Road Trip: Guanajuato

"If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's never ever say no to a road trip." Denny Crane

Last spring, as I languished in San Pancho during the months of Waiting and Hoping, I received a proposition from some friends.

"How about a road trip?"

I checked my non-schedule and hopped a Primera Plus bus in La Peñita to Guadalajara. Four and a half hours later--during which I'd enjoyed the scenery, a very strange movie, and the gratis Bimbo bread and mystery meat sandwich--the ubiquitous Travis and Allen picked me up at the insane Tonala bus station. They gave me a night to recover from my bus adventure, and the next morning we piled into the Honda and headed east and a smidgen north to the 450-year-old city of Guanajuato, which is pretty much right in the middle of Mexico.

 

To this day, none of us is sure exactly how we got there. Mexican road signs leave something to be desired: namely, how to get where you're going. I remember passing through an area that looked suspiciously like eastern Oregon...

 

...and we took some bypasses that turned out be longer than throughpasses; and by some miracle ended up in the outskirts of Guanajuato, where the manager of the house we'd rented met us to lead us into the labyrinth of the city. We climbed and climbed and turned and twisted and finally took a hairpin left into a narrow cobbled cliff-like lane which descended past houses and tiny stores and men toting water bottles up the hill on their backs. Our guide stopped beside a doorway just long enough for us to throw me and a few things out on the sidewalk, then led the guys to some parking garage somewhere far away.

The house was perched on the side of a hill, an imaginative remodel kitty-corner across the street from a very lively almost-all-night bar.

But the view from the roof was spectacular. We spent downtime up there pointing out houses to each other on the surrounding hillsides. "See the orange one over there with the tall windows? Now look left to the mint green one and straight up to the bright blue one. I really like the balcony on the yellow and red one next to it." 

There wasn't much downtime, though. We took the tram up to El Pípila for a view of the whole city...

Photo courtesy A. Pool 

...then wandered back down checking out the old houses.

 

Once back in the center of the city, we had plazas to visit,

churches to smile at,

 

 

serendipitous art to admire,

 

and a dark and deliciously eccentric bar to discover.

 

 

I'm sure you've read on travel pages and in traveler's reviews how some city is a "gem". I'm here to tell you: Guanajuato is the whole jewelry box. A feast for the eyes, a history that is as rich and haunted as its fabled silver mines, and some undefinable joyful dignity to it all. People fill the plazas every night to talk and watch and be in the community. The sidewalk cafes are always busy. Students from the University of Guanajuato stroll through the streets playing their instruments and performing street theater. Salsa and tango music twirls through the night air. Teatro Juarez--the opera house--topped with its huge muses, hosts music from all over the world.

 

 

On our last night there, we were invited to a restaurant near the main plaza by our new friend Betsy. We sat at a long table chatting with people from all over Mexico and the U.S. Then a young man walked in, sat down beside the open windows, opened up a black case and began to play his cello. To be wrapped in that tender music in the heart of this intelligent and whimsical city was pure magic. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced in or out of Mexico.

It was one more good reason never to say no to a road trip.

Comments

[Candice]

Omigod, Watson!! You're right again! Tepic and Aguascalientes are reversed on that map! One is where the other should be and the other is where the first one belongs!

No wonder your faithful navigator, who modestly prides herself on her map reading and navigational skills, was so completely flummoxed.

[Bill B]

Pretty amazing stuff! Makes me want to travel again.

[Watson, Dr.]

Dear Sherloca, I give full navigational credit, including the tour of eastern Oregon, to you. (Pssst, Dee. Re the streets of Guanajuato: "Like a bowl of spaghetti that's been dropped. Twice.")

[Candice]

Ha! Dr. Watson--you are no doubt right. Seems to me we were missing turnoffs and bypasses both ways, though...and seems to me I deserve some thanks from Dr. Watson Dos who was listening to his IPod in the back seat and leaving the navigating to me!

Always a pleasure roadtripping with you.
Sincerely,
Sherloca

[Candice]

Those bags were actually full of cement. But don't worry, Dee. Burros are like women: they can can carry an astonishing load and just keep on being adorable.

[Watson, Dr.]

Actually, I think we did drive through a bit of Eastern Oregon, but it was on the way back. If I recall we got turned around on the way to Aguacalientes which, por ejemplo, is currently masquerading as Tepic on the map in your blog. Damn maps. (So glad I got to see Guanajuato with your eyes!)

[Dee]

Those poor little overloaded burros at the cathedral broke my heart! I hope those bags were full of light weight cotton and not heavy shelled beans!

What a lovely and mysterious place to visit. Didn't someone once liken the street layout to a plate of spaghetti noodles? Thank you for sharing your adventures de Los Tres Amigos.

[Jeanne]

Wow! What a beautiful city! Love your photos - isn't it wonderful that Travis and Allen are near for all of you to be able to go on these adventures together. Love it.