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.

Dinner and a Show

After wandering around looking for a farmacia in which to buy a phone card (which by the way is reminiscent of a prayer card as one side is a picture of the Virgin) and then wandering around looking for a payphone and then standing around figuring out how said payphone works, we made our travel arrangements for Guanajuato: we are renting a casita for a week and while the website of the place shows a thousand pictures of a pool, the phone call confirmed that they don't actually have one. Our bus tickets were less expensive than the shuttle that brought us here from the airport and we leave at 8:45 tomorrow morning.

On our way to the center to take care of that business, we saw a small work crew repaving some streets in our neighborhood. Because the streets are cobblestone, this entailed men digging out old loose stones, fitting new ones, hammering them in place and then covering the new stones with sandy soil. The end result is a bit like a new grave: the road patch is a slightly lighter color and raised from the surrounding surface. Eventually, the feet of the people who cross over will tamp it. Don't think just because the street stones seem haphazard that they are; they have been carefully placed and that gave me something to think about.

We lost a lot of the day to some work I had to do for school, but we did return to the art studios we visited our first day when they were closed and it was rainy. Today, the sun was shining brightly and there were artists in residence: piano music filled the courtyard; sculptors plied their trade on the balcony outdoors; we saw elbows from beyond easels in several cells. The setting here is a natural backdrop to the creation of beautiful things.

We had dinner at a Lebanese restaurant just up the street from our place and Chris said if we could find decent Indian, too, then we could probably live here. After dinner, we went to the Teatro Santa Ana to see the Players Workshop production of The Art of Murder. It wasn't anywhere near the best play I've seen but it wasn't so close to the worst, either. The lead was played by a guy who does actually have an IMDB page, mostly bits and pieces on shows like Dallas and Knots Landing and Chips and T.J. Hooker. The 80s, maybe, were his heyday. The theater itself is a super cool space, also within the Biblioteca Publica and so in a room that was originally part of the convent. It had a very high ceiling, stone wall on three sides but was still an intimate space with only about 75 seats in total. I would go again but they are at the start of their run and the next show isn't until mid August.

It was dark when the play let out and we haven't been in the center in the evening yet so we headed in rather than out. The Parroquia is more majestic at night than during the day, lit from within and behind each spire at every level with the palm trees that flank it enlivened by the warm breeze. There were dozens of mariachi musicians strolling in the plaza offering a soundtrack to the scene. Charming.

When we returned home, we discovered there was a fireworks show in honor of something and we could see it from our porch which was a nice way to finish the evening. Tomorrow, we're off to Guanajuato, and if we have a decent internet connection, I'll continue to post while we're there.