If (as we did) you travel round Central Mexico on a “World Heritage quest” you are going to look at a lot of churches, cathedrals, missions, convents and monasteries dating from the 16th to the 18th century! The problem for the non expert (which includes us!) is what to make of all this in terms of its architectural and historical significance. We dutifully visited 4 of the 5 Sierra Gorda missions, giving them half a day within a very crowded schedule. The visits were pleasant enough but only now on our return home can I fit them into the overall picture.

The Sierra Gorda is wild, relatively empty country and a World Biosphere Reserve “for its eco-diversity due to its … position at the meeting point of the Nearctic and Neotropical bioregions. (It) presents great physiographic complexity, with altitudes ranging from 300 meters above sea level … (at) Jalpan … to 3,100 meters … at the summit….”. The drive from the city of Queretaro, set in the hot plains of Mexico’s “bajio” to the Sierra Gorda Missions takes you to the summit referred to above and then down to the town of Jalpan. With stops, for instance, at the Tentative List site of “Bernal”, it will take you best part of a half a day on a hard and twisting drive.

For the sort of geographic reasons implied above and because of continuing conflicts over silver etc this land wasn’t pacified and settled until much later than other parts of Mexico and maintained a dispersed, partly nomadic and un-converted population. Later on in our trip we were to visit the inscribed Missions “on the slopes of Popocatepetl” (see my review). Those were being created as early as 1533. Yet the missions in the Sierra Gorda were not set up until around 1750/60. I certainly hadn’t understood the long timescale involved in the evangelization of Mexico’s interior and didn’t at the time I was there. Yet knowledge of that is key to understanding the Sierra Gorda Missions and their architecture!

So, to see some/all of the Missions, first make for Jalpan. It has a couple of hotels and we found the “Hotel Mision” perfectly acceptable (if a bit noisy). As its name suggests it is set right in front of the first of the Missions. We visited it both in the evening and the following morning but then decided to miss out Mission Conca situated about 25 kms north of Jalpan on route 69 towards Rio Verde. Instead we continued west along route 120 (the road from Queretaro) first to Mission Landa and then further along by return side trips to Mission Tilaco (about 16kms south off the main road) and Mission Tancoyol (about 25 kms north off the main road). From there we were making for Xilitla and the coast. Leaving Jalpan at 9am we reached Xilitla at 1pm.

Unfortunately all 4 of the missions we saw (Mar 2008) had their baroque façades partly obscured by scaffolding (photo 1) – it appears that a program of restoration of all of them is in progress. Whilst this hindered photography it didn’t totally prevent appreciation of the wonderful indigenous decoration and I can now review my photos in the light of additional study. All the missions were Franciscan and “naif” stucco work showing, what I understand to be the stigmata of St Francis, were a common feature on all the church facades (photo 2). The Fransiscans also built some of the “Popocatepetl missions” over 200 years earlier – notably Cuernavaca and Huejotzingo but to a very different style. Having experienced both, we can now see how the “imposed” fortress-like medieval architecture of the earlier was replaced by the innocence and beauty of indigeno forms in the later! Interestingly, the guy who built the Sierra Gorda Missions, Junipero Serra, went on to found San Diego (Yes “that” San Diego!) mission in California and was beatified in 1988. The mission interiors were all fairly simple – partly a reflection of the style but also a result of the anti-clericalism of Mexico’s Revolution which had led to the destruction of altarpieces etc. Outside we saw the “atria” which we were to come across later in the Popocatepetl monasteries – the large open air squares where the “Indians” would congregate for services. The importance of the decorated façade which looked out on this “congregation space” is now clear.

The villages in which the missions were set – especially the “cul de sacs” of Tilaco and Tancoyol (Jalpan and, to a lesser extent, Landa are small towns now) were particularly interesting. These will have grown from the first settlements created as the Franciscans persuaded groups of “Indians” to come in and set up huts around the missions - we found Tancoyol in particular very “Mexican” and enjoyed the atmosphere around the church and market.

In conclusion; it pays to do some studying beforehand when visiting WHS but the reality is that, until you have been, it is difficult to know what is going to be significant. I am pleased we managed to see both sets of Mexican WHS missions – and a bit more study and reflection on our return has helped increase understanding of each.