A serene courtyard and a rushing river

Two highlights of our lovely day in Uruapan were a peaceful handicraft museum and a walk in a jungly canyon right in the middle of the city.

This morning we visited La Huatápera, a lovely handicraft museum off a peaceful courtyard attached to the church behind the main square. The building itself dates from 1526 and it shows crafts of the local people who live in this area. While the crafts were interesting, I seem to have spent most of my time in the lovely courtyard trying to capture the tranquil feeling of the warm sun and the cool air and the flowering trees and the stone patio.

After a lunch in little place with a lovely mural of Uruapan's centre, we walked up the hill to the Parque Nacional del Barranca del Cupatitzio. This park and botanical garden encompasses the headwaters of the Cupatizio River and most of it is right within the city.  It's a semi-tropical paradise dominated by the river itself with jungle paths, deep ravines, rushing water and little streams and waterfalls. The land was  purchased by the government and built in the 1930s to preserve the river and the canyon. Apparently it's the second most visited national park in Mexico.   There weren't that may people visiting this afternoon so it also felt serene.

Here's what we saw as we hiked from the main entrance up to the source, a spring fed by tiny underground streams. 

The lat photo is the spring at the headwaters. It's amazing how much water is produced by this little pool.  We enjoyed our walk up and back down in the cool or the air from the river. It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon and we enjoyed the contrast to the heat of Zihua.

We may be the only Canadian tourists here in Uruapan. We've seen no other Gringo faces although we met a couple of Mexican people who live in California and were visiting family here. It's simply not on the tourist map.