Saltillo 's Rancho el Morillo: an oasis on the Chihuahuan Desert

 

By María Eugenia Guerra

 

It wasn't the same Saltillo I remembered from my juventud, but why would it be after a lapse of decades and after progress and industrialization have visited the mountain city, transforming it from a small quaint town into a sprawling urban center of 650,000 inhabitants. A visit I made there in the 60s, a guest on a ranch near the town, left me with a memory of a high altitude landscape and cool temperatures radically different from the flatlands of South Texas that were my home. The charms of that historic city were then so readily visible in the Spanish colonial architecture of its old homes and public buildings.

Another ranch, another decade. On a recent holiday to Saltillo, a huesped at a beautiful haven of an old guest ranch called El Morillo, I had to look a little harder for Saltillo's charms, but found them nonetheless in the heart of the city's historical district, in the market place, in some of the city's restaurants along narrow streets, and in its plazas, and certainly in the beautiful old hacienda of the rancho.

Though it was difficult to overlook the encroaching blight of progress and the unfettered urban sprawl of shanty neighborhoods that claimed the bowl of the valley of the Sierra Madre Oriental , Rancho El Morillo with its umbrella of old growth trees and ambience of hospitality was our refuge for the duration of our stay in the area.

Leaving Rancho El Morillo for the rest of Saltillo was like stepping onto a treadmill set too fast, the pace of life beyond the ranch complex ratcheted up from the serenity of the hacienda.

A visit to the Mercado Juarez, which was fairly void of tourists and clearly where the locals shopped for everything from meat to herbal products, brought back the memory of the summer Evelyn Hunt and I visited Mariquina Rodriguez de Zuñiga at her family's finca outside of Saltillo . Mariquina, a dear and fine example of the best of humanity, had taught us catechism during a prolonged stay at Mercy Hospital in Laredo . We visited her while she was still on the mend in Saltillo , before she moved back to Hermosillo .

The volume of traffic in Saltillo makes navigating the city a bit of an adventure, as do all the missing street signs, but thanks to a map given to us by Norma García Rodriguez Narro at El Morillo, we managed to arrive at all our destinations. The number of policemen on downtown street corners and the number of traffic cops keeping endless lines of vehicles fluid presented a huge contrast to the traffic snarls we experience so regularly on the frontera. Additionally, in spiffy uniforms and without automatic weapons, the Saltillo police force presented the aspect of order and safety without the implication of force and fear. Drug dealers and gangland shoot-outs are not likely the order of the day there.

There's plenty of parking in downtown Saltillo if you avail yourself of the five-deck facility half a block from the Mercado Juarez. A walk in a ten-block radius of the mercado gives you a good look at the heart of the old town and an idea of the city's commercial pulse. Besides the feast for the eyes of the architectural details of ancient doors and windows, there are several spots, all well-recommended, to visit.

One is the restaurant El Tapanco, a 250-year-old home converted into a splendid upscale eatery. Our fellow diners included other norteamericanos and visitors from India . The spacious dining rooms with their high ceilings, rugged beams, and old fenestration offered a rustic setting for a delicious meal that for us consisted of cabuches, cactus buds in a chile sauce; a salad of portobello mushrooms and smoked salmon; pollo en mole; and an arrachera norteña.

Other notable points of interest include the Catedral de Santiago; El Palacio de Gobierno, an imposing structure façaded with rose cantera and featuring the history-telling murals of Almaraz and Tarazona; the Plaza de Armas; the Instituto Coahuilense de Cultura; and El Museo de las Aves de Mexico.

Take the time to walk on the grounds of the Alameda Zaragoza, a huge inner city park that surrounds the public library. Monuments, fountains, statuary, and a pond grace the lush green space. It would behoove visitors to read up in advance on the history of the region, the founding of La Villa de Santiago del Saltillo prior to 1574 and its side-by-side coexistence with the Tlaxclan pueblo de San Esteban de la Nueva Tlaxcala, which was founded in 1591.

Another must-see spot is El Sarape de Saltillo, the sarape factory on Hidalgo Street . Besides a workshop of men operating wood framed looms for the weaving of sarapes, the old building is filled with artesania far removed from the plaster chacharra that makes its way to the frontera. It's a very pretty place to while away a couple of hours and to take in so vast an inventory of handcrafted goods from all over Mexico .

Don't leave town without a half-day visit to El Museo del Desierto, where you will experience a better understanding of the ecosystem of the Chihuahuan Desert that spreads over 10 Mexican states and two in the United States . The vast complex offers lessons in the natural history of the region as well as the real history of the indigenas and colonial settlers of the area, all on a backdrop of educational exhibits. The dinosaur and fossil exhibits were especially impressive, as were the real prairie dog town and the huge expanses of greenhouses that sprout cholla, mammalaria, cereus, and other desert cacti.

A random stop at a panadería in a neighborhood between downtown and the Rancho El Morillo allowed us a sampling of some of Saltillo 's finest just-baked breads -- warm pan francés, bold yeasty bread with a crust that was neither hard nor wimpy. Don't get me started on the conchas.

Meanwhile, back

at the Rancho El Morillo. . .

Norma García Rodriguez Narro, a descendant of the Narros who established the ranch 300 years ago, today manages Rancho El Morillo, the guest hotel her grandmother Herminia Rodriguez Narro built in 1934 to diversify the ranch operations of cattle raising and orchard fruit. The guest courts of El Morillo run in an ell alongside and behind the old Narro home which sits at the center of a shaded and fenced compound that includes a pool, patio, and the hotel's kitchen, dining room, and offices. The grounds of the compound are clean and well-maintained, as are the guest rooms which are sparsely furnished and spacious.

The comfort of El Morillo extends beyond the guest quarters and onto the verandas and patios of the place. The tiled, many-windowed dining room serves a simple menu of delicious breakfasts that include fresh squeezed orange juice. The service is excellent.

Norma provides a lively narrative for the charmed history of the old hacienda whose guests have included groups of water colorists who came for two months at a time to capture the beauty of El Morillo and Saltillo. Language schools were also staged at the hacienda, and of course there was the steady stream of visitors from South Texas and the rest of the United States who had heard of the resort by word of mouth.

"We learned English from the guests," Norma recalled, adding that the relationship between her family and the guests was always close. "When my sister Elsa was three she swallowed a peach pit that would have killed her. A doctor who was a guest here saved her life," she said.

"This oasis on the desert, El Morillo, has a long history and many, many memories -- not just for my family, but for those who have been guests for generations and who come as children and then adults with their own children. Some remember the horseback riding or the ride in the horse-pulled wagon, and some will remember the bear cub my father had at the ranch," she continued.

"Many guests traveled with their dogs, and so the history of the ranch is filled with anecdotes about dogs," Norma said. "There is a history of the ranch in the correspondence from guests from all over the world to my grandmother. Many Europeans visited here, which inspired my grandparents to travel to Europe."

She addressed the changes in Saltillo over decades, changes that have affected not only the guest ranch but the pulse and focus of the city. "A city that relied 100 percent on tourism became a city that relied 100 percent on industrialization. Saltillo was once known as the Athens of Mexico, a city that drew performers like Enrico Caruso at the turn of the century. In my grandmother's time, there was a great cultural community here. Industry has brought many benefits, but in some ways the city has lost its heart. The center of town has moved north," Norma said.

The 450 year-old city has the third highest unemployment rate in Mexico. "We are no longer rural. We are high tech and are trying to face globalization, but many of those in the work force do not even read. There is no infrastructure in place for those who have moved to the city to work. This is the story of all of Mexico, a country in which 40 million live in poverty and many in illiteracy. How can we compete globally? It's the Titanic. They can't swim," she said emphatically, adding that 9/11 had an impact on the economic climate of Saltillo. "The two countries are so tied to each other. If the United States has a cold, Mexico has pneumonia."

Norma lauded the efforts of a former governor who, while drawing industry to Saltillo, had the foresight to re-develop tourism in the area. She cited the Museo del Desierto as an exemplary project, as well as other area museums and cultural centers that highlight the history of the region. "The history of the north does not exist in the official history of Mexico. We have rescued it," she said.

"When my mother ran the hotel, she made the appeal to industry to use Rancho El Morillo for lodging, and that was the case. Companies availed themselves of the lodging as well as the meeting room and other facilities while their manufacturing plants were being designed or built. Actresses have stayed here and naturalists, bird watchers, and photographers making their way through Mexico. There has always been a serenity here at El Morillo that buffers guests from the outside world. I don't believe the chain motels in the north part of town can offer that," Norma continued.

She credits the ranch's web site for bringing guests to Rancho El Morillo from as far away as Australia and Iceland. "It has been a very good tool. I would like to continue running El Morillo as a hotel, but also to continue to make it available for painting, opera, and theatre workshops. And of course it is available for weddings, family reunions, and conferences," Norma said.

It's easy to see that the quietude of El Morillo and its eye-pleasing grounds could as well be a refuge for writers.

The orchard of cherry and pear trees of El Morillo has fallen fallow, the cattle raising operation long ago shut down, but what has persisted over decades, it seems, is the lodge's tradition of comfort and hospitality as it has moved from its founder Herminia Rodriguez to the current generation of García Rodriguez Narros.

For more information browse www.elmorillo.com.