A few days ago I learned some idiomatic Spanish.
- Prestame unos varos = Sort of like “Feast me some money”
- Lana = bucks (as in $$$)
Interestingly, it was the director of the English program at the University of Hildalgo who taught me that.
I kind of wish I hadn’t taken everyone’s advice to go to San Miguel de Allende from Guanajuato. I mean, it was okay, but I’m kind of cobblestoned- and adobed-out. I’d been told that the stones everywhere — even on the streets — were beautiful and speckled with opals. All I saw were plain old dirty rocks. The biggest problem is that the excursion (four more buses) took an entire day which I needed for other things, like going to see the momias in Guanajuato. And I’m still thinking of making the long haul to Aguascalientes tomorrow.
San Miguel was oozing with dilapidated US expats and matched sets of retirees with little dogs that were groomed better than their owners. I pretty much ran through the town, taking in the usual beautiful churches and town squares, looking at some handcrafts, and then walking the mile back to the bus. I wanted to buy this but it was too expensive:
Instead I bought a skeleton streetwalker with a skeleton dog.
The process of talking care of the city’s abundant vegetation is not a delicate one.
It’s even more deserty here than the other places I’ve been: forests of beavertail cactus with trunks as big as Arnold Schwartznegger’s thighs. There are also chollas and agaves and a bunch of varieties I don’t know.
This is a big year for Mexicans, as I can see from the highway signs: 2010: Aí±o del Bicentenario de la Independencia y el Centenario de la Revolución. Too bad I won’t be here for the anniversaries.
On a few of the inter-city buses, a woman climbs on board with video camera in hand and says something in Spanish about security as she walks down the aisle and points the thing at each of us. I make faces. On these long-distance buses there are gadgets — tacografias — that set off alarms whenever the driver goes over 95 kilometers per hour, which happens regularly. Red lights flash inside and a high-pitched alarm sounds. Some drivers seem to like the effect. Others slow down.
On city buses, the devout cross themselves every time we pass a church. The preferred hairstyle for the men is glossy and spiky. When I look toward the front, I see a field of glistening black points that look like the tips of agave cacti.
Here’s a bus station. Leon, maybe. La Virgen guards even the sanitarios.
I really like Guanajuato, though I’m always getting lost. On my return I explored lots of places, most of which I don’t know the names of. I walked into one church during a service and was nearly rear-ended by a pigeon as it entered the stone arch, zipped down the aisle and made a sharp right at the first confessional.
I visited El Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato which surprised me because I hadn’t expected to adore it. A fallen angel stood at the entrance. As I passed, my mochila (backpack) bumped into one of his wings and almost knocked him over. “Lo siento, seí±or!” I said, believing that one must always be polite to the devil.
The entire museum is dedicated to miniature folk art. I saw the tiniest dice ever, each about a quarter of an inch long.
There were minuscule candelabra and microscopic weaving looms, infinitesimal mice, birds, masks, soldiers and musicians, and nearly invisible straw hats, devils and animal bands — all detailed exquisitely with paint and inlays.
Then I went to El Museo y Casa de Diego Rivero where he spent the first six years of his life. I can’t remember, but he must’ve come from lana [see above] because the house was quite fancy.
There were also rooms full of his sketches, drawings and paintings. Here’s a poster for a surgical college, a still-life, and a drawing of a rural maestra.
Teatro Juí¡rez was grand and ornate, with every square inch of ceiling and wall painted in rococo style. Photography was not allowed so I took only two pictures. The first is the symphony during rehearsal — all wind and percussion instruments, with nary a string — and the second is a twenty-foot-tall painting that reminds me of the Justice tarot card. The third is outside, and I was allowed to take it.
It was dark by then and I went wandering through the narrow callejones that climb hills surrounding the city. I bought a pair of cheap earrings from a nice young woman. I walked and got lost and walked and got loster and walked, past parks and musicians and abundant kissing couples. I don’t like kissing couples because some of them can get pretty graphic, and because it makes me feel unloved. Enrique had told me that there are so many public displays of affection here because people have nowhere else to do it. Like me, he’s relatively reserved in public. A little hand-holding or interlocked arms: fine. But mushy stuff? Well, it’s a moot point in my case, but it’s a thing of the past now, gone the way of hickies and marriage.
Then I had a mediocre, expensive (nearly $10) dinner with this view.
I found another store named after my elder daughter. (I’ve found a Gina and a Genna, but they weren’t worth documenting.)
The dueí±o of my hostel is a warm man. Very warm. Hot. He hugs and kisses me at every opportunity The Mexican thing of the cheek kiss, even with strangers, no longer surprises me. But this man seems to be aiming for my lips. Luckily I’m a master at pretending to be clueless, and I have rocket-fast neck reflexes, so he’s managed only once to graze the right corner of my mouth. Truth be told, I don’t mind it too much. I just don’t understand it.
Now I’m on the roof of the hostel where I’ve been joined by a handful of other travelers, all friendly. It’s warm tonight, and from five stories up I see yellow dots and shapes creeping up against the bed of soft black that’s the hillside. That human-looking thing is El Pipila, a local hero who played a crucial role in gaining Mexico’s independence from the Spanish 200 years ago this September. Down below is the garish Teatro Juí¡rez again.
One of the guys I’m talking to just e-mailed me a link to a panoramic photo that someone took from here a few days ago:
- Slower connections: http://dallasvirtualtour.com/VirtualTours/Travel/QuickLoad/GuanajuatoDVT.swf
- Faster connections: http://dallasvirtualtour.com/VirtualTours/Travel/GuanajuatoDVT.swf