It is not an easy trip to the Sierra Gorda missions -- even today. The roads in the remote, severely beautiful mountains of northern Querétero state feature staggering views of mist-shrouded valleys and equally awe-inspiring narrow lanes with nail-biting curves. The reward for the drive is the façades of five edifices which present the delight of Baroque swirls, Catholic saints, and delicate bell towers of eighteenth-century Spain.

Mist shrouds the Sierra Gorda along Highway 120

The five small jewel-box mission churches sparkle in the high mountain sunshine of the Sierra Gorda. The façades of the five edifices -- in the towns of Jalpan, Conca, Landa, Tilaco and Tancoyol -- present the expected delight of Baroque swirls, Catholic saints, and delicate bell towers of eighteenth-century Spain. Recently restored, they also enchant with the surprise of rampaging rabbits, moons, and swirling stony foliage of the indigenous peoples, who carved their cosmology alongside the imported icons of the Franciscan missionaries, credited with building the churches.

It is not an easy trip to the Sierra Gorda missions -- even today. The roads in the remote, severely beautiful mountains of northern Querétero state feature staggering views of mist-shrouded valleys and equally awe-inspiring narrow lanes with nail-biting curves.

Many would argue the five exquisite missions built by Father Junípero Serra are his most notable accomplishment.

The difficult terrain aided the indigenous Jonaces and Pames in maintaining their independence for decades from the colonizing Spanish. While the imperial, hierarchical cultures of the Central Highlands of Mexico acceded to the Conquistadors and the Cross within years of Cortes' arrival in 1519, the Sierra Gorda remained chichimeca (barbarian) territory well into the eighteenth-century. Pack trains going to and from the northern silver cities and Mexico City remained at the mercy of chichimec attacks, disrupting commerce and profits, and the failure to establish successful missions rankled the Church, ever at odds with the government for control of the souls of New Spain.

Junípero Serra as depicted in Jalpan's Sierra Gorda Museum. "I arrived with nothing, I leave with nothing, but I leave you with a great treasure, The Faith"

Finally, in 1744 Colonel Jose de Escandón, Spanish-born veteran of successful campaigns in the Yucatan, imposed military rule in the area and imported another yet another group of missionary priests. It was standard carrot-and-stick Spanish pacification strategy toward the indigenous tribes: the promise of reliable food and shelter from the missions backed with the threat of military force if they resisted complying. Accordingly, Escandón sited the five mission stations-Conca, Landa, Tilaco, Tancoyol, and Jalpan, headquarters of the largest military force-in strategic valley folds. In 1750, fresh from the new missionary colleges in Mexico City, came Junípero Serra and several disciples ready and eager to achieve success. This is the same Junípero Serra, who later reaped fame and eventual canonization for his role in founding the more famous California missions.

As an act of piety and evidence of his stubborn intensity, Junípero Serra walked from Mexico City to his new post in the Sierra Gorda. Born on the Spanish island of Mallorca off the Catalan coast, Serra shone as both a high-wattage university academician and as a popular preacher. To escape his Franciscan superiors' proud, possessive grasp, Serra plotted to escape provincial acclaim to seek larger fame and fortune in the New World. Addicted as a youth to stories of the first waves of heroic Franciscans, who baptized thousands of natives in the New World with one hand while constructing missions with the other, Serra labored the rest of his life to match his life to those childhood mythical heroes.

Sunday overflow crowds at the mission church at Conca

Despite the acclaim Junípero Serra gained for his later California years, many would argue the five exquisite missions he left in the mountains of northern Querétero state are as notable an accomplishment. It was not just architecture that occupied the missionaries, for entire near-medieval communities needed construction from scratch. Formerly an ivory-tower academician, Serra now obsessed over the successful mating of his farm animals, the growing of beans and corn, and endless religious pageantry. He sponsored weekly candlelit processions, energetically outfitted his throng in appropriate costumes for Christmas pageants, personally carried the cross up and down a local hill each Easter, and presided over daily masses as well as translating the catechism from Latin to the local language.

For nearly a decade, 1750-1758, the missions flourished. Ordered to minister to the northern Apaches, Serra left the Sierra Gorda in September, 1758, and within another decade the Pame melted away, and the churches fell into ruin. Now restored to much of their former glory, they stand proudly overseeing the life of their towns, welcoming tour buses of Mexican tourists, visiting gringos, and on the Sunday we were there, filled to over-flowing with parishioners, the people of Jalpan, Conca, Landa, Tilaco, and Tancoyol -- the five mission towns of the Sierra Gorda.