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Published: September 22nd 2009
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I'm in Guanajuato. It's fucking amazing. You will never see me ever again. Some other cool things happenned in Mexico City, which I'll get to in a sec, but the sheer brilliance of a Mexican university town with 20,000 students and no rules cannot be emphasized enough. 'To party' is a verb and an occupation. It's a business. You can party with anyone in Guanajuato. It's like saying you work with someone. And it might just be the death of me.
Mexican Independence Day is on September 15th. I'd heard rumblings that this was something not to be missed, but nothing could have prepared me for the violent explosion of patriotism that engulfed the main plaza of Mexico City. Traditionally, the President of Mexico recites the call to arms of Miguel Hedalgo, the priest who sparked the Independence movement in 1810. The President stands on a balcony overlooking the main square, delivering words of patriotism matched only by the screaming replies of 200,000 Mexicans whose fists plough through the air on every syllable. I was humbled. Such passion simply doesn't exist in England. I don't even know when St. George's Day is. Lavish fireworks filled the skies for half an
hour afterwards and it took three days for the party to wind down. I woke up the next day to still hear horns and fireworks and screams. Most Mexicans hadn't even slept.
Mexico City is dangerous though. You constantly have the feeling your being hunted, like in Jurassic Park. I walked ten minutes in the wrong direction from my hostal and was heralded with various anti-gringo shouts from people in the street. It was 2pm. So a change of scenery was definitly needed. I'd met a student in the hostal who spoke of a crazy university town called Guanajuato. A colonial silver mining town of around 90,000, the city had been injected with youth culture by the opening of the Universidad de Guanajuato in the 1950s. And as a result it's impossible to walk around the town centre without seeing street musicians, artists or atleast a photography exhibition of some sort. It's more alive than anywhere in Mexico City.
That was around a week ago. I'm not really sure. Along with culture, the students brought a serious drinking mentality to this place. There's an American girl sat next to me in this internet cafe fumbling with a webcam
and looking like death. I must look exactly the same. The design of the place is fantastic aswell. Two underground roads have allowed the town centre to be completely pedestrianised. I've spent hours lost there, the paths resemble rabbit warrens, but loved every second of it.
Yesterday, as a sort of hangover cure, I decided to vist El Museo de Momias. In around 1900, Guanajuato cemetery was completly full. In order to bury new bodies, old ones were exhumed and moved somewhere else. After digging up the corpses though, gravediggers found that rather than rotted, the bodies had been mummified by the levels of lime in the soil. Whoever had the idea to put them in a museum probably needs locking up, but thats what they did. I was seriously freaked out. A room full of dead babies has an eery feel to it. It cured the hangover though.
I'm having to sign off now as I've worked up abit of a bill in this cafe. There's probably loads more to write about that I simply can't remember, or that I don't want to. ¡Hasta Luego!
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Josh
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Pft
this sounds immensely amazing creeney, im still bitter i cant come out and meet up with you. how long have i got left to try and find a couple of grand?