San Pancho, Guanajuato, D.F.

Slight delay on this blog. When I left off Julianne and I were in Oaxaca, Oaxaca. From there we took a 12 hour bus to Mexico City. We allowed a 2 hour buffer to transfer to our bus from Mexico City to Puerto Vallarta because we had to buy both tickets in Oaxaca. Turns out getting into Mexico City on a weekday around 8 pm, isn't the best idea. We were supposed to arrive at 8 pm, our next bus left at 10:05 pm. At 10:00 pm we were still sitting in traffic one block from the bus station. One block!! But we weren't moving. We also couldn't get off because our luggage was stored underneath the bus. Typically, you are supposed to get to the bus 30 minutes before departure because you have to go through security (like an airport but more ghetto), and check your bags underneath. We arrived at the station at 10:03 pm and we sent Julianne to sprint to delay the next bus. If needed, she was instructed to stand in front of the bus Tienanmen Square style. I meanwhile was in the line for baggage. I could see our bags in the very back, and the guy was moving in slow motion. The stress was building and building because in addition to losing our money on the buses, about $100, it was the last bus of the night. 

So I took action. I jumped into the compartment underneath the bus and swam through the bags to the back to find our bags. The whole time the bus guy was screaming at me, but I didn't care. It had to be done. I emerged after about 20 seconds with the bags. I handed the tickets to the bus guy, who was not impressed, and sprinted through the bus terminal. As it was the Friday before Christmas, the bus terminal was packed. I had two suitcases and a backpack and I was weaving and bobbing through the crowd. At one point I bumped into a woman and she gave me a death stare, but I didn't care. I arrived at the bus completely out of breath, I sat down, and we immediately departed. I concluded that a good part of the goodwill I had been carefully cultivating as a Fulbright from September - December to betters US-Mexican relations was destroyed. But we made the bus. 

One of the funny things about the buses is that they all have this sign. It says "For your security, sit down to avoid accidents." This is in the men's bathroom. They want guys to sit down to pee. Of course no one did it, and the seat was covered in urine. 

San Pancho

Julianne and I arrived in San Pancho on December 23rd and immediately began intensely relaxing. Here we are with coconuts.

And a Michelada. We pretty much spent the whole day reading on the beach, very similar to Puerto Lopez in Ecuador. I've concluded that in Latin America, a beach town, is pretty much a beach town. There are some small differences, but there are always going to be surfers, hippies selling shitty homemade jewelry, and packs of beach dogs.  

San Pancho is technically called San Francisco. Pancho is the nickname for Francisco. Kind of like Bill from William or Dick from Richard. San Francisco even had its own mini Golden Gate Bridge.

Christmas was a little weird as it was just me and Julianne in a hostel, but we made some Canadian friends and even did a gift exchange. We also saw Jesus. He was just walking down the street. Seemed like a cool dude. 

4 days later on the day after Christmas, Mom came. Just in time for sunset. 

We spent one night in San Pancho and headed to Puerto Vallarta. We did the same stunt we did last year where we wait until the day before and booked a Hotel Tonight at Villa del Palmar. Going from San Pancho as a laid-back surfer town with a moderate amount of Mexican tourists to Puerto Vallarta with a ton of American tourists was a huge change. 

It was a Friday night, so we took a walk on the Malecon and found ourselves listening to Mariachi music. 

We spent two full days at Villa del Palmar, but just paid one night because we had a night bus the second day to Guanajuato. 

Guanajuato

We arrived at Guanajuato at 8 am in the morning after sleeping on the bus, and went straight to breakfast to wait for our AirBnB to be ready. If you ever go to Guanajuato, which I highly recommend as it's the best city in Mexico, it is obligatory that you eat breakfast or lunch here:

Guanajuato is just too amazing. I showed Julianne and Mom around all the little streets. We went to my taco spot, my quesadilla spot, Pipila, the Mummy Museum, and we found Raul the juice guy.


View from Pipila.


Teatro Juarez


Plaza de Baratillo. Little did I know when I took this picture that Sandra and I would stay here.

Drinks under a tree

We also spent New Year's Eve in Guanajuato. There was a huge stage set up in the town center. Everyone counted down and when the clock struck twelve, all of the bells in the all of the churches (about 8) started ringing and there was a massive firework show. Very impressive. However, subsequently when we tried to go to a bar, they were all empty. On New Year's Eve! How does that happen? In San Francisco you have to pay cover, you can't get a drink, finding a taxi is impossible. In Guanajuato there were literally like 3 people in the most popular bars: Golem, Oveja Negra. It made no sense. Our guess is that the young people go to the coasts for NYE, like Puerto Vallarta.

Meanwhile, our family members were celebrating around the world.
Seattle, WA

London


San Miguel de Allende
As a day trip from Guanajuato, we went to San Miguel de Allende, as everyone said it is amazing. San Miguel is cute, it has a really nice central plaza, but it doesn't have shit on Guanajuato. The prices are super high because San Miguel has become a super popular place for Americans to retire. We tried to have a coffee on the main plaza, but we were denied because they didn't even serve coffee. Who doesn't serve coffee? The answer is a place that wants to churn customers super fast and doesn't want coffee drinkers taking up space and not consuming any food. We spent a few hours, which was enough to see everything and went back to Guanajuato.

Teotihuacan:
From Guanajuato we went to Mexico City and stayed in my apartment. The next day we took the mandatory trip to Teotihuacan, the pyramids about 1 hour north of Mexico City.

Getting to the top of the Piramide del Sol is no joke. It's about 22 stories. 

But worth it...

It was completely packed because apparently it's good luck for Mexicans to go to Teotihuacan at the beginning of the year. 

Castillo de Chapultepec:
For the last day in Mexico City, we started at Chapultepec at the Castillo. The former presidential residence.

As we were leaving Chapultepec we noticed one of the massive poles that is used for the Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers). So we decided to stay and watch. It is an extremely risky activity where the Flyers climb a pole about 8 stories up. It requires careful preparation and warm-up. Here we can see them doing the traditional warm up: reading a newspaper. 

But seriously, these guys were high and the swing down upside down.

 From Chapultepec we walked along Avenida Reforma past the Angel of Independence.

And Cuauhtemoc (one of the last Aztec leaders)

To the Centro Historico, or Historic District. We had lunch at Cafe Tacuba.

 And finished off by going to the Zócolo and an artisan market called La Ciudadela.

And unfortunately with that, after 3 weeks for Julianne and 10 days for Mom, they took off early in the morning Sunday on flights back to Gringolandia. For me though, they had the perfect sampler platter of Mexico. Beach, mountains and colonial town, and the obligatory Mexico City. Mexico City is 30% of Mexico´s GDP. It´s hard to miss that. Overall, great trip and I am so glad they came!

Cervantino, Guanajuato

Last weekend I went to Guanajuato, Mexico for the Cervantino Festival and I found my favorite city so far in Mexico. That is no light statement. So far I have already visited Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido, San Cristobal de las Casas, Veracruz, Puebla, Cholula, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Cuerna Vaca, and Sayulita. Guanajuato is a Mexico I haven't seen before. It is a super colonial town that was founded for mining tucked in a valley. It has all of these little tiny streets and alleys lined with brightly colored houses. It reminds me of Lisbon meeting the Santa Teresa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. The town is also obsessed with Spanish writer Cervantes, hence the festival being named Cervantino. Consequently, there are tons of references to Don Quixote throughout the town. Here are some pictures to show what I mean: 

Main Plaza

Teatro Juarez

Don Quixote

Random plaza

The famous callejon del beso, "kissing alley", which has a story equivalent to Romeo and Juliet where a poor miner lived on the house on the left, and a rich upper class girl on the right. As they were forbidden to see each other, they would sneak kisses across the alley.

There are so many little stairways and alley ways like this. 

Enjoying a Michelada from the view at the top of a hill over looking the town. I have grown very fond of Micheladas. It is beer, lime juice, tomato juice, chili pepper, and salt. 

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This is the main plaza. Seriously, tell me this isn't beautiful.

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One of the things that makes the city unique, is that is built on top of a network of tunnels for cars and pedestrians. You would take a taxi, and all of a sudden you would dip down underground into a tunnel like you were in the Indiana and Jones ride at Disney Land. This is a picture of me with the other Fulbrights that also attended. 

Famous steps leading up to Guanajuato University. Notice yet another tunnel in the bottom right. 

Since it was the Cervantino Festival, there were a bunch of events happening all weekend, some free, some not. My favorite event was a play about the life of Cervantes that was a series of short stories. The theater was outside in front of a super old church where they erected a grand stand to one side. It was the most amazing set-up I've ever seen for theater. The environment was perfect as the 400 year old church fit the environment perfectly. At the end of the play, of course Don Quixote came out on a white horse with his faithful servant Sancho Panza behind. Everyone went crazy like it was a Justin Bieber concert. The whole play everyone was talking with a Spanish accent and conjugating verbs using vosotros. Some of the Mexican actors did it pretty well, but for others it was kind of funny. 

And we got a picture with Cervantes

Since it was Cervantino, the whole town was decked out like it was Spain. People were wearing Spanish tunics with those frilly neck things. This photo opportunity said "No os olvideis subirla al Feis," which is conjugating using vosotros. Mexicans would a) never use vosotros, and b) would never say Feis to mean Facebook. Mexicans usually make fun of Spaniards for mutating English words into Spanish. Instead Mexicans prefer just to use the English word. 

Other random things I noticed:

The whole age limit on relationships is very weird in Mexico. Look at the age gap between Albert Einstein and his wife. I watched them closely, he was NOT her dad. Note the young children. 

Since Cervantino is a mining town, I thought it would be appropriate to visit one of the mines. This is one of the mines we visited that went about 60 meters down into the ground, about 20 stories. It was kind of terrifying to be in the mine thinking that if a earthquake were to occur, you would be completely f'd. We also learned that the mine originally exploited natives who worked 15 hour days in exchange for 35 mexican centavos, which is like 3 cents per day.

I also visited the Torture Museum. Turns out that the Spanish Inquisition's headquarters in Mexico were in Guanajuato. They had all kinds of fucked up stuff. Here is a sample of the crimes and the corresponding sentences:
1) Abortion: A metal helmet was locked onto your head with a tiny slit for you to eat. The slit was not large enough to actually feed yourself, so the women would slowly die of starvation and malnutrition.
2) Treason: A helmet with a tube is attached to your head. The tube fits securely over your nose. A carnivorous worm is placed in the tube and sealed. The worm then proceeds to climb up your nose and slowly feeds on your brain until you die, usually from seisures.
3) Having red hair: burned at the stake for being a witch. If you confess they burn you with dry wood. If you don't confess, they burn you with green wood so that the process is slower and more painful.
4) Reading banned books: Boiled in a pot of half water and half oil.

5) Homosexuality: Placed on top of a metal pyramid that has been lubricated with butter. The tip of the piramid is put in your butt and your torsoe is secured with straps.

So ya, some seriously messed up stuff. To lighten up the mood here are some more pictures.

This is my desk where I study.  

Coca Cola has an amazing marketing strategy in Mexico. They just put people's names on Coke cans and people go crazy. I'm not sure if it would work in the US given the greater diversity of names than in Mexico where 90% of the population is Jose or Carlos. Totally kidding, haha. 

Saw this in a bar for the first time. These guys will circulate bars and people will pay them to electrocute their group as a game. The group holds hands in a semi circle with the people on the ends holding onto metal handles connected to this machine. The guy slowly increases the current and the person who can't handle it lets go. The game continues until there is a winner. Doesn't seem like a very fun game to me, but they love it.