Mexicans call the southern portion of the highway (between Guanajuato and Mexico City) "La Ruta de la Independencia" (The Route of Independence), because it was along this route that Father Miguel Hidalgo marched with his ragged army to overthrow the Spaniards. Hidalgo was executed in Chihuahua on July 30, 1811. He is revered by the Mexicans as the "Father of Mexico's Independence."
Highway 45 never drops below the 3,752 foot elevation at Ciudad Juarez, where it begins. It climbs the long and high Mesa Central at grades so moderate as to be almost imperceptible much of the way, making this route a good one for trailers.
You can cut east toward the coast by taking Highway 49 at Ciudad Jimenez. This route bypasses Hidalgo del Parral and Durango, taking you through Torreon and Rio Grande and then to Fresnillo, where you pick up Highway 45 again. Highway 49 is a good paved road. Fill your gas tank at Jimenez; the next town, Gomez Palacio, is 145 miles away.
At times the unrelenting sameness of the road gives way to a narrow village street that threads past old buildings, tree shaded plazas, and vendors selling melons or rebozos, revealing the fragments of northcentral Mexico you'd been expecting as you drove the first 600 miles or more through the cattle country below the border.
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Travelers from the East Coast of the United States have a choice of highways to use to reach Mexico City or some of the pleasant towns along the Gulf of Mexico. Even West Coast drivers often take the interior route, Highway 45, to the country's capital.
The northcentral and northeastern sections of Mexico are not exactly filled with tourist destinations but a few highlights deserve mention.
In this website we follow the four main routes south, calling attention to some of the attractions along the way.
Some consider the northcentral area of Mexico, traversed by Highway 45, dull and monotonous part of it is. For at least half the way between Juarez (you are crossing from El Paso) and Durango the country is flat and semiarid, with practically no variation in the mile after mile between towns and villages.
But whenever you come to a sign proclaiming
Poblado Proximo (inhabited neighborhood), the land suddenly comes alive. Boys riding bicycles, men leading burros, children playing in dooryards, bougainvillea spilling over garden walls these are small but satisfactory compensations for the highway monotony.