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After two weeks of being bored, not doing anything due to the lack of kids in the Hogar, we decided to get on and do something interesting!!! We had already been planning to go to Guanajuato for a while as EVERYONE had told us that it is a beautiful city with a lot to do and a great atmosphere. SO...Wednesday morning we packed up our stuff and off we went!
Wednesday
Four hours on the bus from Guadalajara to Guanajuato brought us to the bus station where we were immediately pounced on by tour guides etc etc because yes, as usual we were the only two foreigners on the bus. Several no thank yous later and we're sitting on the bus to go into the centre of the city (Guanajuato is built in a ravine so the bus station is about 6km out of town). Driving into town was pretty impressive! We were going round crazy winding roads, through tunnels and trying to fit round some VERY tight corners!! Even more impressive than driving round Kirrie!!
Guanajuato apparently used to be the richest city in the whole of Mexico due to its silver mines, hence all the tunnels and the
fact that it's in a ravine! It is full of theatres, museums, statues, plazas all connected together by callejónes (alleys) which I'm sure noone but a resident could navigate around without going round in circles all the time like we did!
The city is apparently home to a fairly large foreign community but they dont live in the centre and they speak Spanish which is a big difference from the other places we've been with American communities. Just walking around the streets there felt great because people there are used to tourists so dont heckle too much, but it still feels like a very Mexican place with a lot more going for it that just tourism. There is a big university there and I think a lot of people come from outside Mexico to study there for a semester, or for short courses in Spanish which gives the city a great vibe with a lot of young people around all the time.
Alix and I arrived at our hostel and settled ourselves in. We made it there JUST in time before the massive thunder storm started so that was lucky!! I have to be honest I'm going to miss only
having to pay 5 pound a night to stay somewhere with a clean bed, shower and tv!!! Never going travelling in Europe again!! :D
What you have to love about staying in hostels is that you get to meet so many other people!! There were two other girls staying there, one from Italy, the other from Quebec who we spent a lot of time with over the next few days. There was also a couple of guys from Winnepeg there studying for a term on an exchange course, and a guy from Finland who was on holiday in Guanajuato from Ciudad Juarez where he's studying for a term too!
When the thunder storm finally let up a bit Alix, Amilie (the Quebecoise) and I went out for dinner at the Creperie around the corner, which Alix was happy to discover was owned by a guy from Paris - small world. We had a really tasty dinner, only made extremely confusing by the fact that the other two occasionally lapsed into speaking French which I just cant handle when I'm having to try to speak Spanish most of the time. I was however pleasantly surprised to find that I could understand
a lot of what they said - just completely incapable of joining in the conversation!!!
From there we made our way a little further up the road to Barfly which ended up turning into our local for the 4 nights that we were there. It's a fairly small, upstairs bar with paintings and poems all over the walls and flags on the roof (and yes they DID have a Scottish one which made me very happy!) and lots and lots of reggae music and fun people. It was the kind of place I wish we had at home but I know it would just never work!!! Not enough rasta people walking aroung looking like pirates!!! We met a lot of people there - one guy called Sultan (we put a 'the' before it) who's from Saudi Arabia and had been in Mexico about 7 months. Alix insisted on telling him that I had learned Arabic which put me in an embarassing situation considering I can pretty much only remember how to say my name and 'I live in Scotland'! We ended up having an interesting conversation about Yemen and Mexico and just general travelling stuff which was good fun. When
the Barfly closed at 2am we made our way to 'Los Lobos' - a distinctly pub-like place with crazy artwork on the walls and 80s rock hits playing...also a lot of fun!
So it turned out that we stayed out until about 4am on a Thursday morning - getting some quesadillas for breakfast before heading back to bed in the hostel!
Thursday
The next day was a fairly lazy one, we slept until around 11 and finally left the hostel at about 1 in the afternoon. We wandered round the winding roads for a while, stopping in at some shops before stumbling across a beautiful little square with trees and a fountain and lots of little places to eat. We chose one called 'La Oreja de Van Gogh' meaning 'Van Gogh's Ear' - not sure why but nevermind!!! We had a particularly Mexican meal - Alix having tacos with chicken and mole (a weird tasting Mexican salsa which has chocolate in it) and I had Chilaquiles - tortilla chips with green salsa, cheese, beans and a fried egg on top - VERY tasty although it's just as well the beans were there to take away some of the spice!!
After we were all full up Amilie took us to the Market where we spent an hour or so looking around the stalls filled with Guanajuato t-shirts (all either with pictures of frogs or of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!), wooden toys, bags, leather shoes, jewelery, sweets and of course the inevitable shot glasses!! I bought Alix a keyring saying Guera on it (which means white girl and is what we get called everywhere we go!) and we got bracelets and lollypops too. Alix also bought a fun poster thing which had a lot of spanish phrases translated into Mexican slang versions which made us both laugh!
When we left the market Amilie headed back to the hostel and Alix and I wandered around a bit more. We decided to climb up to the Pípila. Pípila was a poor boy with disabilities who people made fun of until one day he became the town hero by strapping a rock to his back and burning down the door of a building in which lots of Spanish people were hiding so that the Mexicans could get in and kill them. So off we went to climb up to his statue -
a steep climb on a hot day did not make for the most flattering of photos at the top but never mind!!!
We made it back to the hostel before the day's thunderstorm began - even bigger than the day before's and had some interesting chats with the Canadian guys about AC and what an exciting place Winnipeg is (JAJA!! (Mexican laugh!))
At 9pm we went to meet David, the guy who we met at the beach who I was speaking to the night I was unimpressed by alcohol! We'd said we'd meet him at 9pm outside one of the theatres but of course he was on Mexcian time so we sat in the cold for 40 minutes waiting for him!! Turned out to be interesting enough though cos the Finnish guy from the hostel walked past so I started chatting to him. It's always funny to find yourself speaking Spanish to someone else who doesnt speak it very well either - you realise that everyone else makes exactly the same mistakes as you so you understand perfectly what they're trying to say even though it doesnt make sense!
So when David FINALLY showed up the four of
us made our way to another bar by the Jardín de la Unión - the main triangle(!!) which has restaurants full of Mariachis, a band stand, the main theatre and a fancy looking church. We played three games of pool at the bar, girls coming out on top thanks to several lucky shots and chatted about the many myths and stories about Guanajuato. David was acting as our guide since he had lived in the city all his life until the week before!
After the boys had got over their sad losses at pool we headed on back to Barfly - I told you it was a nice place! This night though it was jam packed since Thursday night is student night over here too. I have to say it was a bit nicer when you could sit down, or even move - neither of which were possible that night but it was all good fun anyway. We met Laura (the Italian) and Amilie there too to add to the party and the night just panned out from there. I'm sure you will all be pleased to know however that I was only drinking soft drinks and being very sensible
- I will not be giving in to beer any time soon as I still find it absolutely disgusting!!
Friday
The next day was even lazier than the previous considering getting into bed when the birds are singing and its already getting light doesnt exactly lend itself to getting lots of rest! We spent the small part of the day that we were awake being shown around some more of the city by David (no classes on Dia de los Maestros - teacher's day). We got caught in the rain while walking around a damn, being happy we hadnt decided to climb up one of the hills close-by, and then went to see the university and the Alhóndiga which is the building in which the Spanish were hiding before they all got killed. Not a pretty building by any means but still rather impressive due to it's history, size and age.
Saturday
Saturday turned out to be a great day, after a relatively early night on Friday to get some of our energy back. After breakfast we went to the town's Irish pub which I loved. Not only did it have a lot of Irish stuff but Scottish
things too including flags, a map of where the different clans lived, a map of whisky distilleries, a rugby shirt and an Edinburgh Hibernian flag! The whole thing did make me feel rather nostalgic for Scotland and the whole pub atmosphere but we had a good few hours there just the three of us!
The pub also has a Diego Riviera mural alongside all of it's british memorabilia. For those of you who dont know, Riviera was the husband of Freida Kahlo and one of Mexico's most important painters - born in Guanajuato! Dont suppose there are many Irish pubs that can claim one of those!
In the evening we had a fantastic time as we joined a callejóneada - this is effectively a mini city tour led by a group of people dressed as medaeval minstels! So off we went following them around these tiny alleyways (one of them had a double bass - can't have been easy!) while they told us stories and anecdotes from the city and sang and danced. There were about 15 of them in the group - all of whom sang amazinly and several playing different guitar type instruments. Many of the song
were obviously well known as the Mexicans in the group kept singing along! We were given juice to drink as we went which came in a very bizzare looking jar type thing which we got to keep at the end. We were made to dance with them and at one point all the women were serenaded! Awww!!
At the end of the tour we all sat down on the steps leading up to the university and were treated to a reenactment of the story of the Callejón del Beso - Alley of the Kiss. Now the story goes like this...A rich girl and a poor boy fall in love and kiss each other across the alley by each standing on a balcony on either side. The girl's father finds out, gets mad and tries to kill the poor buy but kills his daughter by accident! Very Shakespearean dont you think! Now the problem with the play was that they only had two actors - the boy and the father SO...yup! they had to pick someone from the audience and guess who they chose...ALIX!! It turned out brilliantly - Alix took on her role fantastically, especially considering it was all in
Spanish and the whole thing turned into an hilarious tragic comedy (which I filmed so as never to forget!). She even managed to fit in the line 'Las mujeres mandan' - Women are in charge - before being tragically stabbed by her father's penknife and dying of laughter! A highly entertaining evening!
Meanwhile Anna and Ara, the two girls we met in Tenacatita had arrived in Guanajuato to celebrate Alix's birthday which was on Sunday. It was great to see them both again although rather weird to see them with lots of makeup rather than lots of sand!! :D
We went back to Barfly to see in midnight and give Alix her presents - the keyring and a butterfly anklet that I asked Laura to make for her. Then the evening passedin much the same way as all the others. Sober for me, tipsy/drunk for all the others, a lot of walking about between different bars, climbing up a very steep hill and trying to build a bonfire with damp wood and cardboard.
It turned out to be another interesting night for me on the subject of alcohol - I really do feel like I'm finally finding out
where I stand on the whole subject while I'm here which I'm glad about although it's difficult to do. At the beginning of the night I decided I quite felt like drinking, although for bad reasons. I wanted to feel more like a part of the group than I did, and I knew Alix wouldn't be happy if I didnt join in their mad conversation or dance which I wasnt going to do if I didnt - yes, bad reasons I know. But when it came to it, they wouldnt let me drink - the same people who I had drunk with several times on the beach suddenly didnt want me to drink anymore! How to feel about that?! It took away my desire to drink completely and also made me feel boring and very much like the odd one out, which is hard to deal with and not a lot of fun! At one point I got really upset because I was just sitting there, everyone else around me drinking, smoking weed, the girls dancing to music being played out of a mobile phone and I was just there in the middle, only useful for holding people's cups while
they lit their cigarrettes and I felt so bored of always being that person. In the end I made a decision - I would stay with them because it was still Alix's birthday night and I wasn't going to leave them, but I was also not going to do anything I didnt want to because, as Alix is often telling me, my gap year is about doing what I want to do, not what other people expect me to! This didnt result in the BEST of nights as Alix did indeed get annoyed by my refusal to dance, and I didnt spend as much time with her as she wanted me to - but thats just how it goes. After 3 months of spending everyday non-stop with me I figured she's be ok spending time with some different people for a change - that's how I felt anyway.
SO!! After our 2nd attempt at a bonfire got washed out we finally made out way back to get some sleep at about 7:30am and that was that. We slept pretty much until getting kicked out of the hostel at about 2 then Alxi and I met Anna and Ara to
have lunch together before we all headed off to the bus station again. Time to return to Guadalajara and finally back to work since we're no longer all going to die from sine flu!!!
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Tour Guide OurExplorer
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Nice
Nice photos and experience. Every coin has two sides, hasn't it? While many people decided to stay home, some still go on traveling. :) http://www.OurExplorer.com local guides, local wisdom