Last and Loose Thoughts

Travel days always offer intermittent internet connection at best so I offer these last and loose thoughts about our month-long stay in San Miguel de Allende from the comforts of my desk at home with my cat sitting beside me growling her displeasure at our prolonged absence and the very different--sweeter, softer and smoggier--air rippling the blinds that hang in the open window.

1. It says something about the people of a country when its drivers yield to pedestrians and do not use their horns gratuitously.

2. There is delight in Chris and I paying 48 dollars to hire a car to take us to the airport in Leon which is two hours from where we stayed and sickness in our paying 31 dollars to take a cab home from the airport which is 15 minutes.

3. Fresh fruit may only last until the end of the day but it is worth it to go back to the market continuously for more. The same is true of fresh bread.

4. American cheese in Mexico isn't what you would expect it to be.

5. Experimenting in a language that doesn't leap to your tongue unbidden forces you to think about what you say before you say it and sometimes you change your mind about what you will say.

6. Over the course of our stay, a manhole lost its cover in the pedestrian walkway near our place. First, a good samaritan propped the cover in a counter position so it wouldn't fall in but would block the hole. Then it fell in. Then perhaps a different samaritan put a bucket near the hole to warn people of the hole. Then someone put a heavy rock in the bucket to affix its place. Then the bucket and the rock fell in the hole. Then the same or another person put a different rock near the hole, again as warning. Later, someone added a second rock. An official of some sort then tacked PELIGROSO tape from the wall to the hole and placed a rock on top of the free end. Another person tied the free end around the rock. Then the rock fell in the hole. Then the tape fell in after it. While this is not a group of people who can think that a board just a bit larger than the aperature would solve the problem, they are a group of people who really care that you not fall in the hole.

7. The opportunity to live in a place you have never been and eat foods you've never heard of and ride horses and investigate the history of revolution and liberation and enjoy stones beneath your feet that may have been packed into the ground 400 years before your step is worth sleeping on a foam pad for 30 nights (but I'm happy to have a mattress under me again).

8. While I recognize it is a luxury of wealth and so on some level should be shameful, it's nice to flush one's toilet paper.

9. We were in Mexico for a month and never had flan.

10. Final Last Thought: I spent 30 days with my husband and in that time we were only parted for about six hours. That's something.

So, we're home and already making lists of pros and cons for trips in winter spring and next summer. Wherever we land, it will be good. Til then: amor y paz.

Gonna Go to the Place That's the Best... with the Worst Tour Guide in the World

I'm sure we did something yesterday, but I don't remember a lot of details. We were excited that for a moment it wasn't raining so we had a chance to stretch our legs and wander around looking for the store in which Sue, Chris and I saw doorknockers on her first night, a store which has vanished without leaving behind a single clue to its existence. And then it started to rain again so we responded appropriately by cozying up again and dining in.

This morning Viaje San Miguel was supposed to send us yet another tour guide to take us to Queretaro. We thoroughly enjoyed the day we spent in Dolores Hidalgo with Francisco and looked forward to another day like it. As is often the case in SMA, our driver was a bit late and, like Ray, he had several phone calls to make and receive. We stopped at the store "just for a minute, alright?" and then also stopped to deliver a small potted plant (herbabuena) to his son who we met on the side of the road. And then we were off. It was a little like picking up someone in a lonely bar, when about 15 minutes into the trip I asked in a small and awkward voice from the back seat, "So, what's your name?"

Victor apparently saw no reason for a tour guide to be effusive or even particularly knowledgeable. He gives a decidedly different tour than does Francisco or even Ray.

We did learn that Queretaro is a 17th century city and so older than the other places we have been so far, but it is also much more industrialized. They have fewer tourists and more business travelers. There are evident international companies: Office Depot & Max, Walmart, Sears, Burger King, Sherwin Williams, Starbucks, Toyota. There are 74 arches in the aqueduct and Victor can't believe the amount of money the government has simply wasted by illuminating the arches to accentuate their beauty. He also blames the Mexican government for the immigration problems in the U.S. because they don't do anything to provide opportunities for the Mexican people. The only reason churches are beautiful is to show who's boss. Victor has four sons, but he says it may not be worth it to have children at all. His eldest son lives in Houston but Victor cannot visit him because he entered the U.S. illegally at one point and having been discovered and deported cannot obtain a travel visa. He paid for his second son, an architect in SMA, to go to school and his third son is in school to be an accountant. He doesn't have any money for the fourth son, who wants to be a chef, to go to school so he occasionally gives him 100 pesos to keep him out of trouble. It might suck to be the last son. That being said, he complained about the people from the outlying region who come into the cities and sell handicrafts with their children in tow and said those children should be in school. He also had an opinion and words to share about the beggars, who are lazy, but his most common lament was that it was impossible to eat on a tour guide's salary.

Victor's general demeanor could have been overlooked but for his relatively hands-off approach to guiding a tour. At the Cementario were Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez--the woman who alerted Allende and his band of revolutionaries that their plots had been discovered--is interred, he stood next to us as we read a plaque that was in Spanish and English and pointed out the dates listed. At the Franciscan monastery, he passed us off to a monk and went and waited in the car. Once we arrived in the historic center of town he indicated we should get out of the car so he could find someplace to park. We thought this might take 10 minutes, but he said he would meet us by the statue he had pulled up in front of in an hour's time. When Chris asked him where we should go in his absence, he said we should "go right, go left and see things." We didn't have a street map for the city or a guide book or anything so anyway Queretaro seems cool and all.

The Franciscan monastery is worth a visit. In the 17th century, the monks settled in the region and had the aqueducts built from the spring at the end of town to the heart of their settlement. The aqueduct is dry but stands and runs a great length through the city. In the monastery an ancient man wearing a green threadbare turtleneck, grey slacks and sandals showed us around. He had hairs sprouting from his ears and reminded me a little of Mickey Goldmill from Rockey, which I guess means he reminded me of Burgess Meredith but maybe only because he was tiny and old and carried a stick. He made it clear at the start that we had to put money in the basket for the convent and that at the end we should give him some money just for him. He said he could only speak French, Italian, English, Spanish and Latin; he hoped those languages would be sufficient. Sometimes he would say he didn't know the word in English but it was _________ in Latin, so sure. The monastery is a spectacular structure and cleverly designed. The water from the aqueduct was piped through the building in clay pipes and used to refrigerate food in the kitchen and different cisterns filled with spring water versus rain water and were used to satisfy different needs. In 1697, Fray Antonio de Margil de Jesus arrived and brought with him a walking stick which he thrust into the ground in the center of the monastery garden. From there sprang a new tree: Arbol de Espinas which only grows in the monastery (and possible someplace in South America but our small monk friend said there was no chronicle of this). This tree has no seeds and its flower is a spike that grows from the branches in the form of a cross. Its neat. And a miracle. And Chris will probably be going to Hell (or at least Purgatory if that still existed) for making fun of it so mercilessly. More recently, Maximilian was imprisoned in the monastery before he was sentenced to death and subsequently killed on the Hill of Bells outside Queretaro, someplace Victor would not bring us to even though it was the only thing Chris inquired about. The tour through the monastery was worth the trip to Queretaro and the basket donation and the donation slipped into the old man's palm.

We visited several churches, the names of which were lost to us as soon as we left them without having a book, but one had a large diorama depicting Purgatory just inside the main entrance that was lit from below with fiery red lights and in which a bishop and a police officer and several scantily clad women, among others, were burning. Like the scenes from Calvary and the worship of Judas the Traitor and the circumcision of Jesus, it was another rather dark portrayal we had never seen before.

Victor made two things happen. He made a blind man play a song for us on his marimba (first he asked what a famous song from Chicago was and then was disappointed that the blind man didn't know "Sweet Home Chicago")and he made us stand in the street and listen to him play for 15 minutes. So that was something.

We also visited the House of the Contessa which Victor argued was the most beautiful house in all of Queretaro and I don't doubt it having been in the lobby of the hotel that now inhabits the space. It is no surprise it was a regal residence in history. However, since he did not show us any other residences, it's really hard to judge.

The ride home was peaceful and relatively quiet in that Victor chose not to speak but we did take a slight detour through the 1980s; Victor was really rocking out to one of his mix tapes that offered at top volume such notables as Sweet Child O' Mine, Who Can It Be Now?, Spirit in the Sky, Boys Don't Cry and Livin' on a Prayer. Despite Chris having his own head phones in trying to drown out that noise, Victor did shout the question to him about whether or not he knew Sweet Child O' Mine and then followed up with a question about how long Chris had sported the fashion 'do he has now.

We are using Viaje San Miguel one last time for our airport shuttle; pray for us that Francisco or really any other person in SMA is our driver.

A Collective Groan

We had one last meal together, breakfast at Cafe Monet, before we saw Susan off to the airport. We were sorry to see her go but so glad she was able to come and join us for the week. I hope that, despite the incessant rain, she enjoyed her stay.

I put off all of my school work for the duration of her visit, so I spent the afternoon watching videos and reading articles and taking quizzes and things like that which don't have much to do with Mexico, but Mexico did look pretty out the window. We did go out in the evening for dinner and to see if we might have any more luck tracking down a door knocker than Susan and I had. We didn't. We may dedicate the whole of our last week here to finding one. The people here are friendly and helpful, except when it comes to door knockers. We ended our day in the Jardin Principal so that Chris could see the light show against the Parroquia. They will do the light show every weekend for the next two years in honor of the bicentennial. It was raining, so there were fewer people than the night before but it was still spectacular, until they stopped it abruptly right in the middle to begin a film that was scheduled to be shown in just the same spot. Apparently, using the Principal Jardin is just the same as signing out the auditorium for use at Prosser: just because one person has already done so doesn't mean another person can't go ahead and do so, as well.

Today, it rained from breakfast til dinner and then started again. While we are still having a delightful time, I'm growing tired of being damp perpetually. We visited the Aurora Fabrica this morning, a large development that used to be a major textile plant but which closed in 1991 due to a change in necessity as a result of free trade agreements. It is now an artist's community, and the majority of the space is given over to galleries but there is also active studio space. We walked through a dozen galleries full of huge installation pieces, fountains, jewelry, furniture, art. It's a lovely setting.

We walked back into the center from the Fabrica and had drinks at the Biblioteca Publica while we waited for the film festival (Expresion en Corto) film to begin in the theater there. Chris went to a raucous party the other night (he described it like a college party but conducted by people who had 40 additional years of experience at having college parties), and now everywhere we go people are hugging him and shaking his hand and asking if he has this person's email or that person's number for next time. The Biblioteca was thick today with people who knew him. In any case, there are no tickets for the film fest and we were told there is no saving seats, so we waited and waited and then scrambled for seats together and then waited some more and then, one second before the film began, the host told the audience that because the film in question was not in competition there would be no English subtitles. I haven't been on the groan end of a collective groan in a while; it's usually a response I receive from my students.

Because of the rain, we called the game and went home. On the way, we did arrange one last day trip to Queretaro, a more modern city that we will visit on Wednesday.
There was guitar playing and reading and the making of pico de gallo and some preliminary research for next summer and just a bit of sporcle to carry us through the rainy afternoon.

We're still holding out hope for a bit of sun tomorrow.

Viva Mexico 1810-2010

Two totally packed days: Susan gets up early, stays up late and doesn't waste a lot of time stopping for snacks. We definitely did more than we would have if she weren't with us; as a result, we are so very glad she is.

Yesterday morning we got up early to take the bus to Guanajuato. We hadn't purchased tickets in advance and erred on the side of caution in our arrival time but enjoyed some good people watching at the bus station. Once we arrived in GTO, we grabbed a cab to the Museo Alhondiga. Our cab driver was a character: as myopic as Mr. Magoo, he leaned over his steering wheel, elbows akimbo, peering through coke-bottle glasses, talking the whole ride in. He's lived in GTO his whole life, has never been to the United States, has driven a cab since 1968, loves it, thinks laughter is the best medicine, something about Santa Claus, keeps his own family at home during the Cervantes Festival when people get so drunk they can't walk and cabs are free, doesn't speak any English other than hello, doesn't like it when people smoke marijuana, doesn't like the idea of the temperature in Chicago falling below zero and mentioned seven times that he likes to talk a lot. It was an exhausting cab ride, but he spoke slowly enough that I was able to follow which I liked. It started to spit rain while we were on the bus and continued throughout our cab ride.

The Alhondiga either had a new exhibit or had rooms open that were not when Chris and I were there previously, so everyone enjoyed something new. It started to drizzle while we were in the Alhondiga and continued throughout our walk to the Diego Rivera museum at which an entire floor of rooms was open that had not been when we were there before. I'm glad we went back; I had thought both museums were pretty great to begin with but they're even better when you are privy to all the rooms. Chris and I were hopeful we would be able to pick up a print of Rivera's depictions of the Popol Vuh in the gift shop but were unable. As it began to pour while we were there, it probably wasn't the best day to go poster shopping, anyway.

It wasn't easy to look up to see the monument to peace in front of the basilica due to the rain, but I think Susan got the gist: peace is good. For the second time this trip, we were in a church when it appeared that mass was about to begin and instead we found ourselves at a funeral. Awkward. We stopped for lunch at a place Chris and I had enjoyed while we stayed the week in GTO and had the traditional enchiladas mineras in honor of the miners in the region. From there, we took the funicular up to the Pipila monument so Sue could see the incredible vista from that vantage point.

We had good luck and the Teatro Juarez, which we were unable to visit last time, was open. This, as it turns out, is the single most beautiful theater I have ever seen. The outside is neoclassical with doric columns and is crowned by statues of the Greek muses, but the inside is Moorish: gold and navy and red inlay in sunburst patterns and small interlocking geometric shapes. There isn't a place your eye can fall that isn't pleasing. Unlike so many theaters, it is simply beautiful and stops just short of being ostentatious. Odd fact: it is the only theater in Mexico that still has and uses its original furnishings. The seats are lovely brown wood frame with leather upholstery. The lobby is grand and is flanked by a cantina, the second floor is split between an old fashioned smoking hall for men and a lounge for women. Even the ticket windows are dramatic. I'm glad we were able to cross it off our list after all. It was still raining when we came out.

We walked through the market and Templo del Inmaculado Corazon de Maria and then up and down the street through vendors and accordion-playing children and birds for sale and our last stop was a candy shop where we picked up an assortment of things that we weren't too sure about and which ended up being delicioso. We made it back to the bus station in time to get the last three seats on the bus.

Once back in SMA, where it was also raining, we picked up cheese and crackers and created a small-bites feast at home where we dried off and talked which is surprisingly difficult to do while walking down single person sidewalks in the rain. Our downstairs neighbor, Lydia, had mentioned a bar with live music and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but when she came to collect us we were bone tired and wet tired and food tired. We decided to go. Something about only staying a half hour. Something about only one beer. So we headed out into the rain again at about 9:30 to see a drumming band. It was a surprisingly good show with a lively crowd: people were jamming out to the drumming and, assisted greatly by alcohol and drugs, there were three women who created a triangulated zone of perpetual motion that involved all limbs moving at once to the beat in a frenetic and intense manner. To be clear, there was no dance floor; this was in a restaurant the size of our living room with an abundance of tables and chairs. One of these women was wearing a unitard and was adorned in scarves and kept knocking into the waiter and all three were well into their 50s, maybe a bit past 60. I haven't been somewhere with so many people so far over the age of majority enjoying themselves with quite such abandon (read that drugs) probably ever. We had some linguistic mishaps: like when Chris ordered a whiskey and soda and the waiter brought him an almost full glass of whiskey and a soda, topped of the glass and took the rest his soda away; like when Susan tried to explain to the waiter that she and I would share our next beer with an elaborate pantomime which involved her pointing at both of our glasses and saying cerveza over and again: needless to say, we each got our own glasses and our own beers. We ended up staying more than a half hour and more than a beer apiece, but we had a great time.

We met this morning at 9:15 to get a 10 a.m. trolley tour but were foiled by the trolley woman who maybe, just maybe, says something a little different each and every time we talk to her. For instance, last time we spoke with her, she said there was a bilingual tour at 10 a.m. every day and today she said there wasn't. We bought tickets in advance for the noon tour and went for a walk and coffees. There was a little something Susan wanted to pick up as a souvenir that we had seen in a shop her first day here and so we retraced our steps to find it to no avail. Have I mentioned it was still raining? It has rained so much that while having our coffee this morning, Chris's chair sunk into the earth below him. It was like quick sand: he was sitting at the table with us one minute and the next his head was at table level. The soil here is sandy to begin with and simply erodes with so much rain.

We had the same tour guide for today's trolley tour as the last, and he's a good spirit, full of information. Between the hog rally and the film festival, there are hundreds of extra people clogging the streets and the tour was supposed to be an hour and a half but was closer to two because of the rain slowing traffic. We had a hearty lunch and were trapped in a store by downpour, although the roof of the store was shoddy at best and we were rained on inside, so we hailed a cab to return home and wait out the storm. The cab already had a driver and a nursing mother in it, so the six of us barreled along through the nearly flooded streets and by the time we arrived at Calle Marte we were all soaked. Approximately one minute after we raced in the door--Hallelujah!--the rain stopped.

We waited until our drawers were dry before going out again, at which point our roads forked. Chris went off to a party he was invited to by some guy named Rob who is a musician and lives I don't know where and he isn't home yet, so who knows? It either means the party is very good or very bad. Susan and I were on a mission to find a doorknocker. Because of the fabulously inventive door hardware nearly everywhere you look here, you might think the stores actually sold doorknockers but you would be wrong for thinking that. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the word for doorknocker so every shop we went in where we determined they didn't sell them, I asked "Donde esta la tienda para comprar" and at this point I pantomimed knocking using the palm of one hand as a door and my fist as the knocker and finished with, "para la puerta?" Susan often jumped in with the actual word for doorknocker and repeated it until people nodded that they understood and then said there were no stores. Between the two of us we can really ask a question.

We went to the Jardin Principal for the kick off of the bicentennial celebration here in SMA. We sat through speeches from the mayor, the director of tourism, the head of the planning committee for the bicentennial celebration and when their words concluded, all of the lights went out. All of them. The lights in the church. The lights in the trees in the park. The lights in the streets. Because of the rain clouds, the moon was obscured and it was pitch. The music began and a light display was projected onto the church in vibrant and discordant colors. There was movement and faces and bodies were projected. At one point it appeared that the church was engulfed in flames. Words are lacking. The multimedia show was a half hour long and ended with a frame that made it look as if VIVA MEXICO 1810-2010 was spray painted across the face of the church. People were cheering like mad and the plaza was so jammed full of people that you could physically feel the pride of the San Miguelians and other Mexicans in the crowd. It was as if God orchestrated the event because the moment the light show was over, the sky split open again and rain showered the people. We were soaked by the time we returned home and having been wet for two solid days decided to call it a night. More tomorrow.

P.S. Prayers to our friend Jeff.

Frog Seven

We were picked up at our doorstep by Francisco, our guide through Dolores Hidalgo, Atotonilco and San Miguel Viejo. Unlike Ray, who talked on the phone all day long to other people, between SMA and DH, Francisco recounted the history of Mexico, paying particular attention to the Revolution. We can now tell you things about Maximilian, Carlotta, Napoleon, Diaz and Allende through to Fox and Calderon, but we won't unless you ask and really want to know.

Our first stop in Hidalgo was at the Plaza Principal where there is an enormous bronze statue celebrating Hidalgo, a priest who was instrumental in spurring on the revolution. The park itself is lovely and the monument is impressive, particularly as the plaza is hemmed on one side by the parish of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores. This church has recently been renovated in preparation for the bicentennial celebrations which will begin here in 54 days. There are countdown clocks in the square outside and the gold leaf on the inside looks electric it is so clean and crisp and, well, golden. Kitty corner to the church is what they call the visitor's house where the president of Mexico stays every September 16th, the anniversary of Hidalgo's call to the people (he rang the church bells for 4 a.m. mass so the townspeople would come but instead of mass he told them the revolution had begun).

We went to the Museo de la Independencia Nacional where another man named Francisco took over the tour and escorted us from room to room speaking in quite excellent English that I nevertheless could not understand. I did pick up that the building itself was a prison in the 18th century and on September 16th, Hidalgo set the prisoners free.

After the museum, we tried a half dozen kinds of homemade ice cream in the Plaza Principal: avocado, corn, beer, cheese, seafood, lime, something called the kiss of the angels and another that was a special vanilla, which was, in fact, special. I was reluctant to put the seafood in my mouth, but it was really more of a cocktail sauce flavored ice cream than a seafood flavored one. Chris had lime and Susan and I had avocado and corn and Francisco had special vanilla and we were all quite happy.

While in Hidalgo, we also visited a talavera shop where we wandered up and down the aisles and from room to room picking up pieces of pottery we couldn't live without only to substitute one for another in the very next room. The colors were vivid and the shapes were special. Again, we all came home with something and we were all quite happy.

We were able to visit the Municipal Cemetery while in Hidalgo which was cool because it was like visiting Jim Morrison's grave except that we were visiting the grave of Jose Alfredo Jimenez, who is like the Jim Morrison of Mexico but better because everyone hailed him as a national treasure. As a result, there are tour buses of Mexicans there all the time and a man stands and sings his music all day long for the visitors. Traditional headstones in this area are white and so one headstone is lost against the next in the cemetery. Jimenez's monument, however, is a gigantic (15 foot) brown stone sombrero with a serape flowing out of it in bold and traditional colors. On each band of color is listed one of his 1000 songs. Being there was a cultural phenomenon.

I gave some incorrect information several days ago when I mentioned the grave tax in Mexico; it is still in effect. If a family can no longer pay the grave tax, the body is exhumed and either buried in a mass grave on the cemetery grounds or the bones are burned and then the grave is re-sold.

We revisited the Santuario in Atotonilco so Susan could see it and we were fortunate because, on the way home, Francisco brought us to San Miguelita to see a tiny chapel (unfortunately closed) and then to San Miguel Viejo to see the first church built in the area. It was also closed, but it was still a visit of worth. The landscape surrounding it is pastoral and peaceful and we never would have found it on our own. It has also undergone renovation in preparation for the bicentennial celebration, but is only opened now for such celebrations.

In general, our day with Francisco was educational. There were only a few language barriers, like when I asked if there would be a bull fight this month (despite it being off season, we've heard there may be one or two a month) and his explaining to me that they never allow the bull fights to take place in the street. And like when we asked him to verify that the word Guanajuato meant place of the frogs and he told us that the indigenous people had many rocks that were shaped like frog seven. However, Francisco said more things that we understood than that we didn't so it was a good day.

We had lunch, walked a new path through Jaurez Park, got caught in the rain, and visited the Instituto Allende before returning home for quick naps.

When we ventured out again later in the day, we were stopped by blocked streets and police officers directing traffic and it became apparent that townspeople were lining up on the sidewalks as if for a parade. So we lined up, too, and waited. In short order, we heard them coming: Rally HOG Bajio 2010 Bicentenario began today and hundreds and hundreds of Harleys rode into town. It was a sight to see and it seemed everyone wanted to see it. We watched the procession and then headed to the Principal Jardin where the procession ended and the riders parked their bikes all around the square once and then in a double row and then it was a sea of black leather and decals and tats and bandanas and fun. It did mean that the center was packed so we worked our way out a bit and wandered around until we settled on a place for dinner where we enjoyed good company and good food and discussed our plan for tomorrow. We're meeting Susan at a coffee shop at 8 a.m. and then we're off to Guanajuato for the day!

Pig Intestines? Cow Brain? No Idea.

There is Tuesday market high in the city, higher than we've been, and we took a cab up there yesterday to check it out. We had asked several people over the last few weeks about the market, and most would grunt less than detailed responses. Even Ray from Sol Y Luna, who would like to talk to us about anything, including his affinity for just staying in the homes of the people he meets when he's traveling, simply mentioned a street name when we asked where it was and did not elaborate. It was the only thing on which he didn't elaborate so we weren't totally sure what to expect, but it was great. It was a Mexican market for Mexicans and again, despite what our book said, the last word I would use to describe it is Disneyish.

It was four square blocks of tents and booths, similar in many ways to those we saw at the festival in Atotonilco, but many more useful items were for sale. There were hardware tents and machetes and antiques and new clothing and used clothing, fruits and vegetables and beef and poultry. There were puppies for sale and a wide range of birds and turtles and bunnies. There were shoes and belts and hats and toiletries. There was on the ground a tarp covered entirely in zippers and snaps. There were used remote controls and cell phones and new televisions and makeshift restaurants and juice stands and tables completely filled with confections and/or potato chips and pork rinds. There were several tents filled with thousands of CDs and/or DVDs that from the outside appeared legit but were propped open to stand and you could see they were all bootlegged and burned.

The smells were sumptuous and Chris had his first bagged drink while we were there. The juice stands serve juice in baggies with straws poking out through the knot, and he had pineapple juice that was so sweet my teeth ached as it passed them. The other choices were beet and carrot and mango, but we only tasted the one. The stalls were swamped with people and we didn't get there until afternoon so I can't imagine how dense it must be in the morning.

We shopped for produce and came home with lovely avocados, tomatoes, peppers, limes and onions that transformed themselves into guacamole later in the day and pineapple, cantaloupe and mangoes that we had with breakfast this morning. Of course, there's fresh fruit at the Jewel on Narraganset, but we got everything we needed at the market for two dollars, and it was excellent.

I have recently found the drink that makes me most happy is a chelada: the juice of two limes, one beer, three cubes of ice and some salt. I'm not sure why my whole life I've been cutting a tiny sliver of lime and popping it past the lip of a beer bottle when I could have been drinking these. Foolish. We stopped for supplies so that when Susan got in from the airport we would be able to sit down to the homemade guac and cheladas and settled in for her arrival. She was right on time and we let her catch her breath for a spell at our place before we went to her hotel to check in, after which we walked. We went to the Principal Jardin and she was able to see the outside and in of the Parroquia and another church that was actually closing up as we were visiting, which was surprisingly neat. There was a single man who was responsible for turning off each set of lights, beginning at the altar and then continuing back to the door and we moved right along with each extinguished sconce and chandelier. We wandered around so Sue could get a sense of the town and then went to a late dinner at Hecho en Mexico (where the main character in Murder, Mystery & Mayhem in San Miguel was always meeting the police lieutenant who solicited his help) and we all enjoyed our meals. We walked Susan back to her hotel and made plans to pick her up this morning at 9 a.m.

Today, we had breakfast in and then went to Biblioteca Publica for coffee and planned our day. We returned to some of the churches, including San Francisco, that had been closed last night and also walked through the permanent market in town so that Susan could take in the sights and smells and sounds of it all. We talked ad nauseum about the difference between tripe and menudo and other things I don't prefer to buy at the market and then followed the lanes of the food and flower market to the rear where the artisans have their stalls. While Chris and I have walked through there many times, we have reserved shopping because we know Susan enjoys it and so we saw things with new eyes as we traversed the stalls and booths with her. There are some styles of painting here that we may have to bring home examples of to commemorate this trip.

We had not yet visited the Allende Museum--housed in his actual residence--and did today. It was a perfect combination of historic documents and artifacts on the first floor and the second floor was preserved such that visitors can see how Allende purposed the rooms in his home and had such finely crafted pieces of furniture that I wanted to live there.

We had tacos for lunch at an outdoor restaurant that blessedly had a tarpaulin roof, because it rained with terrific force while we were there and while we waited the storm out, there are no gutters here so my socks were pretty well soaked by the time we got home. We spent some time at home figuring out the schedule of the film festival and reading travel and leisure books before heading out again when blue returned to the sky.

The birds in Benito Juarez Park are among the neatest sights we've seen here and even if Susan didn't have a proclivity for looking up, it was important that she see them. We went higher than I had been in the park before and there were dozens of egrets up in the very tall trees but the hill is so steep that we were able to negotiate a position relatively close to them. They are majestic and captivating. The sun was setting over the mountains behind them and it was so beautiful that even the pungent odor of bird poop didn't drive us away for some time. I hope Susan thought it was neat; I think she did.

We walked up and down streets and in and out of shops until it was time for dinner and had Mexican food in our neighborhood. There was a lot of laughter and, when we were done, we walked Susan back to her hotel. Tomorrow, we're taking a daytrip to Dolores Hildago, where none of us has been, and Atotonilco so that Susan can see the Santuario there with all of its murals. Hidalgo is historically significant to the Mexican fight for Independence and I look forward to learning more. And we're being picked up early, so...

Buying Hot Pants at the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen

There was more to our day yesterday, but an editor definitely would have said that the horseback riding story had to stand alone.

After stopping off at the pharmacy to find something to reduce the swelling in my arms and legs from the mosquitoes and mesquite scratches (Note: Being able to walk into a pharmacy and get drugs is a huge selling point for this country), we headed to the Feast of Atotonilco, which is a Fiesta in honor of the Virgin of Carmen. We had read that pilgrims came from far and wide--some in indigenous dress--to attend the fiesta. We took a cab there and the approach was unrecognizable. What had seemed such a dusty, deserted and depressed town when we visited the Sixteen Chapel of the Americas two weeks ago was now absolutely alive. There were cars parked for blocks and blocks and the streets were filled with people coming and going and dogs and police on horses and vendors all leading up to the square in front of the church.

The entrance to the church had been draped in an archway of fabric, calling attention to its otherwise unremarkable facade and huge banners were erected in the square, made from palm leaves and flower petals: they were stunning. Also in the square were two structures raised at least four stories that looked exactly like gigantic Tinker Toys constructions. They were made of thin woods, ropes, cardboard tubes and paper. They spun in the breeze and rocked back and forth and at one point, one of them lost its hold on the metal pole to which it was afixed and the entire construction dropped a foot. There were ropes tied at various levels and men on the ground used those ropes to set these constructions just so and Chris and I looked and looked at it and it was some time before we realized that the bits of paper and tubes of cardboard were all fireworks. There must have been thousands of explosives between the two structures and the bottom of each was just about at the eye level of a grown man. In regards to public safety, one of the poles did have a fire extinguisher lashed to the bottom of it, but I had to think to myself: is the center of the fire the best place to store the fire extinguisher? What do I know.

There were groups of indigenous dancers--some in full regalia and others who had clearly been told to at least wear a read tee shirt but who didn't have a red tee shirt that didn't say something like: You + Me = Us--who performed exhaustively and in some cases beautifully. There is apparently a tradition where young couples begin a dance something like the Pollanaise and then instead just whip hard candy at the crowd. The children in the crowd, and some of their fathers, too, are rather aggressive about jumping up into the air to catch the candy or scurry between the legs of others to grab it off the ground. After my horseback riding surface injuries, I didn't really love being beaned in the face with jamaica-flavored hard candy, so we moved on.

There were temporary "booths" full of what Chris accurately described as dollar-store fare sold at a quarter of the price: plastic colanders, tortilla presses, purses, CDs, flatware, umbrellas, hot pants, pastel-painted ceramic dogs, saints medals, almost anything you could think of and the booths ran for at least a mile along the highway which they shut down for the festival. In between these booths, were food tents and again there was almost anything you could imagine: carnitas stirred with three-foot long spoons in huge drums, roasted papas and zanahorias, tacos, carne asada, enchiladas, tortas, chicken, pork, pork rinds, fresa y crema (this is a very good idea: they take a half pint container of frozen strawberries, top it off with heavy whipping cream, add some sprinkles and a chocolate wafer). And there was also the unrecognizable food. We ate well.

We talked about what it would be like to be a public health worker here during this festival where everything is cooked outside, there are no bathrooms or trash bins. Everything is thrown on the ground, and there are flies and bees everywhere and dogs running all around and police horses waltzing through it all and pooping as they do. (What would Eric think?!)

I have no doubt I would have caught on fire somehow during the fireworks had we stayed for what would surely have been a spectacular and dangerous show (it wasn't lost on us that at dusk the town flooded with pickup trucks full of heavily armed police in the back) so after walking up and down the fairway, as it were, several times and stopping for taste treats along the way, we found a bus and headed home.

At 10 a.m. this morning I was back at Sol Y Luna. Chris stopped to get money along the way so I was several blocks ahead of him and had time for a nice chat with Ray. The first thing he did was pull up my shirt sleeves to check my bites and scratches from yesterday and then tell me the hot springs would cure my psoriasis. It was all a little intimate but then it made sense because he told me he would like it if we moved to San Miguel and he has a great business opportunity for us to join him in: ATV engine repair. It's good to spend time with people who really, really know you, you know? In the time between my arrival and Chris's arrival, Scott & Maria from Texas arrived and wanted to rent a moped. Ray was sure we wouldn't mind waiting while he showed Scott how a moped works and then realized the battery on the moped was dead and then charged it and then let Scott go for a test run and then showed Maria how to use a map. We left for the hot springs about a half hour after we arrived and after Ray explained that 10 a.m. doesn't mean 10 a.m., a lesson I think we had already learned before his verbal tutorial, but all that and I would still recommend Sol Y Luna to others.

There are many hot springs in the area and we went to La Gruta, where there are
several pools connected one to the next that ultimately lead into a cave where the water is its most warm. The waters are heated by volcanic activity and are tepid and then warm and then hot as you move farther along. You reach the cave through a dark tunnel (darker still if you don't realize until halfway through that you still have your sunglasses on) and the cave is lit from small holes above that the sunlight filters through. It is eerie and beautiful and by the time you are in the cave, you are in the water and also sweating from the heat. Bizarre. There are sundecks and lawns and a restaurant and pool side bar service so we enjoyed several hours there before Ray returned to take us home. All travelers to SMA should go to the springs.

This afternoon we did some small preparations for Susan's arrival tomorrow and we got caught in a rainstorm that drove me home but Chris is hot on the trail of another salsa recipe so he went blocks and blocks to find the ingredients he needed. We'll dine in this evening and look forward to further adventures tomorrow.

P.S. As long as we're sharing, you should know: Ray's had a vasectomy.

Senora, We Have To Go Back For Your Husband

Every second of today was the absolute best except for the 15 minutes when I thought Chris might be dead. Those minutes sucked, but in a way they really heightened my awareness and enjoyment of the rest of the minutes of the day.

We arrived at Sol & Luna at 10 a.m. because that is when the Sol & Luna representative indicated we should arrive. Doors locked. Street deserted. We waited. And waited. And discussed whether or not the Sol & Luna representative had said we were to meet him at his office or someplace else. They have another office in the neighborhood, so Chris decided to check to see if that office was open. It wasn't, but in the meantime a nice young man came and opened the office I was still waiting at and explained to me in the most apologetic terms (lo siento, lo siento) that he had been sleeping. He invited me to the office to wait for both Chris to return and the man who would be our guide to arrive. Chris came back first. And we waited. And then the guy who was to be our guide--Ray--arrived and explained to me in the most apologetic terms (lo siento, lo siento) that it was the tequila that had done him in. He said we only had to wait a short while longer for the van to arrive. It didn't, so we piled into a compact, drove two blocks and then were instructed to switch cars to a van parked ahead of us. It was starting to feel like a kidnapping, but the kidnappers seemed like they were really dragging from the night before so I was confident we could get away if the plot reached its crisis.

There was a phone call on the way out of town and would it be alright with us if we just picked up one of Ray's friends because she was on her way to the airport and the horses were on the way and she was ready now and, and, and sure. Her name was Theresa, a nurse midwife who splits her life between Chicago and SMA; she travels back and forth every two weeks. We only knew her for about 10 minutes but in that time she spilled coffee all over Ray, had some shifty financial dealings involving an envelope full of pesos that she asked him to give to some other guy and made it clear that she wasn't a fan of either Oak Park Hospital or West Sub.

I should probably mention that I am afraid to get on a horse. I'm not afraid to ride a horse. That part seems easy and fine. I'm afraid to get on and off the horse. I've done it before, but not for a long time and my legs are so short and Chris has a coworker who was kicked in the face by a horse and lost all of her teeth and it was her horse that kicked her so I don't know how a horse that is a total stranger to me is going to feel about having to cart me around on it and what if I kick it by accident when I'm trying to get my leg over the saddle and then there is this weird and final reason for me to be nervous: I have stress dreams about this. It isn't enough for me to sometimes have the dream where my teeth fall out or the one where my contacts break in my eyes, I also have dreams about needing to get on a horse and not being able to do so.

It turns out, it is easy to get on a horse--even if your legs are short--if you attempt to do so from on top of a truck. And once I was up there, I loved it, as I suspected I would. My horse's name was Pancho, and we got along just fine.

I should also probably mention that there was no tutorial. No instructions. No tips.

Ray took the lead and Chris and I followed. A man named Luis, who provided the horses, owns a huge amount of land in the outskirts of the city and his family farms along the river. It is a peaceful and beautiful place for horseback riding. There are fields full of cacti in bloom and brush flowers and trees. Some of the nopales growing by the side of the trail were 15 feet tall. Ray said those were 500 years old; they grow very slowly and then are pruned by all the people who eat them.

I learned that mesquite trees are mean and that while Ray says to avoid them he doesn't necessarily show you what they are or how to avoid them and the horses don't mind them and they tear the shit out of your skin. I have what the detectives on Law & Order would accurately identify as defensive wounds up and down my left arm which bore the brunt of it, and also on my scalp and neck.

The first part of the trail was through this wilderness and the second was through a remote area where indigenous people live in very small houses with very aggressive dogs. The horses apparently ignore everything. These people mostly farm. Past that, there were corn fields, and Chris's horse stopped moving to chomp ears of off their stalk. He did eventually regroup. The trail is also used as an ATV course and I was glad he caught up before the horses and ATVs had to negotiate a crossroads. Ray spent most of the ride on his cell phone, so when we turned from the cornfields to the river, he didn't notice Chris's horse stopped. Chris made a joke about the horse eating which I thought Ray heard and I mentioned Chris was falling behind but Ray was on the phone.

The trail up until this point was out in the bright sunshine. When we turned toward the river, it was shady. There were eucalyptus trees and it was harder to see where you had come from or where you were going. The river itself was beautiful and full of water birds and occasionally fishermen. I asked Ray if the horses followed the trail or they followed him and he said that it was all Luis's land and they were all his horses and that they knew the trail well. I asked him because I hadn't seen Chris in what seemed like a long time. But then I heard whistling and I was sure he was relatively close. Ray took another phone call and the whistling stopped. It turns out, Ray whistles, too. I didn't think Chris was dead.

Ray asked me where my husband was and I said I hadn't seen him for a while. He asked how long it had been. It could have been four minutes or it could have been an hour, and I wouldn't know; time isn't really my thing. I said I had last seen Chris in the cornfield. He told me to continue on the trail on my own and that he would go back and find Chris. I appreciated his concern for Chris's welfare but then grew concerned for my own because Ray was gone, and I still hadn't had any instructions about how to start or stop a horse or which forks to take in the trail. I figured the horse knew the way and I guess he did, except there was a fallen tree he went under because he fit under it but I didn't exactly so add a scrape down my spine to the list of war wounds. I still didn't think Chris was dead.

Pancho decided to go off trail into some weeds, tall grasses and bushes for a bit of a snack himself, at which point I became a snack of sorts because of the mosquitoes that thrive in weeds, tall grasses and bushes. I eventually figured out start and stop and turn and reverse on my own and got Pancho out of the brush and back onto the trail. I still didn't think Chris was dead.

I thought Chris was dead when Ray came galloping across a field shouting to me, "Senora, we have to turn around. We have to go back for your husband." He said he had followed the trail back and had followed all of the turns of the trail we hadn't taken and asked everyone he saw along the way and no one had seen Chris. He wanted to call Chris but I explained we didn't have a cell phone here. He said he didn't know where Chris was, asked me if I thought Chris would cross the river (um, no) and said that we had to go back and find him together. He asked if I was ready to go faster and without waiting for an answer galloped off and Pancho followed. Luckily, Pancho had enough of that quickly and so again I was alone on the trail, but at least I was heading in the same direction as Ray and hopefully heading towards my long lost husband.

Chris wasn't dead. This isn't how I would tell you if he was. He and his horse were exactly where I had seen them last a half hour before and still doing what what they were when I saw them last: eating corn. Ray got a big kick out of that; Chris not so much. He pleaded with it, yelled at it, pulled the reins, hit it with a rope, gave it the finger, kicked it, sweet talked it and the damn horse just wouldn't budge. Our tour was supposed to be three hours door to door but it was closer to four and a half. In the end, we revisited the river trail because Chris had not yet seen it and Ray took some more phone calls, one of which was to arrange for his children to meet us at the end of the river trail. When we veered off, there was his girlfriend and his two kids ready to ride along with us. Ray dismounted and his children who are two and three took his place on his horse and he walked along beside. That slowed them down a bit and so Chris and I took the lead and then sometime after that Ray passed us driving a car. He did lean out the window and ask "Esta bien?" We eventually caught up to his parked car at the end of the trail and his kids and girlfriend (now all three of them were on the horse, the kids in the saddle and her behind it and P.S. the two-year old had fallen asleep between his brother and mama) caught up to us and we all had a quick beer that was the best beer ever and then Ray's girlfriend took us back to town. It was all a little weird, but I really liked the horseback riding part.

While I don't think Sol & Luna is a bonded and fully insured travel agency, we didn't get enough of him; Ray's taking us to the hot springs tomorrow. We're supposed to meet him at Sol Y Luna at 10 a.m. We'll see.

Seeing a Man About a Horse

We started the day in Parque Benito Juarez in which local artists showcase and sell their work on the weekends. I have no idea how many blocks the park covers, but each time we visit we end up somewhere a little different. With the greatest respect for Presa de Olla in GTO, Juarez is probably the kind of park in which one really could spend an afternoon.

It seems like we spend as much time preparing to do things as actually doing things, and today was all about preparation for the next few days. Because we prefer to figure things out on our own rather than having someone from a travel agency do all the leg work (because there is so much to discover along the way to the discoveries), we walk a lot of places and ask a lot of questions before committing to any of our various endeavors. Tomorrow, there is a celebration in Atotonilco we would like to attend so today we had to figure out how to take the bus there and back. There are several informal bus terminals in SMA and we sorted through a few before finding the one from which the Atotonilco buses depart and return and, while it is on the other side of town, the buses run every half hour and into the evening so we're good for tomorrow.

In the midst of it, we returned to the tiny cafe we visited our first week: Restaurante Taurino on Relox right next door to the bull ring. I mention it here because it will probably never make it into any guide books, but anyone who visits SMA should visit it for the most lovely, intimate, simple meal prepared by kind and attentive people.

We were actually in that neighborhood to see a man about a horse... Tomorrow we will leave the city for horseback riding in the hills and countryside for several hours mid morning, and we also arranged a trip Monday morning to the hot springs. Chris is totally comfortable with the horse and I'm completely at ease with the hot springs so one of us can remain calm at all times and one of us can be hysterical at all times: it's how we do.

We took it easy this afternoon--which we are quite good at--because it was hot like Chicago here today, so we kept cool indoors reading and writing and picking and singing, and then went out for dinner near the Principal Jardin. Now we're home and I have only one chapter left in my book--The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Morton (which anyone who's overly fond of Homer should read), so I'm just that far from bed and I'm sure Chris will be up for hours and hours yet, as usual.

Mescal, Chorizo & Some Weird Orange Drink

Another reminder of childhood: every day may as well be Tuesday because there isn't a lot inked into the datebook when you're five (at least there wasn't in the mid-70s; I realize toddlers today are busier than I am). Those friends of ours who do honest work for a living probably won't find this at all charming, but this morning Chris and I weren't totally sure what day it was, and we ultimately had to check the Chicago Tribune home page to verify that it was Friday. It's probably more obnoxious to mention that I'm not sure why it even mattered, except the local paper comes out on Friday and it has a list of things to do throughout the week. It might save face a bit to also mention that I often don't know what day it is when I'm working.

Today, we headed out with an agenda. My sister, Susan, is coming for a visit next week (cheers for us!) and while we welcome her to stay at Calle Marte Numero 12 with us, we thought we might try to find some places very close by where she might enjoy a tiny bit more privacy, which in more specific terms would be any privacy at all since this joint doesn't have any doors, but for the bano and that door's glass and doesn't much fit in its frame. There is a curtain that separates the living room from the bedroom and unfortunately for a house guest the bathroom is on the bedroom side of the curtain. We'll let her decide if she's comfortable with the accommodations here once she arrives, but we thought options might be good, so this morning we visited several little hotels in the area. It made for a nice walk and we got to see in some different courtyards. It also meant spending a bit more time in our own neighborhood than we have yet because we normally head to the center of town and commence our walks from there.

We got out the map and headed to a new part of the city today and walked and walked and walked. The farther out we went, the wider the streets became and the fewer trees provided shade and you could feel subtle social and economic differences between neighborhoods and we encountered fewer expats, although we did stop in at the Empowerment Center, where Chris went for the song circle only to find there was no song circle, and so he asked after the song circle. Chris and I agree that it is possibly marijuana that empowers Laura the hostess at the Empowerment Center and she was frankly shocked to learn that the ad for the song circle was still in the local paper since the guy who lead the song circle went back to the States in November. She mentioned she doesn't know how to lead a song circle, but she took Chris's email, however, and told him about some guy named Rob who sometimes leads a song circle in his house. We'll see. It seems likely she might forget we stopped by.

Lydia invited us to a Plaza Inauguration this evening at Allende Once. It was sort of like a gallery opening except that instead of a single gallery it was an opening for all of the small shops and galleries and cafes and businesses within and around the courtyard of a particular entrance of a building. Each place had its own drink and nosh for the hangers-on, lots of mescal and tequila and some champagne. There was a DJ and a film playing up against one of the walls of the courtyard, so it was noisy in an exciting-things-are-happening-here kind of way and far too many people to fit in the space all preening in a see-and-be-seen dance and it felt nightclub-ish except for the fact that at least 65% of the people there were at least 65. We stayed long enough for Chris to experience a plastic cocktail cup of mescal and moved on to dinner, where there were several miscommunications about what we would like to eat and drink. I asked for a mineral water and the waiter brought me an orange drink of some sort and when I asked again for a mineral water, he rolled his eyes, took the orange drink away, went to the bar, made another orange drink and brought it back to the table. While the description of what Chris ordered seemed complex, he ultimately ended up with a bowl of chorizo for dinner. This may all have been because the place was apparently run by only three people and all of them were under the age of majority.

After dinner, we meandered the main square. There were hundreds of people doing the same. The park isn't big compared to Burnham's plan, but it strikes me that there are infants carried by young mothers, toddlers blowing bubbles, adolescents huddled in packs screwing around with their friends, young lovers holding hands, the middle aged sitting on benches listening to the mariachi and the elderly all sharing the same intimate space and in one way that makes it seem smaller but in so many other ways it makes it seem bigger.

We're home now and Chris is making yet another salsa (I think this may be recipe number five). The whole house smells like garlic and limes, so I think it might be delicious around here in a minute. Susan might want to stay right here with us, no doors and this salsa after all.

Sentimental Drivel

When I listen to the life stories of my students, I am no longer stunned by the rough edges, the splinters, the rusty nails. There was a time when I was shocked by their intimacy with violence and poverty, but I've come to understand that their experiences are probably more common globally than mine. Now I'm stunned rather when I think of my own childhood. When I was a little girl, I lived in a big white house with pillars, two parents and a wide green lawn. From my front porch swing, I could see the balloon man perched on his stool at the corner. In my memory, it was an old stool, with metal legs and a wooden seat, but that's a detail beyond my point. The point really is: there was a balloon man who worked my corner. Stephen King might be able to turn something like that sinister, but it wasn't; it was simply idyllic. I remember sometimes I could have a balloon, and I remember sometimes crossing to talk to the balloon man even if we weren't there to get one. There are a thousand other details from my childhood I could add, some things about the smell of chlorine, golf clubs cut to my size, storing marigold seeds in a coffee can in the winter and Father Walsh--one of many retired Jesuits who lived across the street and would toddle across for a visit, a nip and to quiz me in math--but I'm thinking about the balloon man tonight because of things that are no longer: like the days in which a knife sharpener was not a plastic tool thrown carelessly into the kitchen junk drawer but a man who walked the streets. One of the things I like about it here is that those jobs still exist. Each morning, we have woken to the sounds of men climbing through the alleyways in our neighborhood hawking their wares, shouting out or playing flute to alert their customers they're at hand. We have seen the local knife sharpener several times; he carries a red toolbox on a leather strap across his chest just like the one I remember the knife sharpener from my childhood carrying and he has a lovely whistle. I saw him on the street and had a brilliant, vivid, layered and happy memory of being a kid. Just that.

We spent the morning putting our last things together for our return trip to SMA and Mike came for our check out. A regret from our stay in GTO was not hearing more of his stories. We chatted just a bit this morning before we took off and learned that in addition to living in Mexico for these past 20 years, he also lived in Guatemala for five years in the mid 1970s. He was there, in fact, for the earthquake in 1976 which, we learned last summer, devastated whole areas. He and his wife owned several stores, two in Antigua and another in Panajachel, and, despite the absence of roads as we know them in the States, would travel to the outlying villages to purchase indigenous handicrafts to sell in them. Given the Guatemala with rather rudimentary infrastructure we experienced over three decades later, it sounds like quite an adventure to have had at the time they were there. While we had to leave to catch our bus, he was a pleasure to talk to and to listen to (hard sometimes to find both in one person) and we would recommend renting from him to anyone traveling in Guanajuato: La Casa de Dona Ana or Guanajuato B & B.

Unfortunately, I haven't been my level best the last 24 hours because of my intestines having been removed and replaced with a sausage grinder while I wasn't looking. It comes with the territory of reckless eating; I'm not sure which poison it might be that my body is fighting: the steady ingestion of regular milk and cheese, the possibly foul and contaminated street food that is so delicious and worth it in the moment or some questionable water I may have had with lunch yesterday (but I was SO thirsty). Still and all, Chris had a tongue taco by accident and he's fine: not fair. In any case, it fell well: we arrived back in SMA in time for a downpour so I overlapped my not feeling all that well with being trapped indoors by the rain with some school work I needed to submit anyway. We downloaded a movie and are going to hunker down for the rest of the evening and head out into the world of Mexico again in the morning.

Dam that Ditch to Olla

We returned to Valenciana this morning to visit the church there (San Cayetano) adjacent to the silver mine because it was closed on Monday when we were there last. Our neighbor, Dan, said that it was "eye popping" so many times in our conversation about it, we thought it important to go back. Though I would never use the words "eye popping" to describe it or anything else, he was right. A silver mine owner, Antonio de Ordonez, had the church built in praise to god for the mass wealth he accumulated from the earth in the area and maybe--oh, a little bit--to show off the mass wealth he accumulated from the earth in the area. The front of the church is a trifold floor to ceiling altar piece in gold leaf that is dazzling in the sunlight and flanked by pink stone carvings.

We took the bus back into the center of GTO to purchase our bus tickets back to SMA tomorrow and, having done just about everything our tour book told us to do in this city, decided to just wander around a bit. Again, I'm glad for the luxury of time to just get on a bus and see where it takes us, spend what others might deem an overly long time in any one spot and simply walk without a destination. There was one thing we had read about online however that we had left to do...

Those people who followed our travels in Guatemala last summer and know of the infamous kayak experience are no doubt not surprised Chris chose a solidly landlocked point on the map to spend this summer. So I was delighted when he said that boats were available for rental in the park at Presa de la Olla and that the website suggested it was a lovely place to spend an afternoon. We walked about as far as we could, until we reached the end of the tourism maps of the city, and then took a bus the rest of the way to the presa--a dam built in 1749 to supply fresh water to the city and operational until 1985 (the book doesn't really explain why the people didn't need any fresh water after that point). Well, the park that is lovely to spend an afternoon in is only about 1000 square feet, which just isn't that many feet, and it only has a few benches and the boat rental: well, we found the boats just fine, laying in what can only be described as a giant ditch full of dirt. Where is the water, one might wonder. I know one might wonder this because we, in fact, wondered it, but ultimately the trip out to the Ditch of Olla made me happy; I'm glad Chris is such a sport that he would ever agree to get into a boat with me again after the fiasco on Lake Atitlan. So, in the end, he got all the points and didn't even have to nearly die this time.

We decided to have a late lunch downtown and went to the Plazuela San Fernando to do so, where the day quickly spilled into early evening before we headed back home to clean things up for our departure tomorrow. I like this place, I'm glad we came here, and I think others should put it on their itinerary when visiting Mexico.

P.S. There is a taco stand on Alhondiga just across the street from the Mercado that Chris highly recommends.

Jesus On One Side & Mary On The Other

Today, we planned to be away from home for several hours and packed a picnic to bring with us to the Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera. It is no longer operational and exists now as a museum, but it was a working hacienda in the 17th century. The building itself is preserved well and furnished in period specific pieces. The original family was extremely wealthy and the interiors are stunning. There was a chapel in the home that was no larger than four individual seats for each member of the family but quite ornate and beautiful. There was mostly portraiture in the way of art on the walls, but there were also religious scenes, including one painting of a monk standing between the Virgin Mary on one side and Jesus on the other. She was squirting breast milk into his mouth from her side while Jesus squirted the blood from his wounds into his mouth from the other side. I can just imagine Senora Barrera thinking, "Now where should we put the holy bodily fluids piece? Ah! The hallway."

The rooms in the hacienda were interesting, but the grounds were spectacular. The whole of the place is 237,000 square feet and is garden after garden, many inspired by geographic regions and others by a particular fruit or flower. There was the Jardin de Arabe, Jardin de Romans, Jardin de Naranja, Jardin de Mexico and 13 others like them. It was one of the more beautiful gardens I've visited and being set in among the walls of the hacienda and aqueducts and courtyards, it's possible to feel you have stepped back in time. We brought our books and picked a garden with benches to read in for an hour or so and then picked another in which to have our picnic. Days like today remind me of the good fortune we have in the luxury of time. On a different kind of trip, we would have to walk the gardens instead of use the gardens. I'm glad we were able to spend so much time there today.

We took a taxi back to town and tried once again to visit the inside of the Teatro Juarez and met some bad news: it is closed for the remainder of our stay here, so (good news!) we will have to return to Guanajuato another time in our lives.

We went to a tiny museum on the same block as the theater, a former convent which has mostly been destroyed but it is interesting to note that it was below street level. There are several sites throughout the city that make clear the street level has changed multiple times, in some cases becoming lower and in other cases becoming higher. We walked and talked, heading to the opposite end of town and in and out of shops and churchs (including one that had a painting depicting the circumcision of Jesus--is it possible I don't look up enough in American churches or is something going on here?), until I couldn't take the sun anymore. Today was a perfect day and the sun pierces the skin differently on these clear bright days than it does when it is hazy. We returned home for siesta and then headed back to the centro for dinner.

There hasn't been a meal yet we have both absolutely savored, so Chris did some research online before we went out. While there is no Yelp here to help us make a decision, he found some travel sites that had restaurant reviews. We went to Cafe Ofelia on Calle Truco just behind the Basilica in Plaza de Paz where they serve margaritas in a glass the size of a bucket that comes with a straw and a spoon in case you're not quite sure how to attack it. The guacamole here, in general, is better than at home because of the more balanced ratio between avocado and everything else, but this was the best yet. Chris ordered the traditional dish of GTO which is enchiladas mineras, a favorite of the mine workers. They are cheese enchiladas in a red sauce with grilled chicken, roasted carrots and potatoes on a bed of shredded lettuce and topped with queso and crema. He enjoyed his meal thoroughly and I ordered something else the name of which I cannot remember but which was also very good. If you find yourselves in GTO and interested in Mexican food, go there. We're back now and Chris is watching a baseball game with Mexican announcers, and I'm about to pick up my book and likely fall asleep before I get to the bottom of the page.

Hard Hats Optional

We started today by taking a taxi into the next town, Valenciana, which is renowned for its silver mines. The operational mine is closed to visitors on Mondays, but we visited San Ramon which was one of the original points of descent and now serves as a museum. There were three main points of descent in the area: Valenciana, Nopal and San Ramon and the main tunnel in the operational mine is more than 1700 feet deep. The indigenous people were used to carve the shafts and later mestizos worked the mines. We took a tour which included looking at a vertical map of the mine shafts, going to an alcove which appeared to be a prayer spot for prisoners and pregnant women, visiting a bar where people drank because of the danger of their jobs, descending a short way into the mine shaft (hard hats optional but stuff may fall on your head) and learning something about breathing bad minerals and coughing blood and dying. The tour was in Spanish, but presos, mujeres embarazadas, peligroso, vino, trabajo, sangre, muerte were all words that came cross loud and clear. Piecing them together to make meaning may be a different story. While we were down in the shaft, the lights went out and even though we were only about two feet below the surface of the earth it was startling and absolutely pitch. It's hard to imagine how they dug so deep with the rudimentary tools of the time period (1550) and how deadly the whole endeavor must have been. Our book suggests that the average life span of a miner was no more than 10 years. After we left the mine, we ran into our Mexican historian neighbor, Dan, on the street and he told us that the mines in Valenciana fueled the European Industrial Revolution; at the time, 60% of the silver pulled out of the mines here went to the Spanish crown. He was wandering around looking for some archive for which he had no address because upon his arrival this morning, he discovered the archive at which he planned to do his research was closed for a week's vacation. We ended up riding the same bus back to town with him, because the keepers of archive number two were also on holiday. His research is in adolescents who applied for emancipation from their parents so that they would be allowed to marry between 1830 to 1870. He may be the only person on earth studying that extremely general topic.

We also went to Museo de las Momias today. From the late 19th century to the 1950s, relatives of deceased persons were required to pay a grave tax for anyone buried in Mexico. If the family was unable to pay the tax, the bodies were exhumed so that the graves could be reused. Apparently, because of the mineral rich soil here and the dry climate, the corpses were remarkably preserved when they were exhumed. The "Mummy Museum" isn't a collection of mummies at all but of over one hundred of these corpses, some of which have no tears in the skin to be found. It is grotesque and sad and interesting at once.

We hadn't been into the market after Mike told us about its made-in-China nature, but today we walked through and concur with his opinion of the tchotckes on the second floor. On the first floor, however, there is booth after booth of culinary delights and disgusts. We had lunch at a place specializing in mariscos; Chris ordered a mixed fish soup and sangria. The soup was chock-full: shrimp, white fish, muscles, squid, probably other stuff. The sangria came in a glass bottle with a straw and was the same price as my bottle of water. He has mentioned several times today that that soup was good.

After lunch, we sat in a plaza and had coffee before heading back to the supermarket to get supplies for dinner. We finished the daylight hours on the terrace because there was terrific thunder and we thought we might be able to watch a grand storm, but it never came or at least it hasn't come yet and now it's too late for me to partake. Now, it's too late for me to do much of anything except think on tomorrow.

When the White Sox Won the Super Bowl

Our downstairs neighbor moved in in the middle of the night and we met him first thing this morning as we headed out. He is a Mexican historian from Texas, whose focus is on education and he has lived in GTO on and off for the last nine years as he has done his research. He would love to get together and talk about everything that is wrong with the American educational system, except that I would love to do just about anything else.

Today was a museum marathon. We started by placing Museo Alhondiga on our agenda again this morning and this time we got there without fail. I mentioned yesterday that the building itself was a significant landmark in the Mexican Revolution. At the time of the Revolution it was used as a granary and when Hidalgo and Pipila led the insurgents in trying to take the town of GTO, the Spanish loyalists fled there. A massive slaughter ensued, and the Spanish prevailed. In an effort to dissuade others from further insurrection, when each of the four leaders of the revolution: Hidalgo, Pipila, Allende and Aldama died, the Spanish hung their heads from the four corners of the building where they remained for 10 years. Today, it houses a museum of Mexican artifacts that date to 1000 BC, many of which were found in excavations preceding the creation of dams. The ceramics are quite beautiful, and there is an interesting collection of stamping tools. The exhibit I enjoyed the most, however, was a photography collection that paired a contemporary photo to one of the same subject from the 1930s and each was taken somewhere in the city of GTO.

From there, we walked down the street to the Casa de Diego Rivera, which was the best place ever. It is the building Rivera was born in and his family lived there through his early childhood. As improbable as it seems, his family furniture remains and the first floor is decorated a la his late 19th century home. The second and third floors house a large collection of his work and are worth the trip to GTO. It reminded me of the Museo Picasso in Barcelona, in that it showcases the artist's early works which are so stylistically different from the works for which he is most famous. The Rivera collection here is a lot of pencil sketches and watercolors and oils that are much more traditional and realistic in their depictions. Lots of exercises in perspective and shadows and geometry. He doesn't seem to have adopted the style for which he is most known until the beginning of the 1930s, and one fabulous part of the collection are the scaled sketches for parts and pieces of the murals and paintings we all know. In short, I loved it.

Chris tells me that since we have been together, the Bulls have won six NBA championships, the Bears have been to the Super Bowl, the White Sox (his favorite team) won the World Series, the Wildcats (his college team) have been to the Rose and several other Bowls, and the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. I didn't watch any of it. Today, however, I watched the last game of the World Cup--the international championship for a sport Chris could not care less about. We found an outdoor cafe off of the main plaza which was packed with enthusiasts all rooting for Spain, including the waitstaff who were all wearing Spanish jerseys. We grabbed a table and ordered a couple of beers. We sat there for two and a half hours watching a sport where absolutely nothing happens at all but whose fans' pulses seem driven by every step taken on the field.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, seems like something, "Ah!", heads collapse in hands, brows furl, nothing, nothing, nothing.

The whole thing damn near broke Chris' heart, as he has hoped and wished and wanted over the years that I might develop a taste for sports, but I was only willing today because I figured it would be a cultural phenomenon to watch the World Cup in a soccer town, and I guess it was, although the take away message from the whole thing is that soccer is boring because mostly people run around not scoring.

All that spectating pretty well wiped out the rest of our day so we headed back home after the game and relaxed a bit before making chicken soup for dinner. Chris is playing his guitar and I'm about to pick up a new book. I just finished Murder, Mystery & Mayhem in San Miguel by Richard Crissman, which I probably never would have read at home but which is excellent fare if one happens to be in San Miguel (Susan--I'll put it aside for you!). My hopes for tomorrow have a life of their own.

No Doubt About the Fun in Funicular

The neighborhood wakes up early: dogs barking, children laughing, men singing, engines revving, gates slamming. Chris walked down the hill for some fresh bread and then walked back up the hill to have a breakfast of fresh fruit, coffee, bread and yogurt at home.

My calves hurt the second day we were in SMA from walking all hours and my thighs hurt here on this the second day from walking all hours up and downhill. We decided to start with the Museo Alhondiga which houses art in a building significant to the Mexican Revolution, but the bus we took turned a different way so our plans changed. Guanajuato would be a bear to drive in as a novice. There are four main surface level streets and then hundreds of narrow alleyways off of them; however, there are also underground passages, reminiscent of Lower Wacker except that none of the street names are marked and all of the streets are one way or the other, again not marked. We got off the bus when it deviated from one of the lower passages we were familiar with and we walked back into the center, first up from the underground and then down to the center. My thighs might hurt again tomorrow.

Today was the first absolutely perfect weather day we've had without even a hint of rain and so we took advantage of a bright blue sky to visit the Pipila monument that sits high above town and which is accessed by funicular. El Pipila was the moniker given to Jose de los Reyes Martinez who joined Hidalgo and was instrumental in taking the grainery, where the Spanish loyalists were held up (now the Museo Alhondiga), at the start of the Mexican Revolution. The statue itself is quite something and can be seen from miles around because of its relative height, and the vistas from its base are unbelievable. When you are in the valley, it is difficult to assess the size and height of your surroundings. From the monument, you can see the entire city. When in Rome... so we had a cup of corn with cheese, lime and salsa on it while we took in the view and, while it was a taste treat, two or three bites was probably enough.

We tried to get back into a few of the churches we passed yesterday but were foiled by weddings and, in one case, a funeral. We did get to see a man ringing the bells for the funeral. All of the bell ringing here is done by hand so it's sort of something to see.

Instead, we went to the Museo Iconografico del Quijote. Before I went, I thought it was a weird idea, since Don Quijote is a fictional character. Now that I have been, I want go back and explain to my younger self how wrong I was. As an English teacher and literature enthusiast, I'm not sure why I even thought it was weird to begin with, but it is neat to have an entire museum dedicated to works of art inspired by the same source and even better that the source is the seminal work of Cervantes. Go.

We wandered around a bit and had lunch in a little cafe where one can also have their laundry done before finding a major market in which to get groceries. We stocked up for the week so that we wouldn't have to bring big bags up the hill home time and again and got our tiny kitchen organized. We took our siesta on the roof-top terrace from which we have a marvelous view of the center on one side and the mountains on the other and Chris played his guitar while I worked on an assignment that is due tomorrow. Eventually, the sun sunk behind the mountains to our right and it was time for dinner, which was good in every way except that we forgot to buy a bottle of wine while we were out. Plans for another day...

Made in China

We headed to the bus station this morning just before 8 a.m. and were there in time for our ride. Anyone ever traveling by bus in Mexico should book with ETN. The bus was on time. Before we boarded, we were each handed a lunch bag with a sandwich and a cookie and asked what drink we would like to accompany our meal. The seats were generous even for American butts like ours and complete with foot rests so that the whole contraption was more like a chaise lounge than a Greyhound seat. In fact, I was able to extend my legs in the air in front of me without me feet reaching the seat ahead. Granted my legs are only about three feet long, but still. The "in-flight" movie was The Dark Knight, which reminded us of the time we thought we were going to see it when we were in Merida two summers ago and ended up actually going to see whichever one of the Batman movies Danny Devito was in and then only part because the film ended half way through. Good times. We got to Guanajuato and took a cab to the hotel nearest our rental and then called our short-term landlords and waited for them to arrive.

We weren't able to find our rental property on our own despite it being a stone's throw from the hotel where we waited. All of the buildings on Calle San Mateo share the same address, although that wasn't totally apparent on our arrival and it isn't totally apparent now why that's a good idea. We were waiting at the back entrance of the hotel and our place is essentially in the alley behind that. Picture an alley. Now modify that picture for geographical realism: picture a Mexican alley. The curb appeal lacks everything to be desired and it was hard to be excited at our prospects until we got inside where it was tiny but inviting. We have two rooms: a bedroom and a kitchen. It is dinky but in several ways nicer than our place in San Miguel. For instance, the bed has an actual mattress and I'm looking forward to excellent slumber and the kitchen is well equipped.

Our landlord here is a man named Mike and he showed us how to light our oven and get to the roof top terrace and then suggested since he was going back into town that we tag along to learn our way. Because our place is about 20 minutes or so outside of the main square and we didn't yet have a map, it seemed ideal. He and his wife moved here from the States in 1992 and own several rental properties. He is currently renovating a new one that they will rent or sell when he is finished. We are pretty far out so we spent a bit of time walking along with him as he showed us the plazas where the novios smooch in the evening and where to get good crepes and here live music and things like that. He said the recession has been difficult in Mexico, where there are three main industries: tourism, remittance and petrol. He mentioned that GTO is a more Mexican town than SMA and that more Mexicans vacation here than Americans. He also mentioned that the market caters to tourists, but again those tourists are Mexican and--according to Mike--Mexicans have terrible taste and so the market is filled with crap that was made in China and he said it was frankly embarrassing.

He left us off in the center of town and because we had given him all of our cash for the rental property, we immediately turned around and headed back to it for our a passport so we could get more money. Heading into town is easier than heading out. In is all downhill, and out is all uphill. It isn't actually too bad until pretty close to our place and then it is just ridiculously steep. Walking becomes a deep knee bend.

After all of our serious financial dealings were concluded, we took naps and showers and went back down for dinner, which we had in a lovely plaza with a gargling fountain and live music and people all about. After dinner, we walked a bit and there are throngs of people here. Mike said that because of the topography of the area, people gravitate down to the center and sometimes there are thousands of people in the streets in an evening. Back home, we tried to watch a bit of television and were reminded why we don't have cable at home. The American shows here don't paint a picture of sophistication and cultivation, unless you think a show called Man vs. Food in which a man competitively eats and that's the whole show is the best we have to offer. Talk about embarrassing.

Tomorrow, we will get to the market in the morning and make a plan for the afternoon. Diego Rivera was born here and there is a museum in his childhood home and there is a Don Quixote museum even though he's not real, so whatever we do it should be interesting.