NOVEMBER & DECEMBER, 2004
December 11 - 17, 2004
Guanajuato, the capital of the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, is in the Colonial Highlands of Mexico, about 3 to 4 hours Northeast of Guadalajara and 3 to 4 hours Northwest of Mexico City. It, like Zacataces, is a colonial city, with a huge Spanish influence. It is very beautiful, with a combination of adobe style and European architecture. The town is set in the midst of a ravine with cliffs and mountains surrounding it. It is at about 6,500 feet in elevation.
It is an extremely beautiful and charming town. The street, alleyways and sidewalks are all extremely windy and narrow - one alleyway is so narrow that legend has it that two teenagers in love would kiss each other from their respective balcolnies which were almost touching, hence the name Callejon de Beso or Kiss Alley. They are all made of cobblestone and have cool staircases and callejons (alleyways) leading up, down, and across each side of the ravine. Houses, hotels, cafes, restaurants, internet establishments, and shops of all kinds line these on either side. There is also a system of underground tunnels and roads running through the town to minimize congestion on the narrow streets above ground. All of this combines to give Guanajuato a very European feel.
In its day, Guanajuato was, and apparently still is, a very wealthy city due largely to the silver and gold veins running through the surrounding mountains. There are still several operational mines, one of them being Valencia Mine, which apparently made Spain quite a bit of money back in the day, and which you can take tours of today. Quite a few merchants in Guanajuato sell beautiful silver jewelrey for really cheap. Mike bought a great silver ring band and Ruthie bought a beautiful silver turquoise necklace, both for less than $20 total (nothing like getting it from the source, eh).
Although rooms are a bit more expensive here than in some of the other cities - ours is $20 a night at Casa Bertha's instead of the $12 a night we have become accustomed to paying - the food is really cheap and good!! Our favorite spot is "Truco 7" on Calle Truco in the heart of El Centro - really good service, food, music and great prices. We ate dinner there twice, both times with Ryan from Denver, who we had met in Creel, and who we randomly bumped into on the bus on the way from Guadalajara to Guanajuato. We also went with him to a local bar that played American music videos at an extremely loud volume.
Food is also very cheap at the Mercado Hildago, We ate lunch there a few times for less than $3.00 for both of us, and it was grubbin! Cafe Bosanova, in Jardin San Roque, is one of several delicious cafes with indoor and outdoor seating located in this area of town. The food -in particular the Crepa de Cajeta (a caramel sauce made with goat's milk - hey, don't knock it until you try it) was excellent and the atmosphere very pleasant. Otherwise, there are taco stands, internet cafes, bars and restaurants of your choice (and banks, by the way) on just about every corner.
Not to keep going on and on about the food, but we also had some really good snacks at a festival held on Sunday, December 12 throughout all of Mexico, including Guanajuato, to celebrate "Our Lady of Guadalupe" Day. Apparently, she is the equivalent of the Virgin Mary in Mexico, and this is a huge holiday down here. There were tons of people in the streets and the kids were all dressed in indigenous clothing. The little boys had mustaches, the little girls make up, ribbons and bandanas, and they were all carrying baskets of fruit, vegeatables, bread and eggs as offerings to Sra Guadalupe. Since everyone was walking up this hill, we followed the crowd to see where they were going. We are very glad we did as it turns out that the people were walking to a church at the top of the hill. Throngs of people streamed out the church door, down the steps and down the hill waiting in line to get into the church and pay their respects to the Sra. Guadalupe. En route to and from the church was tons of food stands with everything from carne asada, to tacos, to gorditas, to fresh fruit, to nuts, to sugar cane cubes, to homeade chips and chicharones, to pan dulce, to . . . we could go on and on. There were also books, clothes, toys, souvenirs, pinatas, fire crackers (they are everywhere down here) and other items for sale. And, toward the end of the day, there was a big parade with costumes, bands, dancers and more down the main streets of the El Centro. The entire thing was pretty remarkable.
Guanajuato also has a number of museums. The highlight for us was the Deigo Rivera Museum. The building in which the museum is housed is the birth home of Diego Rivera, and now an art musuem. They have some period furniture pieces on the first floor, including a crib and dining room table belonging to Diego Rivera's family at the turn of the 20th century. And, on the second floor is a bunch of Diego's work, including early and late pieces, and a lot of lithographs, which are very cool. Another museum pays tribute to the fictional character of Don Quixote, with pieces by Picasso and several other famous artists. In this vein, apparently, there is a huge international arts festival (Cervantes International Arts Festival) every year in Guanajuato during the last two weeks of October. It sounds awesome and we may try to get back here for it some time in the future.
Although there are a number of other musuems in town, we could not hit them all in the time we had. But a few others that stand out are the Mummy Museum (it has 119 mummies for your viewing pleasure), and another housed in Alhondiga, an old grainery turned fort. Pepilla apprently burned the doors of this latter building down in the early 1800s allowing revolutionary soldiers to capture it, marking it one of the first victories in Mexico's fight for independence. Naturally, there is a big statue erected to Pepilla on a cliff overlooking Guanajuato. Mike and I walked up to it one afternoon (about 15 minutes up several flights of steep stairs), took in some remarkable views of the city, and then took the Funicula (cable/mining car) back down to the city for a mere $1.00 (US) each.
The weather the first two days we were in Guanajuato was gorgeous - a little crisp at night, but sunny and warm during the days. We liked it and the town so much that we decided to change our plans slightly, stay for six days rather than two, and study Spanish again for another week, hoping to build on what we had learned the week before in Guadalajara. After several failed attempts at locating a school - we tried Falcon first, but it did not suit our learning styles and it was about a 45 minute walk from the center of town, each way- we finally found a great school, Escuela Mexican, located in the El Centro. Since their hostel/hotel, Casa Mexican, offered good deals to students, we moved from Casa Bertha's, which we had liked a lot, to Casa Mexicana. For approximately the same price, we had a bigger room, a big picture window, a private bathroom, and it was a bit closer to the school.
Our first day of school, it just did not seem like things could get much better. The sun was shining. Our teachers were great and we kicked off our first class every morning listening to the gas and water guys walking the streets yelling (and selling) "Gas" and "Agua" at the top of their lungs in long drawn out breaths! During breaks we got Mexican Hot Chocolate - a bar of yummy Mexican chocolate melted and mixed with steamed milk - at the bar/restaurant right off the school and fresh fruit from nearby stands. After class, we spent the afternoon roaming the streets, avoiding uncovered manholes on streets and sidewalks under construction, as well as sparks and materials flying from where construction workers were operating heavy machinery in sandals, without goggles or any other protective gear, about two feet from pedestrians walking by! We shopped in the market, ate at restaurants and did our homework in cool cafes. It was perfect.
Then the temperature dropped. Now when we say dropped, we mean it dropped by about 30 degrees overnight. Of course, to top it all off, it decided to rain. Now Guanajuato is NOT a city you want to be in when it is this cold. Apparently, it hardly ever gets as cold as it did this last week, so nothing is set up to deal with it. There is no insulation in any of the buildings in town and most of them have stone floors, walls, ceilings and exteriors, which just added to the chill factor. There are no fire places, furnaces, or heat of any kind for that matter, anywhere. The shutter/window like doors - which do add a significant amount of charm to the buildings and the city, but which are not meant for cold weather - are flung wide open in all the restaurants, bars, cafes, and stores, largely so peple will know they are open. Otherwise, when they are closed, they make the establishment appear closed as well.
Our school, where we were spending six hours a day, was no different. The first day we went to school in shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops. After the temperature dropped, we literally went to school in long johns, pants, wool socks, hiking boots, two long john tops each, a sweater each, a jacket, and a rain jacket, hats, gloves and scarves; and we were still cold. To avoid freezing to death, we had to keep all of this gear on in class, while dining, while at museums, and while doing homework in cafes. Because there was literally no where to go to escape the cold, we were constantly chilled to the bone for about three days and nights straight during this cold spell.
Our room at Casa Mexican was more of the same, and the large room and picture window that had seemed so great in the sun just made things colder. The bathroom window had a hole in it and two mornings there was no hot water (brrrr). After our first night there - when we did not get any sleep because were so cold (it was as if we were camping outside in 25 degree weather, without the proper gear) - the hotel took pity on us and gave us a space heater (about the size of a small shoe box - but hey, it kicked out some heat which was all that mattered at that point), and 3 or 4 more blankets, which made things tolerable. Of course, the night before we left, things started to warm up again and the sun actually came out on our last day of classes. Although tempted to stay and enjoy Guanajuato as it should be enjoyed, in nice weather, we decided to head an hour and a half East to yet another Colonial town, San Miguel Allende. We certainly will miss Guanajuato though, despite the cold spell!
