Grateful in Guanajuato

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Feb 8: Lovely to be here in GTO as it´s shortened to in Mexico. A long day of travel again to get here. Caught a collectivo cab early in the morning from Malinalco to Tenancingo, about 13km west. From there caught another collectiveo cab to Toluca, a city of half a million 64km west of Mexico City and quite high, 2660m, a quite clean and prosperous city but with foul air. Caught a very nice first class bus from there to Leon, several hours northwest but that bus broke down in Queretaro, halfway, and I was forced to board a much less nice, crowded bus for the rest of the journey to Leon. Arrived Leon with just minutes to spare to catch the bus to GTO. Arrived GTO around 4:30, hopped on a city bus and was downtown in minutes. Then the challenge of finding Casa Bertha in the maze of alleys (callejones) that twist and turn and wind up and down steep hills. GTO is in the bottom of a steep valley, the centro at the bottom and the residential areas climb up the slopes. I´d been here before and stayed at Casa Bertha but nonetheless got completely disoriented. Eventually, with the help of some friendly locals and the Lonely Planet, I found the place. It was full and my room wasn´t the best, rather grungy and windowless but I figured I could put up with it for one night and see about a change next day. One of the best features of the Casa Bertha is the rooftop terrace with common kitchen that overlooks the city from high above. I immediately headed up there and encounterd a whole crowd of very friendly retired gringos from all over north America including Vancouver Island (Courtenay). Chatted with them for a while then headed off to stretch my legs. Walked up to the big statue of Pipila, a notable figure from Mexico´s history. During the first Mexican revolution, GTO was the first city that the revolutionaries captured and they had the Spanish besieged in what´s called the Alhóndiga, a former granery, that proved impregnable. So a common soldier, Pipila was his nickname, hoisted a big paving stone on his back as a shield, grabbed a torch and was thus able to approach the Alhondiga and set in on fire enabling the rebel forces to take it. Later the Spanish sent forces from Mexico City, defeated the insurrectionists, decapitated the leaders (Father Hidalgo and Allende) and suspended their heads in cages from hooks on corners or the building. In any case, the view from that statue is beautiful and the cathedrals and big university were all lit up, the nearly full moon hovering just over the mountains. On the way back to the hotel, I picked up a bottle of wine and sat up on the roof and drank wine and chatted with Chris from Denver, a very interesting and worldly man full of knowledge and experiences.

Today I started slowly, didn´t get out of the hotel until around 10:00 and wandered around town. Revisited the Diego Rivera museum housed in the home where he was born and containing some of his early art and preliminary sketches for other works. Heard that the Alhondiga which now contains a museum and galleries was free to visit on Sundays but learned that doesn´t apply to foreigners and is quite expensive for us so passed on that in favour of the big public market where I bought some produce and browsed and took photos. Even ate a carnitas sandwich, or most of one anyway, something I´ve foregone previously but decided to try. It´s all the parts of a pig which has been rendered, chopped up and you get a pile of it inserted into a bun with some salsa. Now I can say I´ve had it and won´t repeat that. My stomach is rumbling as we speak.

Upon returning the Case Bertha I noted that a very nice room on the very top was empty so was able to move there and am so much happier with it.

An unrelated observation: car radios always accompany travel in collectivos and I noted that one hardly ever hears female vocalists. Curious..... but maybe not in this culture.

That´s it for today. Hasta mañana.