San Pancho Vida

Nobody's Home

Last post, I mentioned the former "ghost town" of Mineral de la Luz with promises of more. It's not that there's yet a lot of there there, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein. They have hopes: Endeavour, the Canadian mining company we ran across in the little towns near San Sebastián del Oeste, is operating in the Guanajuato area too.

New homogenous signs label most of the businesses in town, few of which were open.

The few residents we met, most of whom were mothers walking their children home from school, seemed flat out amazed to see us and welcomed us with sweet smiles and conversation. But several of the shop owners were wrapped in fat parkas with Endeavor Mining logos. So something's going on, but what it is wasn't all that evident on that cold January day.

What we found on the way there, and outside of Mineral itself, I found much more compelling.

One gets to Mineral de la Luz by taking a hard left at Guanajuato's Templo de la Valenciana, the big church where I saw the wondrous concert during the Festival Cervantino a few months back. By taking the right fork just before the Valenciana Mine entrance, one ends up on a cobbled road. Shortly before the road turns to dirt and rock, this medieval mirage appears:

I don't know what it is. Believe me, I've Googled. If anyone else knows, tell us, please.

A little further up the road is a shrine to the Child Doctor of the Sick, a version of the Christ child we also encountered in the Parroquia in San Miguel.

Forty minutes or so along the dirt road, one comes to the fancy new avenida into Mineral de la Luz. A bit past that turn is a road into an Endeavour operation where we came across an old hacienda, a long-abandoned part of the original silver mining boom in the area, now likely a part of the Endeavour claim.

And then we spotted, on the other side of the dirt road from these ruins, what appears to be an old family cemetery. It wasn't fenced. Scattered garbage showed that the property has been used for partying over the years. Around the perimeter of what is now a bare lot are the remains of the family tombs, stark in the cold light.

They had been looted. Ragged holes chopped into the sides of the beautiful old monuments gave evidence of the intrusion and disrespect of subsequent generations.

It seemed to me, as we wandered around this now desolate site, that this was once a family garden. The few remaining lovely old trees hinted of a landscaped park. I pictured the big family gathered there for Sunday afternoon picnics and fetes, surrounded by the resting places of their loved ones whose presence Mexican families honor and celebrate.

Nobody home now.

We retreated from the chill of weather and neglect and headed back down the road to Guanajuato.

Another day, another daytrip, another glimpse into the deep heart of Mexico.

What I Did in Guanajuato

I don't think I've told you about the Festival Internacional Cervantino. Held each fall in the city of Guanajuato, El Cervantino is a lively, eclectic and truly multinational celebration of music, art, dance and theater. Being in the neighborhood this year of its 40th birthday, I decided to take a day trip into Guanajuato from San Miguel and get a taste of this famous festival.

Want to come along?

I showed up at the San Miguel bus station bright and early on Friday, October 12th, where I bought a ticket on the 8:40 ETN bus to Guanajuato. I'd heard good things about ETN but had not taken one of their buses before, so opted for it instead of the Primera Plus. It pulled into its slot five minutes before departure time.

As is customary, the attendant handed me a little sack lunch as I boarded, along with the drink of my choice. I got settled into my assigned seat and was soon handed a tiny pillow like the ones you used to get on airplanes before the world went loco. The bus left seven minutes late, according to the clock mounted above the driver, which also told the temperature.

I pulled open the darkening drapes: my goal was to see the countryside and anything else I could on this one hour ride. The mists were rising over San Miguel as we pulled away. Off in the distance, I watched a hot air balloon rise into the morning sky.

I find the countryside in the state of Guanajuato to be breathtakingly beautiful. San Miguel is on the plateau at an elevation of 6200 feet. In this hour's drive, we would climb another thousand feet to the city of Guanajuato. The land becomes a bit more arid as the elevation changes, but the views are captivating.

I had an appointment this day: tickets to a concert at the Templo de la Valenciana, fifteen minutes or so on the other side of the city from the bus station. I found a taxi who took me there for seventy pesos.

I was early. So I took some pictures.

 

Guanajuato was the site of huge productive gold and silver mines during the Spanish Catholic rule of Mexico. This history still informs much of its tourism.

Here, a sign to the mouth of the San Cayetano mine.

 

 

 

 

I had a nice visit with two firemen who showed me their excellent Jeep firetruck, a gift from a fire department in the United States back in 1967, when the truck was new. The firemen assured me that it runs beautifully and that they love it like a favorite horse.

I walked up to the Templo for the concert's noon start. They'd had a little mix-up on my ticket, which I won't bore you with...but I got in anyway.

The crowd was mostly older-ish except for a bunch of artistic-looking college age people. I heard several languages, although the biggest percentage of attendees spoke Spanish, and it was apparent from conversations overheard (okay, eavesdropped) that this was a cultured group come to see Accademia del Piacere y Arcángel.

Personally, I had no idea what I'd come to see. The bits of information I could find told me not much, but I knew this small orchestra came from Spain and were performing in a spectacular venue on the one day I could attend.

Boy, am I a lucky woman sometimes.

The Accademia, all men at this performance, has focused their considerable talent on interpreting ancient music. This performance took us back to the 15th century through the Baroque roots of Flamenco, tracking the music through history and telling us, through their own music, of their journey and discoveries. With two cellists, a percussionist, a flautist, a Baroque guitarist, a Flamenco guitarist, and a truly indescribable male singer named Arcángel, they set the place alight with intelligent, inventive, glorious music that had the whole crowd cheering and applauding and calling for more.

We weren't allowed to take pictures. But when one brave and irrepressible soul in a forward row lifted his camera high toward the end of the performance, he started a wave of rebellion which I joined, managing a couple of quickies. I really wanted you to see where they were performing.

You see that altar? Entirely covered in thick gold, mined from the hills within a few miles of the church. A fitting setting for the return of the Spanish, who gave a lot back that day to those fortunate enough to hear them.

Walking on air, I left the concert and found a taxi into the city. I've visited Guanajuato before...but I'd never seen it during El Cervantino.

 

The city was packed. My taxi driver let me off several blocks from Teatro Juarez, a landmark I know, and I wandered through the streets agape to my favorite spot, Plaza de San Fernando.

The plaza was full of spectators. The array of music and performance was...mind boggling.

There was a levitator.

A belly dancer.

A clown on a cellphone.

And musicians of every stripe.

 

 

Back out on the main streets, there was more to see.

 

 

 

 

The crowd loved it.

I walked well out of the center of town and found another taxi back to the bus station and San Miguel de Allende.

All in all, it was a swell day.

Out and About: San Miguel de Allende 5

This week I thought I'd share with you some of the photos I took while wandering around San Miguel.

Let's take a walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next week, come with me on a day trip to Guanajuato for a concert in an ancient church, a motley assortment of other music and entertainment, and photos of another beautiful city.

Meanwhile...Happy Halloween!

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!

                                                ✉    ✉    ✉

"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.

                                                #    #    #

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

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.