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Durango sits in a huge shallow bowl high in the central
plateau of Mexico. Everyone said it was a six hour drive from
Mazatlan on the two lane road straight up behind all those
trucks. I made it in four but there was a lot of passing
involved. There was excellent scenery all along the way on the
drive, but when you get to Durango you had better love buildings
because it is absolutely impossible to see any background
landscape in this high flat place. |
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On the left is the state legislative building where locals
were very surprised and curious to hear visitors speaking
English, but later I did find it fairly easy to find other
gringos to ask questions of when I needed shopping directions.
Since this high plateau is so huge (and flat), the city is more
spread out, the streets are all very broad, and you don't get
quite the feeling of hustle and bustle that you do elsewhere in
Mexico. |
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On the right is the main church viewed from the city central
square. Can't remember what the left picture is of but it must in
a different direction from the same city central square. Since
Durango is a state capital and economic center, there are quite a
few hotels to be found without a bunch of tourists to drive up
the prices. Their accounting is quite strict however - we arrived
at about the nicest hotel in the center of town on a Sunday
(SuperBowl Sunday 1994) and they didn't have change for our 100
peso note! We were lucky we could cough up the correct change or
we would have had to move on. |
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One interesting fact about Durango that I should mention is
that it is possibly the most athletic community in Mexico. On one
end of the city (I believe it is in the northwest) they have a
huge green park with immaculate soccer fields, tennis courts and
grounds for virtually any other sporting venue you can imagine.
When we drove through we were amazed at so many people jogging
along our lane (in designer jogging outfits) that we decided that
it must be a local ordinance for each citizen to come here once a
day. Unfortunately I was so entranced that I failed to photograph
this phenomenon. |
| Mira el sitio sobre Durango de mi internet amigo
Carlos! |
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