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Gorda range, and the vistas from roadside pullouts.
Finally we reached the highest point in the state of Querétaro –
the
Puerta del Cielo
, or Gateway of Heaven. Suddenly the landscape
changed dramatically, from parched rocks to a veritable Garden of
Eden. As we descended down the eastern side of the Sierra Gorda,
we marveled at the dripping forests of pines and oaks, with villagers
grazing their livestock in verdant green pastures along the roadside.
We kept pinching ourselves to see if we were really still in México, or if
we had been miraculously transported to Ireland.
Our base for the weekend was the Hotel Misión Hacienda Concá,
featuring basic but comfortable rooms in a series of low-slung
buildings. Only a thirty-minute drive on a flat road from the little
town of Jalpan, the hotel was built on the site of a late eighteenth-
century sugar factory, and boasts lush gardens, freshwater springs
and an enormous ceiba tree more than 500 years old.
MISIÓN SANTIAGO
DE JALPAN
(1758)
Having safely completed our crossing of the
Sierra Gorda, we arrived in Jalpan, small, but still
the largest town in the area. It was here that we
encountered our first of the five mission churches,
Santiago de Jalpan
. Expecting structures on
a scale akin to the missions found up and
down California, we were flabbergasted
at Jalpan’s size. It was a revelation
for us California-centric visitors, who
thought “we” have
the
missions as
our patrimony, to learn that the five
mission churches of the Sierra Gorda are
generally of a far grander scale, both in
size and decoration.
It was at Jalpan where
we were also introduced to
the architectural layout of the
Sierra Gorda missions, all
of which are the same.
Horizontal registers
divide an elaborate
façade, although the
actual decoration of
each façade is unique to each church. A window is set into the center
of the façade to illuminate the interior choir loft, the exterior stairs to
which are hidden by a plain two-story section to the right. A bell tower
is attached to the left of each façade, with a window in the lower section
that illuminates the corresponding interior baptistery.
The cross-shaped interior is topped by a cupola
at the intersection of the nave and transept,
pierced with windows that light the sanctuary.
The earliest services were actually held
outdoors, as the Indians were afraid of entering
the roofed structures. So the square
courtyard, or atrium, in front of each
church contains a large stone cross
at the center, and the atrium walls
originally held a small chapel
in each corner (although
these remain extant
96
summer
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fal l
ART&ARCHITECTURE
The ornate bell tower at
Misión Santiago de Jalpan.