| Travelling Mexico - Guanajuato |
by Catherine Krantz
Guanajuato is a vibrant bustling city of young people, sometimes too young. A university town as well as a popular student exchange destination. The noises that keep you up at night could just as easily be drunken college students as packs of carousing eighth graders. Skateboard hoard filled plazas and loitering young-uns aside, Guanajuato is an old town and its colonial history and unique setting make it a memorable and colorful destination.
Founded in 1559 for the silver and gold mines found here—for 250 years the richest in the world—it is built along high hills and craggy slopes. Tunnels make up a large part of Guanajuato’s streets and infrastructure and navigating them can be challenging. Entering Guanajuato you feel transported to another time, so medieval and castle like are the stone walls, bridges and buildings above you stretching across the roads and tunnel entrances. Coming into town is perhaps the most memorable part of the trip. Almost like a walled city, you can’t help but think the tunnels make an impressive fortress as you wind your way around and around, from one tunnel to the next, crossing over, doubling back, never quite knowing how to get in.
Once you see the light of day and make it into town it unfortunately doesn’t get much easier, all the traffic congested streets in the centro are one way and many are pedestrian only. And if that wasn’t bad enough making one wrong turn could send you up a mountain into increasingly increasingly narrow cobble stone alleyways with little hope or room to get back down. And if you miss your turn its down the one way shoot through town all the way to the other side to turn around and start all over. Like some infuriating video game of mazes, there’s this one corner that as soon as you come around it, you know you’ve lost again, game over. Pound the steering wheel and curse if you must but don’t try to turn around, the traffic cops won’t let you and will give you an ear full for trying. Only thing to do is just go out through the tunnels turn around and try it again.
Guanajuato is one of those towns that’ll make you wish you left your car at home. If you do somehow manage to make it to where you’re going on the first try, and I won’t think badly of you if it takes you three tries, you’d have to be near omniscient to find a parking spot. The only streets with any visibly available parallel spots are the ones you can’t drive down. The public parking lots all have entrances off the tunnels and when you whiz past them, dizzy from your circling you’ll swear they can’t be anywhere near anywhere you’re trying to go. There are public parking lots in the centro, right around the corner from your hotel most likely, however you’ll never find them. They are “secret parking lots” down twisty alleys barricaded off by chains, you’d need a hobbit guide to find the entrance. Magical place this Guanajuato and lucky for you there are such guides, not exactly hobbits but spritey looking pre-teens and college students. They’re the ones waving you down from every turn of the tunnels, the ones you ignore for the first 30 minutes cause you have no idea why they’re waving at you and the ones you ignore for the next 30 minutes even after you’ve figured out who they are, …cause well… you’re a seasoned traveler and you don’t need no guide… But let me tell you, one second after that second 30 minutes and you’ll be stopping and you’ll be begging any stranger waving a piece of paper to climb on in the car with you and it won’t matter if he’s 10 years old or looks like he might be an ax murderer… he’s getting in the car and he’s taking you to the #$*#! hotel no matter what it costs. And amazing, just like some blind seer he says, “Right… left... straight”, and yells some secret password out the window and next thing you know the barricade chains come down. (And when they do its time to pound the steering wheel and curse again cause that’s the same barricaded entrance you’ve crawled past without seeing on three separate occasions and yet there it is). And then you twist through an alley and find yourself in an amazing, beautiful, lit up like a birthday cake, public parking lot, half a block from your hotel. Take it from me, save yourself the time and humiliation of driving past the same sidewalk café patrons three times in a row and just grab the first guide you see when you come into town. They will help you find a parking spot and a hotel and will even help you with your bags, they work for tips, and the less desperate and harried you are when you finally hire one (and if you’re driving you will finally hire one) the less cash you’ll feel compelled to shove wide eyed into his hand when he gets you where you’re going.
Near impenetrable fortress aside, once you get in and settled you’ll soon realize lots of other people figured out how to get in (they must’ve taken a bus). Guanajuato is a hopping town, full of sidewalk cafes, overflowing plazas, souvenir and craft shops lining every block, art galleries and colonial architecture. Some a bit dinghy and well worn, some restored to their former opulence, the buildings in Guanajuato and, yes, even the windy cobble stone streets are full of charm, that is once you’ve had the sense to lock up the car and set out on foot.
Shopping is a must with a staggering array to choose from, the region’s gold and silver jewelry, hand painted Talavera tiles and ceramics from nearby Dolores Hidalgo, woven and embroidered articles from Oaxaca and a whole legion of souvenirs. There are many museums of interest including: the birthplace and childhood home of Diego Rivera, a Don Quixote museum, a museum of Mexican history and art (Guanajuato state was the birthplace of Mexico’s war for independence, not to mention the home state of former Guanajuato governor now president Vicente Fox) and the famous Museum of Mummies—the surrounding soil is of a mineral content that will mummify and perfectly preserve corpses buried here in as little as five years. There is also a basilica and many fine churches and Templos, including the Templo La Valenciana 5km north of town on a hill overlooking Guanajuato built and emblazoned with the riches from the La Valencia mine, still active and near by. Also an Independence monument, El Pipila, is high above town and reached by climbing picturesque alleyways, with an observation terrace that gives a sweeping view of the city.
Teatro Juarez, Guanajuato. Photo: Zihrena Systems, Zihua-ixtapa.comThe largest plaza and social and noise epicenter of town is the Jardin de la Union, a café and tree lined plaza that fills up in the evenings with diners, strollers, students and musicians. Across the street is the lavish and imposing Teatro Juarez, built from 1873 to 1903 and inaugurated by one Porfirio Diaz. Performances are usually only during festivals or for specific engagements but for a small fee you can walk through and see it, open daily except Mondays. The theater is also a popular gathering spot in the afternoons and evenings, the steps out front fill up with crowd watching crowds of students. Guanajuato is lively at night and if you choose to stay in one of the many quaint hotels or restored mansions around the centro you’ll probably prefer a room off the street. Unless you’re planning on being at one of the many sidewalk bars and joining in on the singing until the wee hours—at which point it won’t really matter that sometimes even 3 ft thick adobe walls can’t quite compete with robust revelry and really what’s sleep anyway. Go have a beer with the 8th graders and the college students and enjoy yourself, just make sure your hobbit guide is there to help you find your car when its time to leave town.
Guanajuato is located in central Mexico almost straight up the center from Zihuatanejo and with the new toll road through Morelia it can be reached in one long day’s drive, 8-9 hours. To get to Guanajuato by bus from here the most direct route is through Morelia, (some buses are now using the new toll road to Morelia which cuts down the travel time-Zihua to Morelia from 8-9hrs to 4-5hrs —ask first!) with a bus change in Morelia, 4 more hours to Guanajuato. Guanajuato is 1 hour from Dolores Hidalgo, 2 hours from San Miguel de Allende and 4.5 hours from Mexico City.
Buen Viaje.
April 2002
Contents | Previous | Next |
|
|
|
