Mission: San Antonio

With no more house buying to occupy our hours we left early for San Antonio. The driving was easy in the Dodge Journey and the straight roads left me with none of the characteristic soreness in the shoulders I would normally get from an equivalent drive in Scotland. I think I only had to turn off the cruise control a half dozen times for the full trip.

We've spent a bit of time at the house, enjoying Ethna and Manny's hospitality, which is as warm as always. The little dogs have resumed their habit of licking Fiona's feet, which she can't stand. She's let them know this in no uncertain terms, so they've adopted new tactics - the stealth lick, the lick-and-run or the kamikaze lick (going ahead with it knowing full well the consequences).

We graced the Quarry Market to spend a few more of our hefty British pounds on cheap American merchandise. It was a gorgeous day, so it was nice to walk from shop to shop. Our suitcases are now quite full, so I think we'll be slowing down a little bit. We can only do so much to help revive the economy here. At some point the locals will have to take over.

Today was spent touring one of San Antonio's best known attractions - the Missions. The Missions are a series of 5 Catholic missions set up by the Spanish in the San Antonio area in the 1700s. They were fortified villages that contained churches, mills, granaries and some living quarters. The Franciscan monks that operated them were attempting to convert the local natives. It must have been a tough life - heavy woolen robes in 100 degree heat, hostile Apache and Comanches, rampant disease amongst the converts and constant toil to provide food. The missions really are quite amazing, considering how far on the frontier they actually were.

We skipped the first mission, the downtown complex that includes the Alamo, because we had been there before. We started instead at Concepcion. It is the best maintained of the missions and contains the most original material. The painted church, covered in a stunning yellow/orange color and accented with a tri-color border, is still in use.

From there we went to San Jose, which was my favorite. Its walls were very extensive and encircled a large courtyard with many built-in residences. The church inside was the largest and most impressive, although we were somewhat confused by all the fuss over the Rose Window. There was also an interpretive centre with a neat museum and a historical documentary about the missions. All very informative.

The next mission was San Juan, which was the least impressive because of the relatively large amount of damage/erosion. There were only a few buildings left standing. It was nice to see the site still being used for a large outdoor party of some kind - including a pig roast that smelled quite good.

Before we hit the last mission we stopped at a remnant of the aqueduct system that the friars used to cultivate the huge areas of land between the missions. They used a series of dams and aqueducts to turn what might generously be called "semi-arid" land into a fertile cropland, producing melons, squash, sugar cane and corn. They also managed to tend large herds of sheep, goats and cattle with their Indian converts.

The last mission (Espada) was quite large but with only a few standing buildings. One was a shop where the resident friars ran a small glass-blowing business. They were extremely friendly and happy to sell us a bauble to remember our day by. Fiona won't be forgetting it in the next couple of days, as she'll be nursing a sunburn honestly acquired by a day of trudging around under the warmth of the San Antonio sun. That puts me on aloe vera duty. I can think of worse gigs ...