Zamora and home

I haven’t talked about the concerts yet; there were high and low spots. The theme of the festival this year was Britain. Thus, they were highlighting British composers, especially Elgar and Benjamin Britten. Elgar isn’t too bad, but Britten is too modern for my taste. However, one concert had Beethoven’s wonderful violin concerto; the female violinist was outstanding. That concert was in an open air courtyard; it was quite chilly. I had my wool sports coat, and was warm enough. However, the Mexicans had parkas, gloves and even boots, but still were shivering! The final concert of the festival (which was held in a large, modern theater auditorium) featured 2 Mexican composers plus Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Of the former, the first was very pleasant and not discordantly
modern; however, the second piece was by a living composer (he was in the audience) and it was very modern. For the Mendelssohn, they had prepared a narration (interspersed with the music) that gave a detailed rendition of Shakespeare’s play, but entirely in Spanish. It was almost half way through by the time I realized what they were doing. After that, it was interesting for me because I know the play so well that I could follow even with my limited Spanish. Two women sang a couple of songs as well as acted out parts of the play. However, most of the ex-pats in our group couldn’t follow the Spanish and it did go on for too long. The entire concert, with several speeches by bigwigs (again all in Spanish), lasted for over 3 and a half hours.

We left Morelia at 10 a.m. on Sunday. About a third of the way back to Ajijic, we made a short detour to visit Zamora, a relatively small city. However, they are building a huge Gothic church, called the Sanctuario (see photos); it is not a cathedral because it is not the home of a bishop. They have been at it for decades and it is now nearing completion. It is claimed that it will be the 4th largest church building in Latin America. It has beautiful stained glass windows and marble floors (the second photo shows the central nave). They also recently installed a German made, multimillion dollar organ (see below). After the mass finished (there was a large crowd that almost filled this enormous church), our tour leaders had arranged for a short 30 minute concert by the organist. After the concert, we all went to an authentic Mexican restaurant. The house specialty was a shredded beef stew/soup. It was absolutely delicious; however, many of the ex-pats were chicken and ended up ordering rather bland quesadillas. After that we all got on the bus and resumed our journey home. Probably because we were all tired, it seemed to take longer than going; however, we arrived in Ajijic exactly on schedule at 6 p.m.