Mountains and wildflowers in Hidalgo state

Colorful staircase in Pachuca

This weekend, we  took a little getaway to the state of Hidalgo, which borders the state of Puebla (which is where I am currently hanging out, avoiding Trump's America and the hordes of fans that stalk me at home, demanding a sequel to BreakupBabe).

You don't hear about Hidalgo much. Which is probably a good thing - it's not in the news for drugs and violence. It's also definitely not on the gringo tourist trail, and perhaps not much on the Mexican tourist trail, except for  people who live nearby.

But I was looking for a place to go over Thanksgiving break that wasn't far and that would serve up some nature - something that's sorely lacking here in the traffic-choked city of Puebla. More than anything when I'm here, I miss the green spaces of Seattle, the lakes, the Puget Sound, the snowy peaks (sob).

And so, on Thanksgiving Day, we bound a bus for the city of Pachuca. The capital of Hidalgo state, it's not too famous for much of anything except soccer and "pastes" (aka Cornish pasties), both brought by Cornish miners who went there to work the silver mines in the 1900s.

We did stuff ourselves with pastes,  but what we enjoyed most in Pachuca was "Las Palmitas." It's a once-sketchy neighborhood perched on a hillside that - thanks to a community effort - was turned into one big eye-poppingly colorful mural. (The Guardian published an article about it a few years ago).

We were the only ones around

You'd expect such a pretty place to be full of tourists, but we were the only ones wandering around taking pictures. (In fact, we were practically the only ones wandering around at all).

And one resident, when she saw me take a picture, got very grumpy and started ranting about how I shouldn't take pictures because I didn't live there, and the neighborhood belonged to the people who did.

This has never happened to me before in Mexico, but then again, I guess I'm usually in more touristy places. You'd expect this place to be more touristy. If Las Palmitas was, say, in a neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, it would be  packed with tourists drinking $8 lattes, $15 glasses of wine, and buying t-shirts.

Mural in Comuna 13, Medellin

In fact, it reminded me of a similar - but much more vibrant -  neighborhood I visited last year in Medellin called "Comuna 13". Comuna 13 also used to be a violence-ridden place until the Colombian government cleaned it up (ahem, using some violent methods of their own). Now it's a safe, bustling neighborhood bursting with murals, souvenir shops, and people taking pictures.

 In any case, there were no lattes or souvenir shops to be found, just empty, colorful streets - a little on the haunting side in their loneliness.

Into the mountains to Mineral del Chico

After a night in Pachuca, we hopped on one of the passenger vans that ferries people up into the mountains. After a sinuous 40-minute drive, we arrived in the picturesque mining town of Mineral del Chico. It's one of Mexico's mostly recently-designated pueblos magicos - or "magic towns."

What makes this one "magic?" Well, it's got a beautiful old church, of course. It's also set in the middle of a national park, which means that many of the vistas from the town included striking rock formations and acres of forest.

And luckily, we found the perfect hike to do amidst this wilderness. I say "luckily" because it's not always a given that you'll find such things as "maps" in a national park in Mexico. In fact, there were no maps to be found in Mineral del Chico, but there was a bright red information booth, and even though it opened late (eye roll), there was a friendly person in there who dispensed advice.

This guy enjoyed the view too

We hiked up and up, first to a mirador called La Pena del Cuervo, which offered a 360-view of the surrounding scenery and the valley below. Then, encouraged by a friendly Hidalgo couple we met there,  we hiked up further to an abandoned lookout, which we had to ourselves and which was surrounded by wildflowers.

I was so excited to see wildlflowers! I thought I'd seen the last of them in August, when I hiked at Mount Rainier. But no, here they were in late November, and suddenly, for the half an hour that I wandered around on this little peak, surrounded bursts of white, yellow, and red flowers, I felt at home for the first time since I came to Mexico over a month ago. 

That alone made the trip worth it.

Not that the trip was difficult. It just had minor annoyances, like trips tend to do. But they were so minor they are not even worth going into (much as I'd like to bitch about the couple that was constantly having sex above us in our otherwise peaceful lodging in Mineral del Chico. I mean, people, once a week is enough for most couples. Do you really need to be having sex several times a DAY?).

So, instead, I won't gripe. I'll leave you with this image. Mountains. Flowers. Sunshine. Blue sky. Much as I miss for Seattle and long for it when I'm gone, you're certainly not gonna find a scene like this there in late November. Viva Mexico!