Why huddle indoors watching a televised “reality show” when you can enjoy a far better program at El Jardín in Guanajuato? There is much to do, but it is difficult to leave the sidewalk cafes by El Jardín. Near my table, two people in love gaze tenderly into each other’s eyes, oblivious of another couple that perhaps once were in love but now have nothing to say. That unhappy pair is ignored by a table full of giggling señoritas, each of whom occasionally will cast a furtive eye at the two lovers or at potential swains who amble by, then amble by again, debating whether to approach the young ladies. Happiest of all is a little family group, the well-behaved children basking in the attention of their doting parents. Only distraction is a ragged toddler offering chewing gum for sale, not certain whether the price is three packets for one peso or one peso for three packets.
Adult peddlers offer serapes, rugs, lacework and silver trinkets. Beggars hold out empty palms. Not many people in Guanajuato are rich. Musicians wander among the café tables, an elderly violinist in a soiled white bolero, a norteño accordionist wearing boots and a cowboy hat. Over in the next restaurant, mariachis have found a birthday celebration and play Las Mañanitas.
Guanajuato until recently was little more a splendid monument to the viceregal era where the biggest attraction were the dead bodies at the Mummy Museum. Today the city is La Rive Gauche in the Sierra Madre, a university town of spirited youth, jazz bars and usually reasonable prices. Politicians serving the state government do not have a reputation for being big spenders.
Driving into town is like barreling into the sewers of Paris. Youngsters on the outskirts flag down motorists, offering to guide them where they are going. Their services are needed. When finally ensconced in Guanajuato, plan to get around on foot or by taxi. Parking places are scarce and the streets are a maze, many of them underground. One roadway follows an old riverbed. Massive stone walls soar up on either side. Buttresses support cantilevered balconies. Other lanes run through what seem to be old mine shafts. You half expect to glimpse the Phantom of the Opera darting into the shadows.
Above these tunnels, tumbling down the steep sides of a rugged valley, is the little town the made the Spanish Empire rich. Time was when the nearby hills produced a fifth of all the silver mined in the world. The locals like to live as if nothing has changed since then.
Guanajuato can be delightfully spooky when the sun goes down. In its dimly lit streets, the dead past takes on life anew. You can stumble on a band of caped young men in knee britches strumming mandolins and crooning love tunes that thrilled adolescents in the 16th century. Or you may catch sight of a Spanish trooper in helmet and breastplate declaiming beneath a balcony. Callejonadas (organized strolls) depart from El Jardín every evening or so I was told. My sightseeing left me too weary to find out.
Standard Guanajuato tours start out at La Valenciana, where you can don a hard hat and go into a mine. Nearby looms a church so magnificent the mortar holding the stones together is said to be made from silver dust mixed with wine. That helps comprehend why in 1810 ragged, hungry insurgents slaughtered the Creoles at the Alhondiga, the massive stone granary that served as a fort and is now a museum. Guanajuato has many museums. At this one there really is not much to see inside.
Where I lingered longest was at the Diego Rivera Museum at his birthplace. You remember Diego? Frida’s husband? His parental home contains work done during his Paris years and is quite striking. Cubism. Impressionism. All this was marvelously new to me. Rivera’s talents indeed were many-faceted.
Somehow, I missed getting to the Mummy Museum. I had been there before. It seemed rather dead compared to the lively goings on at El Jardín. That still is the best show in town.
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