Guanajuato and Día de los muertos

I think I'm finally becoming more Mexican. That's what someone told me, anyway, when I announced on Wednesday I wanted to go to Guanajuato on Friday. Mexicans are better at being spontaneous and not planning everything out. While I have been somewhat spontaneous in the past, I tend to lean toward the "let's have a plan" attitude. I think I can get used to spontaneity here.

I called Sharon and she was in. I had trouble booking a hotel because it was the last weekend of The Cervantino (a huge festival that takes place in October in Guanajuato) and a puente weekend (meaning Monday was a holiday). I got back on my favorite bus, ETN, and was in Guanajuato in 5 hours.

Sharon wasn't going to be meeting up with me until Saturday morning, so Friday I took to the town by myself. Thankful that my hotel was very close to downtown (after Expedia booked me into a hotel that was overbooked, that hotel helped me find this hotel, which was closer and included breakfast and lunch everyday. Nice.), I set out to explore. I couldn't believe how many people were there! And, it was only Friday... what would tomorrow be like, I wondered. I saw street performances, ate the Mexican version of corn on the cob (with crema, cheese and chile, yum!), and marveled at the small alleys and streets. I saw the Alley of the Kiss (Callejón del Beso) but wasn't in the mood to kiss a stranger, so I didn't hang out there for too long. Legend says you're supposed to kiss your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover/husband/wife, whoever, there and if you don't kiss anyone, it's bad luck. Ah, well, I don't consider myself lucky with love anyway, so I took my chances and didn't try to lock lips with anyone.

The next morning I woke up early to go to the Mummy Museum before Sharon and Alice arrived. They had already been and highly recommended it to me (as did several others). When I got there I remembered that I'm not a fan of dead things and Death gives me a stomach ache. The mummies where pretty amazing (see picture) and I couldn't believe they were that well preserved. But, my imagination got the better of me... I saw these mummies as people, the skin that covered their bones, their teeth, the hair... it was almost too much. The small children brought tears to my eyes. Who cries at a mummy museum? Yeah, that would be me. I realized that Mexico is probably good for me in several ways, one of them their attitude toward death. I mean, they CELEBRATE Day of the Dead, and they actually use that word, celebrar. It's not that they don't have a tough time when people die, but I'm thinking they might have a healthier relationship with Death. I, on the other hand, do not. Another thing for me to work on while I'm here.

When Sharon and Alice arrived, we set out to see Guanajuato. We walked all around, admired the marigolds and flowers in the market for Day of the Dead, bought souvenirs at El Mercado Hidalgo, ate Pan de muertos with café de olla (YUM!) at our favorite spot, La Purísima, and walked around more and more. The amount of people in the streets was a little overwhelming so we retired to the room in the afternoon to close our eyes. After our rest we returned to the city, saw the university, marveled at the crowds yet again, ate dinner, then returned to sleep.

The next day we had specific goals. We wanted to see Diego Rivera's house from when he was a small child (he moved to Mexico City when he was 5 or 6, I think), see a Day of the Dead altar somewhere, and go to the Pipila statue that overlooks the town. When we got to Diego's house I was super excited that there was a altar there. 2 in 1! The house was pretty neat and had several of his paintings there. I didn't know he dappled with cubism but, being the master artist that he was, I guess he figured he could experiment with all types of art movements. I was very impressed with his cubist works, I must admit.

After Diego's house we walked to the funicular that took us up the steep cliff to the Pipila statue. The view from there was amazing. We sat and enjoyed the breeze and the view before walking down the steep pathway back down to the city. We were pretty exhausted from our day of walking around so we got some movies to watch in our hotel room that evening. Yes, I admit that I bought pirated movies... but, I learned my lesson. One of them was actually a recording of someone in a movie theater and you could hear people laughing in the background. Learned my lesson! We were able to watch Nacho Libre, though. Love that movie and I must admit, after living here for only 3 months, there are details and things about that movie that I get now that I didn't before. As horrible it is about making fun of Mexico, it's hilarious. Gotta love Jack Black.

The next day we walked around a little before our departure to our respective cities, Sharon and Alice back to Leon and me back to DF. We played a little hide-and-seek in the park to work off our breakfast of chilaquiles and got some tortas for the bus. At 1:30 I boarded the bus (legs fully extended, see picture), equipped and ready for my 5 hour trek back with an episode of Grey's Anatomy and The Office downloaded on my computer.