More-a Zamora

Zamora is world-famous for strawberries. And for good reason. They are sweet, fresh, tart and perfectly delicious. Avocados are coming into season. I can pick up 4 for 10 pesos (roughly 10 cents) in the market. Combine the aguacates and fresas with balsamic vinegar (if I can find it), along with fresh lettuce, and I am often perfectly content. Add to this the fact that mangoes are now in season – and very cheap – and life on the dole seems pretty damn good.

Zamora is a small city of about 200,000. Word is that there is a lot of drug money here. It may well be. Sometimes you see dirty kids selling whatever they found in their houses that morning. Moments later you see a teen-age boy bouncing around town in his white Hummer 2 with a carload of teens dressed in school uniforms. It’s hard to tell where money comes from in this small city. It’s typical Mexico – everyone is a business owner.

One of Zamora’s attractions is the Catedral Inconclusa. Translated: unfinished cathedral. I thought the Mormons took forever to build their temple in Salt Lake City. But they’ve got nothing on the Zamorans. They’ve been building the cathedral since the 1700s. Of course, there was a period of 50 years or so where construction stopped. But hey, what’s 50 years in a centuries-long process? Much of the exterior is complete. It’s the top of the church that’s incomplete. Apparently, the church was roofless for decades. Today you can see the bell intended for the belfry parked in front of the church, as well as the skeleton of two steeples still waiting to be perched atop the ornate building. The interior is complete, excepting an organ. The vitrales (stained-glass windows) are breathtaking. It’s an impressive cathedral, for sure.