Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: 2 hours

Mode of transportation: by rental car, day trip from Mexico City

Review and experience

Yet another review where I'm unlikely doing the actual WHS justice. Like several others who have reviewed this site, we only had the chance to visit the Cuernavaca Cathedral and the church in Tepoztlan. The significance of these sites is indisputable - nearly every cathedral and church we visited over the course of our 3 weeks' stay in central Mexico shared similar characteristics to these earliest churches of Mexico, as do some old missions in my home state of California. The large single nave, adjacent monastic buildings, and beautiful courtyard and the two-level convent filled with arches. As such, its OUV and its inscription on the basis of Criteria (ii) and (iv) felt sufficiently appropriate. 

However, for the Cuernavaca Cathedral, its belltower was interesting and (potentially most) unique, as it resembled the Seville Cathedral's Giralda Tower. Of course, that tower was initially built as a mosque minaret, so it's interesting to see the Moorish influence brought over to the New World from this angle. That said, I don't think this particular component of the cathedral's broader style is as frequently replicated in other churches we had seen in Mexico. The height of the belltower is domineering to the nearby skyline, and it's a little sad that the recent earthquake damaged the cathedral, and I believe a part of the belltower collapsed.  

My slight criticism of the site comes from its naming. Frankly, no matter how I look at it, several of the churches (including the two we visited in Cuernavaca and Tepoztlan) are not on the slopes of the Popocatepetl. I wish this naming was just removed, as the Cuernavaca Cathedral certainly deserves to belong to the small cohort of the earliest monastic buildings of Mexico. Because of this naming, I had also mistakenly visited the church on top of the Cholula Pyramid assuming it was part of this UNESCO site. In retrospect, while that church is on the slopes of the Popocatepetl, it's not built early enough to likely qualify. However, still worth a visit, as it's not only a unique church built at the top of one of the largest Meosamerican pyramids, but also rewards visitors an impressive view of the Popocatepetl. During our visit, the ever so faint smoke erupting from the volcano (as one of the world's most active volcanoes currently) was an eerie reminder of the volcano's risks to the people nearby and the many WHS sites. 

Hope to be back one day and visit a broader set of the churches in this WHS. 

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Side remark - I broke my rental car's bumper and rear lights by backing into a parking pole... but still think it was worth the trip to see these churches and Xochicalco, haha.