The local tourist people like to insist that Aguascalientes is more than a fair, although this is something of an exaggeration. The San Marcos Fair in April is everything you might expect of a Mexican fiesta and more. During other months, however, Aguascalientes is, as Pancho Villa discovered, an excellent place to hold a convention. There are few distractions that would tempt delegates to skip meetings.
By many accounts, Aguascalientes is the nicest place to live in all of Mexico. Rarely does it get too hot or too cold. Rain seldom falls (too seldom, actually). Almost everyone has a job. The tiny state is said to be the most prosperous in Mexico.
Sadly, all that may be changing. Affluence is attracting the poor from other areas. There are nearly as many peddlers and beggars at major traffic intersections as there are in Mexico City. The famous Jardín de San Marcos is surrounded by pushcarts offering a limited menu of either shaved ice or tripe tacos.
Happily, visitors can still board taxis without fear. This is important, since driving into the Historic Center of Aguascalientes can be a challenge. The trip by car from Mexico City is a delight over toll roads. The drive took me less than six hours, although others probably could cover the 500 kilometers in five. The bus is another alternative, and at least three airlines fly in from Mexico City.
The choice of hotels in this city of one million souls is ample and many are exceptionally nice. I made the mistake of trying to save a few pesos by staying at one of the new, franchised “inns” on the outskirts. Frustration followed. They had only one room key, a plastic card. A guest had gone off with the other. Closet hangers could not be removed. The ice machine was broken. Towels apparently were rationed. The television emitted no sound. And, in the wee small hours, the alarm in a car parked outside my room blared for a full ten minutes. Attempted auto theft? In crime-free Aguascalientes?
Not that I want to complain. The hotel staff was exceptionally helpful and friendly. They failed only in securing a second key, promising they would have it in an hour or two, but those promises might have been made by a politician.
Aguascalientes boasts 14 shopping centers, many bright and modern, but none especially seductive. Bits of embroidery, baby clothes and lace are the traditional handicrafts. They make nice gifts to take back home, are easy to pack and not expensive, but that is about it. Of perhaps half-a-dozen museums, the José Guadalupe Posadas institute is the one most worth visiting. Posadas was an engraver and early political cartoonist whose skeletal images have become national symbols.
Like so many cities around the world, Aguascalientes has ersatz streetcars operating as sightseeing buses. Having been told by an airline flight attendant – and who knows more about travel than flight attendants do? – that the first thing she does in a new city is get on a sightseeing bus, I followed her example.
On board I learned that the first settlers arrived in 1575, only to find themselves in Chichimeca country. The Chichimacas were wild, nomatic hunters and gathers, but much of what they gathered they stole, or so Spanish colonists claimed. The colonists’ solution was to import Tlaxcatecans, a favorite Spanish device, one that I have heard was tried in Saltillo and even Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Tlaxcatecans supposedly would prove to be a civilizing influence. They had about as much effect as would a colony of Danes in Sicily.
Originally part of Jalisco when Jalisco was Nuevo Galicia, and then incorporated into Zacatecas, Aguascalientes became a state in its own right in 1835, being snipped off by Santa Anna (he of Alamo fame), supposedly in return for a kiss. The future serene highness is said to have offered a lady identified only as la Sra. García Salinas anything she wished in return for a kiss. She asked that Aguascalientes be made a state and her husband the first governor. Those who wonder whether just a kiss – on the cheek, no less – was involved are reminded that Aguascalientes, covering just 5,589 square kilometers, is one of the smallest states in the republic.
Geographic location made it a railroad center, with the largest railroad maintenance shops in the country. This may be why it became the venue for that Convention of 1914, which tried and failed to end the violent phase of the Mexican Revolution. A decade or so later, Aguascalientes served as a haven for refugees of the Cristero Wars.
Once famous for its wines, the state now concentrates more on producing milk. Globalization destroyed the local wineries, but also brought in foreign investors from three continents. A local entrepreneur, J.R. Romo, introduced industrialization to Aguascalientes, manufacturing supermarket carts and similar items. Following the Mexico City earthquake in 1985, el Instituto de Estadistica, Geografía y Información, the national statistics-gathering agency, established its headquarters in Aguascalientes. More recently, the Necaxa football (soccer) team moved in.
Still, anyone who has known Aguascalientes during the San Marcos Fair will scarcely recognize it any other time of the year. For the convention I attended, they opened up the casino and I won nearly a million snoezelens, making me feel as rich as I did when Miguel de la Madrid was president and a thousand pesos was a million; later three zeros were trimmed from the currency. In April, of course, during the fair, they play for real money at the casino.
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