranged for us. He picked us up in his minivan and away we went. He took us to the mercury mines as he thinks they are more interesting than the silver mines. It was fascinating to see these huge ovens that cooked the mercury out of the rock and how the entire process worked. At one point, the mine was over a mile long and this mercury mine was one of the largest in Mexico. Fernando took us down into one of the mines and the kids enjoyed this part the most. We scampered down into the dark and the guide had brought 3 flashlights to help us see. Without light, the mines are completely dark and eerie. I can't imagine working down in the mines and we weren't even that far down. Back breaking labor, dangerous, and dark.

Another interesting part of the trip were the various cacti that we saw. Our guide said that you can be stuck in the desert and live off of the cactus. You peel open the fruit part of the cactus and you can eat the inside which will hydrate you. One cactus had a huge trunk growing out of it and our guide said that the trunk is cut and used to make roofs for houses as it is completely water proof. The flowers of the cactus only live one day...they are beautiful but fleeting. They also have lots of different alcoholic drinks that are made from different cacti. So, we should all appreciate cacti a bit more!


After our interesting tour of the mercury mines, we jumped in our car to head home. We only rented the car for the day (since our daily car rental was about $75) and wanted to use the car to move our suitcases from our old house to our new one. Busy day, but a good one.

Pictures: The family in the mine underground. The big stone structures are the old ovens.  The hole in the ground is the entrance to the mine. Owen is being helped by Charles down into the mine. Interesting cacti...some larger than trees!