State of Guanajuato: Leon and Guanajuato

Thanks to Benito Juarez's birthday, we had a puente (or long weekend). Kurt and I decided to visit Janet in Leon, Guanajuato and then take advantage of her close proximity to Guanajuato to revisit a slighly more appealing city. Leon has a colonial center, but there's not a whole lot going on in general other than shoes (home to mexico's leaterh industry).

The city of Guanajuato on the other hand, is a cute, colorful old mining town nestled in a valley. I visited here during training, but the return trip was just as nice.

We took a quick trip to a small town perch on the mountain above Guanajuato to visit an ornate church and a mine.

So we found what we assumed to be the enterance to a mine (which it was), and figured we could enter on a tour (kinda true). After asking the man at the door, he looked around a couple of times and then quickly ushered us through the door for the start of our clandestine tour.

This is the enterance to the mine that supposedly drops 150 meters. This mine, soon to be active again, had large deposits of gold and still some silver veins. it was originally run by a Spanish count, and now has just been bought by Canadians.

Since Guanajuato was an old mining town, there are mining tunnels that run underneath the city. Planners have decided to utilize these to reduce traffic in the city and now many of the major roads run beneath the plazas.

After returning to Puebla on Monday night, we had a meeting for one of our projects in Jalapa, Veracruz on Tuesday. We got caught in a little bit of afternoon fog on the way home as we passed through the mountains.

Guanajuato

This weekend Janet and I took a weekend trip to the cities of Leon (leather and shoe capital of Mexico) and Guanajuato. We went to Leon Saturday morning en-route to Guanajuato to see the shoe markets and a little bit about the shoe industry. That’s about it for Leon, but Guanajuato is an amazing city. It is an old silver mining town that is nestled in a valley. This basically gives the town three layers: (1) the old mining tunnels under the city are now used for most of the car and bus traffic, (2) the main/center part of town, and (3) the rest of the houses that are build ascending the valley walls on two sides of the city.

The city is also the birthplace of Diego Rivera and his boyhood home is now a museum that contains sketches for his murals and of Frida, as well as water colors and other paintings. There is also a unique tradition that was imported from Spain. During the weekend nights, there is a group of students from the university, called the Estudiantinos, walk through the streets dress in medieval Spanish dress playing traditional musical instruments, telling jokes, singing, and passing out wine to the crowd that gathers to follow them through the streets. There is also a “Romeo and Juliet” story that takes place in the callejon de beso (alley of the kiss) where the street is so narrow and the balconies of the houses are so close, that two forbidden lovers were able to kiss from their respective houses.

Guanajuato also has unique soil that creates natural mummies. In Mexico, it is very common to only bury someone for 6 years, after this 6 years the body is removed, cremated, and the site in the cemetery is rented to someone else. When this occurred in Guanajuato though, it was discovered that with the combination of minerals in the soil and a very dry climate, the bodies being removed were fully mummified and many are now on display in the museum of the mummies. They even go so far as to sell mummy shaped candies. All in all a good weekend away from Queretaro and first experience with the Mexican bus system. This week things are pretty much back to normal with Spanish classes, training, and working on our technical project that is an assessment of a nearby watershed……