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.
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.
