June 11, 2006

Zapata Route (Morelos), 11.06.06



GPS Track Video


Photoset Map

Photoset Show

GPS Track: GPX (MapSource, et al), or KMZ (Google Earth)

GPS Cycling Data:






Distance: 197 Km, Ascent: 1350 m, Time: 7:28 hr, Avg Speed: 26.3 Km/hr, Max Speed: 65.3 Km/hr

Travel Report:

This ride was an invitation of the Cycling Movement of Cuernavaca. Although the invitation was established at 08:00 in Cuernavaca (at the Calvario), I think I should have started the ride at about 07:00 in Mexico City ! Fortunately, as you can see in the altigraphy, arriving at Cuernavaca was going to be the hardest part of the trip :-)

The interesting aspect of this ride is that the route was going to visit some of the most important places where Zapata, the great southern Mexican revolutionary of 1910, made big historical landmarks. The route would visit places like: Anenecuilco (where Zapata was born), Cuautla (where are located his rests), Chinameca (where Zapata was killed) and Tlatizapán (where Zapata had his headquarters).

So I took the usual route: Tlalpan and later the free highway to Cuernavaca, passing La Cima summit and later arriving to Cuernavaca. As I was already too late, I did not enter in the city, and better decided to head for the first town that the Cuernavaca group was going to visit: Jiutepec. When I arrived to the center of Jiutepec, the people told me that the group has already departed, a half an hour before. So, I was not so far behind :-)

I headed to the nest town in the route: Yautepec. There the group must have used another route around the town since the police had no idea of the whereabouts of the cycling group. Anyway, I took some shots of this picturesque town and went for the next town in the list: Cocoyoc.

In Cocoyoc I still could not find them, so I continued my ride to next big city in the plan: Cuautla. When I arrived at this city, I went immediately to its center, with the renewed hope of finding the rest of the group ... to my dismay. Either they had already departed or took an alternate route along the city, the point is that in the center of Cuautla no one had saw any cyclist group :-(

So I continued my lonely ride to next town in the routemap: Anenecuilco, where Zapata was born. There exists a museum in the very place where he was born. So I headed directly to this museum and ... alas ! Finally I could reach the rest of the group :-) They were having a guided visit to the Museum, so I had plenty of time to take a well deserved rest .. and also to visit the museum.

After taking some shots of the group at the Museum, we went to Chinameca (where Zapata was killed by traitor Guajardo). In that location, at the very place where Zapata was assassinated stands an equestrian statue of him, under an arc that still shows the bullet impacts that cut his life. This is something really stunning: how you can touch with your very hand the effects of an action that changed the course of a national revolution, 100 years after !

After Chinameca we headed to Tlatizapán, where Zapata put his head quarters. we enter into a Museum located in what once was his HQ. The Museum houses several buildings of that time and a statute of Zapata, which we promptly used as a background for the tour photo.

After finishing our visit to the Museum in Tlaltizapán, the rest of the group decided to wait for a bus to Cuernavaca, as all of them live in Cuernavaca. I, being the only one from Mexico City, decided to ride to Zacatepec, in order to take my bus back home. So we told us farewell and I parted to Zacatepec, leaving the rest of the group there. At my arrival to the bus station, I promptly purchased my ticket, as the bus was already departing ! A couple of hours later we arrived at Mexico City :-)

Thank you for reading. Till the next journey.

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