Guanajuato, Mexico January 3-5, 1979

Ken drove me to the Guadalajara bus station early in the morning of January 4^th, and with a honk and a wave he was off.  My departure was considerably slower, after waiting for all the passengers, with all their bags and bundles, to be loaded on the bus, and then waiting for the driver to get his coffee and pastry... .  It was a long-ish ride, with one stop at a place where we all descended to use the facilities and grab a quick bite to eat.  Slim pickings here so I settled for a ‘cheese sandwich’ on dry, tasteless white bread.  Luckily I’d brought some oranges with me... .

 

We got to Guanajuato in the late afternoon.  After buying my onward ticket to Mexico City I found a decent hotel not far from the bus station, got a quick bite to eat and crashed, feeling sore and tired from too many hours on the bus.

I made the most of the next day, heading first to the main city market.  It’s a massive indoor market – maybe the biggest one I’ve been in so far.  I found a juice bar that offered just about any juice you could imagine – I decided on a papaya-banana milkshake.  Mmmmmm.  Then I bought some fruit and peanuts for tomorrow’s bus ride.  

 

Fortified by the milkshake, I headed out to explore the town, and took advantage of being on my own to play with my camera – something I hadn’t done that much so far.  What an incredibly colourful city!  Many of the houses and buildings are painted in solid primary bright colours – red, orange, blue, green, purple, pink and yellow.  I felt like I was walking through a child’s box of toy blocks.

  

Later in the afternoon, I walked up an inviting looking stair street right to the top of one of the many hills.  It was a good work-out, but my effort was rewarded with a spectacular view of several of the city’s hillsides, looking like fabulous patchwork quilts.

The highlight of my day came at night, when I headed to the main square.  The main square or ‘parque’ is traditionally where Mexican families go in the evening to do a ‘paseo’.  In the paseo the custom is for women to walk in one direction around the square, and men in the other – and maybe meet up with someone special to take a turn or two around the square together.  Some young folks were doing just that.  Others, especially families with young children, were walking in whichever direction they felt like.  And lots of people, like me, were sitting on benches just watching the world pass by. 

 

This night, because of the Christmas season, there was an added attraction.  A huge papier-mache nativity scene had been set up in the park, complete with Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the manger, and various camels, donkeys and sheep.   Three guys were dressed up like the three wise men (in anticipation of El Dia de Los Reyes), and a red-and-white bearded Santa Claus.  Families dressed in their finery, with kids in all sorts of costumes – more like Hallowe’en costumes than Christmas I thought – were posing in front of the nativity scene while enterprising photographers took polaroid pictures, selling them to delighted parents.  

 

One little girl wearing a tall sequined witches’ hat and a black face mask, walked up to me like she knew me, like I was a friend.  And, giving me a big smile, she held out her bag of popcorn.  I looked up and saw her parents, a young couple with no other kids in tow, watching their daughter, and smiling.  I took a couple of pieces of popcorn, and thanked the little sorceress with my most carefully annunciated ‘muchisimas gracias senorita!’  She dashed back to her parents, chattering away, presumably telling them just what had happened: ‘the gringa took some of my popcorn!  And said ‘gracias’ to me!’  It’s so wonderful how wonderful everything is to young children.  And so great to be able, once in a while, to see the world through their eyes. 

Note:  I didn't take a picture of the little popcorn girl.  I suppose I could have 

asked her parents for permission to do so, but I didn't want to risk spoiling the moment.  It was too precious.  Above is a photo I took of a little boy about the same age, sitting on the engine of his train - there were three more 'cars' behind him.  So great!