Guanajuato Redux

I've had a craving recently to revisit the state of Guanajuato...so, since I'm taking this week off to celebrate Valentine's Day, I thought I'd re-post for us one of my favorite trip reports, written two years ago. Hope you enjoy it!

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"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, Europe 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.

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This post was first published on Feb. 12, 2010. I haven't returned to Guanajuato since, being busy with other things, but I intend to soon. The cello player, by the way, turned out to be the first chair cello for the University of Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra. I can't tell you how many times I have relived that scene: the long tables covered with white cloths, the big windows open to the night street, the indescribably beautiful music winding through it all like a flowering vine. A moment of magic, indeed, that still holds my heart.

xo

C

Comments

[Candice]

Michael! How incredible and joyful to hear from you! (This, my good readers, is the cellist I've told you about in the Guanajuato posts.) I've thought about that moment in Guanajuato so many times. I'll be back soon and will certainly find you. Thanks for your music, and thanks for being in touch! xo Candice

[michael severens]

Michael Severens, cellist, at your service. Also proud owner of Bar Zilch, on the second floor in the Jardin Union. I believe one of the pictures you took was from one of my balconies.
I believe it was at the Capellina Restaurant where you heard me play. I am a friend of a woman named Betsy, too!
Come back soon!
Michael (not principal cellist in the orchestra, but right behind him!)

[Gretchen Goodliffe]

I loved this report so much we are sending my daughter and her partner to Guanajuato in March. Eventually we will get there too. Thanks for reminding us of just one of the amazing jewels of Mexico.