Gess Where Travels: Guanajuato City of surprises

Guanajuato is about a two hour drive from Queretaro. It has been a definite a surprise.. To begin with - it is hilly and I mean hilly. The houses are very densely packed on those hillsides. The most amazing thing though are its underground maze of tunnels under the city. The 30 plus km of roadways with crossroads is a sight to behold. And not only do cars travel them but apparently so does public transportation so you see many entrances for cars and pedestrians from the city.

Car entrance to the tunnels

Pedestrian Entrance into the tunnels

Guanajuato is best known for its many mines - gold, copper, silver, iron among others. At one time there were over 30 mines but today only 5 are active. Unfortunately the mining history is not a nice story. Started by the Spaniards, they used Indigenous people, who did not accept Christianity, as slaves in the mines. They started at 10 years old, worked 14 hour days without clothing or shoes carrying 70 kilo bags on their backs to the top. Not a surprise, but most did not live past 24.

Another must see attraction here is the mummy museum. This museum is the final home to a number of well preserved bodies found buried in this area, The special combination of the minerals in the soil has preserved them so well. I think the group was mixed about this visit - fascinating but a bit morbid at the same time. An interesting fact about death in Mexico, even today - the plot that you are buried in is taxed each year. Family members must pay the tax and if they don’t, the body is dug up and the plot is used by another family!

Our first glimpse of the main square came in the evening when we headed down for a Callejoneada. This is a traditional music procession through the streets and alleyways. Our group of musicians were accompanied by gigantic Frieda and Diego characters. We laughed, sang, danced and followed the musicians through the streets and I think provided entertainment to the locals we passed. They were taking as many pictures of us as we were of the musicians.

It was a totally delightful evening ending with a story of the alley of the kiss with our members acting it out.

Day time did not disappoint for sight seeing. We started at the top with an amazing view of the city and the massive statue of El Pipila who is a hero for the role he played in the insurgente in the Independence of Mexico against the Spaniards. From there it was a fun ride done the funicular to the main square.

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First stop was the beautiful theatre we had seen last night but we got to go inside of the theatre that we had sen last night. It is as magnificent inside as outside. But the real treat came when we had a couple of our own perform. They were the warm up act for the us signing O 🇨🇦 (slightly off key and a few wrong words). It just kept getting better. With a little encouragement, all the Mexicans in the theatre got up and sang their National Anthem- seemed like an appropriate thing to do as the orange man between our countries declared economic war on Canada today. Too political for the blog but it is reality.

There was a bit of patriotism hanging around today thanks to the orange wonder occupying air space between our two countries ( no apologies for political comments today). Suddenly with very little prompting we were signing O 🇨🇦. Once finished and with a bit of encouragement the Mexican visitors sang their National Anthem. United we stand!

Time to enjoy more of the sights of this lovely place.

Diego Rivera’s Childhood home

After seeing more sights we ended up in the market for a tasty lunch. Portion sizes are not small here and when some of us could not finish, we packaged them up and Eduardo, our guide delivered them to people on the street.