At the top of these steps, I’ll stop and catch my breath, I tell myself. I’m on a hike through Guanajuato’s callejones, the labyrinthine cobblestone alleys that wind through the city’s hillsides. In places, they’re so steep that steps have been built to make scaling them a little easier. My destination: the monument to Pipila, a hero of the Mexican War of Independence, that is perched on a cliff overlooking the city’s main plaza. Just ahead of me, a stooped old woman with long silver braids carefully negotiates the steps with a cane while a little girl dances at the top of them, calling out words of encouragement to her abuelita. To my left and right are small stucco houses, as colorful as a selection of fruit sorbets: pineapple, watermelon, apricot, grape. A goat, tethered to a rope, is grazing in a patch of grass in front of one of them.
Slightly winded (but invigorated by the hike), I finally reach the statue, where I am rewarded with knockout views. From the statue’s base, this oddly situated city is visible in its entirety, as is the gorgeous colonial architecture for which it is famous. My eyes follow the line of the city as it snakes along the winding riverbed into which it was built. In the 16th and 17th centuries, silver barons erected an opulent baroque city at the bottom of a narrow river gorge, and mine workers built homes on the precipitous slopes of the ravine. From the Pipila statue, I can see it all: the domes and spires of Guanajuato’s colorful churrigueresque cathedrals rising from the valley floor, the pastel homes on the surrounding hillsides serving as a backdrop, and beyond the city, at the top of a nearby mountain, the famous statue of Cristo Rey (Christ the King), said to mark the geographic center of Mexico.
I had come to Guanajuato (pronounced gwan-ah-WAH-toe) to study Spanish in one of the city’s many language schools, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that this enchanting city of 80,000 residents, equidistant between Mexico City and Guadalajara, is relatively undiscovered by American tourists. Guanajuato is often called the most beautiful of Mexico’s colonial cities, but American visitors to the region seem to prefer nearby San Miguel de Allende, home of a large colony of American expatriates and therefore a town where English is widely spoken. Oh, there are tourists aplenty in Guanajuato, but most of them are Mexicans, attracted not only by the city’s beauty but by the important role it has played in Mexican history.
Founded in 1554 when the Spanish discovered rich veins of silver in the surrounding mountains, Guanajuato was for a time the richest city in Mexico and one of the richest in the world. (The region’s mines supplied, during the 16th and 17th centuries, a third of the world’s silver.) Guanajuato is not so rich today (though it seems prosperous enough by Mexican standards), but reminders of the city’s former glory abound in the magnificent colonial buildings erected by the silver barons. The city is such an architectural treasure that UNESCO declared it a world heritage site in 1988.
In the early 19th century, Guanajuato was the site of an early rebel victory in the Mexican War of Independence. After Father Hidalgo issued his famous “grito” (a call for Mexican independence) in nearby Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo), his small army marched through central Mexico, arriving eventually in Guanajuato. The city’s Spanish rulers holed up in the Alhondiga, a granary, until Pipila, an Indian miner, set fire to the gates, enabling rebel forces to enter and kill nearly everyone inside. But the rebel victory was short-lived. When the Spanish recaptured Guanajuato, they beheaded Father Hidalgo and several other rebel leaders, and for ten years their heads were displayed in cages that hung from the four corners of the Alhondiga. The hooks that held the cages are still there.
Today the Alhondiga is a museum housing art installations and a permanent exhibit detailing the fascinating history of the Guanajuato (which also served as the nation’s temporary capital during the administration of Benito Juarez, Mexico’s first and only indigenous president). And the dramatic statue of El Pipila, torch raised above his head, a defiant look on his face, is visible from almost every corner of the city, even at night, when it is floodlit. Like the Alhondiga, it is one of the city’s chief tourist attractions. On the first of my trips to Guanajuato, getting to the Monumento al Pipila involved either a lengthy bus ride or a grueling hike through the callejones. But on my second trip, I found that El Pipila had been made more accessible by the Funicular Panoramica, a cable operated elevator that climbs the cactus and bougainvillea covered hillside, depositing tourists at the foot of the statue. Though I had hiked to the statue on my first visit, I gladly paid ten pesos (about a dollar) for a ride, just to experience those wonderful views once again.
On both of my visits to Guanajuato, I studied Spanish at Instituto Miguel de Cervantes, which is actually located in nearby Valenciana, a tiny suburb in the hills above Guanajuato (and home to one of the region’s richest silver mines). Every morning, I boarded a bus that the Instituto sent through Guanajuato to pick up students (most of whom had been placed with local families). After a morning studying Spanish, I had my afternoons free to explore the city. Guanajuato is an unusually walkable city, mainly because most of its streets are closed to cars, which travel instead on an intricate network of subterranean roadways. Guanajuato’s meandering above-ground streets provide pedestrians with one delightful discovery after another: street markets, museums and art galleries, ornate cathedrals, and a seemingly endless supply of enchanting little plazas (sometimes called plazuelas).
On any stroll through Guanajuato’s streets, you will encounter plenty of vendors selling snacks and handicrafts. They display their wares on sidewalks throughout the city, offering freshly cut fruit, roasted corn, and colorful ceramics and textiles to passersby. But the widest selection of goods in Guanajuato is undoubtedly at the Mercado Hidalgo, a former train station that has been converted into one of the largest markets in Mexico. Designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame), this massive building was constructed from pink quarry stone in 1910 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Mexican independence. In its cavernous interior are hundreds of booths selling everything from seafood and produce to silver jewelry and tchotchkes commemorating important historical events that took place in Guanajuato.
In addition to being a city of historical importance in Mexico, Guanajuato is also something of a cultural center. It is the home of the artsy University of Guanajuato, which hosts the annual Festival Internacional Cervantino, a cultural fair every October that features artists and performers from around the world. It also boasts an impressive array of museums. The Alhondiga probably attracts the most tourists, but a close second is the bizarre Museo de las Mómeas, located near a cemetery on the outskirts of town. In 1865, as city officials attempted to make more space in the cemetery, they discovered that the corpses buried there had been mummified, the result of Guanajuato’s dry weather and the high mineral content of its soil. Today, overcrowding is even more of a problem in Guanajuato’s cemetery than it was in 1865, so the city has imposed a 200 peso tax on families that want to keep their relatives underground. Those who can’t afford to pay the tax are likely to find the mummified remains of their loved ones on exhibit in the museum, which attracts the morbidly curious from all over Mexico.
Guanajuato’s art museums feature less ghoulish exhibits (though they are sometimes just as morbid – death and violence being common themes in Mexican art). One of Guanajuato’s best art museums is the Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato (the People’s Museum of Guanajuato), located right next to the university in a renovated 18th century colonial mansion. Its centerpiece is a chapel painted by the great Guanajuato-born muralist Jose Chavez Morado. Like most of the great murals in Mexico, Morado’s often depict the exploitation of the native people by European invaders, and the chapel mural in the People’s Museum is no exception. Guanajuato was also the birthplace of Mexico’s most famous muralist, Diego Rivera, and his boyhood home, just a few blocks from Museo del Pueblo, has been converted into the Museo-Casa de Diego Rivera. The bottom floor is furnished just as it would have been in 1886, the year of Rivera’s birth, and the upper floors house a collection of his art, including a number of works done in his youth. One of the most unusual art museums in Guanajuato is dedicated not to a particular artist but to a theme: Museo Iconografico del Quijote, a collection of artistic depictions of scenes from Cervantes’ Don Quijote. The eclectic holdings of this museum include sculptures, murals, tapestries, a tiny painting on an eggshell, and works by Picasso and Dalí.
Across the plaza from the Don Quijote Museum is Templo de San Francisco, one of Guanajuato’s countless churches, most of which are built in the baroque, churrigueresque style that is so common throughout Mexico. Perhaps the most noteworthy of Guanajuato’s churches is the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guanajuato, which serves as the opulent home of the Patron Virgin of Guanajuato, the 1200-year-old jewel-covered statue believed to be the oldest work of Christian art in Mexico. Philip II of Spain donated the statue to Guanajuato in 1557 as a token of his appreciation for the wealth the city’s mines had created for him. Today it is an object of devotion for the citizens of the city, who pray before it, light candles to it, and once a year, during the Fiesta de la Virgen de Guanajuato, parade it through the city’s streets. But as I sat in the Basilica one afternoon, it occurred to me, as a bird flew into the sanctuary through wide open doors, that this church (and others I had visited) was as much a community gathering place as a place of worship. Around me, children played in the aisles while adults sat chatting on pews. There were also people kneeling in prayer and lighting candles at altars, but even more were socializing. On another occasion, in the Templo de San Diego, adjacent to Jardin Union, I found a young man softly strumming a guitar while a pair of adoring teenage girls sat and watched. And every day art is exhibited on the front steps of the Templo. Perhaps for Guanajuateños, worship is not separate from daily life.
If churches serve as gathering places, so, of course, do the city’s plazas. The Jardin Union, a shady, triangular plaza in the center of the city, is the hub of social activity in Guanajuato. Lined with sculpted trees and open-air restaurants, it is busy day and night with locals out for a stroll, tourists relaxing over a beer, and students having animated conversations on park benches. At its center is a bandstand, from which concerts are given every Thursday and Sunday evening, and surrounding it are some of the city’s most striking buildings, including Templo de San Diego and Teatro Juarez, a neoclassical theatre built during the administration of Porfirio Diaz. Its Moorish interior can be visited for a few pesos, but the theatre’s most impressive feature, the colonnaded façade, flanked by bronze lions and topped by eight dramatic statues of muses, can be seen for free.
But my favorite Guanajuato plaza is Plaza San Fernando, site of an open-air market selling books. I found myself there late one afternoon after a visit to the Alhondiga. The workday was ending, and adults were gathering around the fountain in the center of the plaza, chatting while they watched their children play. There were a number of outdoor cafes in this plazuela, so I grabbed a table at one, the intriguingly named La Oreja de Van Gogh (Van Gogh’s ear), and had a glass of wine while doing my Spanish homework. At the table next to me, two Americans were having a loud conversation, one of them insisting that the book market was an oddity since, in his experience, Mexicans don’t read. As I sipped my wine, the sky darkened, and a sudden shower began, scattering the crowd. (Brief storms are common in Guanajuato in the late summer.) I quickly paid my bill and took refuge in another (indoor) café, Bossanova Arte and Café, a tiny place with burnt sienna walls that served espresso drinks, beer and wine, and crepes. I ordered a crepe, and by the time I’d finished it, the storm was over and life had returned to the streets.
Guanajuato’s restaurants are plentiful and inexpensive. One of the most popular eateries in town is Truco 7 (named for its address), a café-restaurant with a bohemian ambience where you can have a satisfying Mexican meal for under five dollars. But the Mexican food here may differ from the Mexican food you’re used to eating in the United States. (I didn’t find burritos on the menu at any restaurant in Guanajuato.) Mole sauces are a specialty in this region of Mexico, and most meals are accompanied by rolls, served not with butter but with bowls of green and red salsa.
For a romantic dinner, don’t miss Gallo Pitagórico, an Italian restaurant located in a gorgeous royal blue house just underneath the monument to Pipila. From a table by this restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling, open-air windows (protected only by iron railings), the views are as stunning as they are from El Pipila. And an excellent, multi-course dinner for two with wine will only set you back about $20.00. For an after dinner espresso (or a morning espresso for that matter), try Café Dada. Reputed to have the best coffee in town, this artsy little café, located on Plazuela del Baratillo, is especially popular with university students, who use it as a kind of study hall in the afternoons and evenings.
The University of Guanajuato and its 20,000 students ensure that Guanajuato offers plenty of entertainment and nightlife. Guanajuato’s theatres, including Teatro Principal, Teatro Cervantes, and Teatro Juarez, are venues for concerts, plays, films and dance performances. On my first trip to Guanajuato, I saw a free concert by the University’s symphony orchestra in Teatro Principal, which also shows independent and foreign films (including many in English) on Sunday and Monday evenings.
But one needn’t go to a theatre to be entertained in Guanajuato: free entertainment can be found every evening in the city’s streets. Mimes and jugglers perform in front of the Teatro Juarez, and bands of roving musicians called estudiantinas lead processions through the callejones. Dressed in medieval garb, these musicians sing, play, and tell jokes (though their punch lines are lost on those who have a limited understanding of Spanish). The processions (called callejoneadas) culminate near the Callejon del Beso (the alley of the kiss), where two balconies meet above the street. Legend has it that if two lovers kiss here they’ll experience seven years of good luck, and every evening camera flashes light up the balconies as Mexican couples pose lip-locked above the street.
Guanajuato also has a fair number of nightclubs, places where one can dance the night away to salsa music. El Bar seems to be the most popular dance club in town, but I was most taken with La Dama de Las Camelias, a fancifully decorated club that specializes in traditional music from Cuba and Veracruz. Its walls are adorned by vintage women’s dresses and replicas of the prehistoric cave paintings from Lascaux, France. As I had a drink with my husband there one night, a spotlight landed on the table next to me, a hush fell over the crowd, and a one-act play began. When the play ended, the tables were cleared away, and everyone began to dance to Cuban music.
In fact, La Dama de Las Camelias seemed to capture the spirit of this beautiful, whimsical town: like the city itself, it is cultured, festive, and visually exciting, with a sense of history and tradition and a strong desire to party down in the present. Guanajuato casts a spell on its visitors, who often wind up staying longer than they originally planned. One of my fellow students at the Instituto was so head-over-heals in love with the town that she arranged a leave of absence from her job and extended her stay by several months. Unfortunately, my employer wasn’t quite so understanding, but I was smitten enough to return for second and third visits, and I hope I’ll pay Guanajuato a fourth visit in the not-too-distant future.
