Our trip basically consisted of a very long bus ride on Thursday afternoon, checking in to a very gaudy (and very expensive) hotel, and then the cool kids and I went out to explore the town and have a quiet drink somewhere. What we found was La Diabla, a small dark tavern with beer at 90 pesos the pitcher and a very personable staff (of two chilangos) who kept the fun going until well into the wee hours. That Thursday night was probably the most fun I've ever had on a group excursion!
Jackie and her new sunglasses (she is VERY proud of them) at La Diabla.
The next day we awoke early but still satisfied from the previous night's adventures and went on a forced tour of the city's attractions. The truth is actually that it was a pretty cool tour which included mummies (AWESOME), a silver mine (a real one this time, unlike in Taxco), a museum of the Inquisition's methods (I couldn't handle it; I had to go outside), and several smallish monuments. Then there we had free time to eat and explore, so the cool kids and I went for a fabulously inexpensive lunch, wandered around at such places as the Don Quixote museum, took naps, and finished our day with bagels and another night of fun which began at La Diabla, meandered through Bar Fly, and ended at Los Lobos. Guanajuato is a city with a very young, hip population so the nightlife is one of its main attractions (because seriously, how many monuments can you look at?).
A case of mummies at the museum in Guanajuato. They are all apparently the result of natural mummification which is observed in the bodies disinterred between 1865 and 1958. They range from elderly people to fetuses, from criminals to campesinos, and include at least one stabbing victim, one pregnant woman, and one person who was buried alive.
BABYMUMMY
Inquisition dummy!! He's probably busy sanctioning the torture and murder of countless people just because they're DIFFERENT. (but he does have a pretty sweet Hamlet skull on his desk, so we can cut him a little slack)
One of many, many representations of Don Quixote in the city of Guanajuato. Dashing as ever.
Erika with Diego Rivera's statue. It was love at first sight!
Saturday dawned early once again, and after yet another merely par omelet from the hotel restaurant, we set off as a group to visit two small towns: to Dolores Hidalgo where we visited the home of Miguel Hidalgo and ate overpriced (and delicious) sorbet, and to San Miguel de Allende where we only had time for lunch. My favorite group of hedonists and I, in search of cheap gourmet, stumbled upon Bruno's restaurant, a small place run by a very chatty Italian man who has been living there for several decades. He has not lost either his ability to make amazing pesto or to chat up a group of young ladies. He introduced us to the wonders of "chocolate salami" (a cold dessert which makes your heart melt), the merits of oldies music, the subtleties of espresso with sambuca, the origins of square dance, and the time-honored tradition of looooooong conversations over a meal (okay, so we already knew that one, but it's always good to reinforce concepts, right?). Upon our return to Guanajuato there was shopping and galavanting, followed by our traditional Foodie-Night at a local fusion restaurant. There are a select few of us who take every opportunity to use the money the program gives us for meals on program excursions, eat as cheaply as possible for the whole trip (think lots of tacos de canasta), and use the money we've saved for an extravagant meal. This particular trip brought grilled salmon in a chili sauce, Asian tuna steak, garlic shrimp pizza, a bottle of wine, and a slice of chocolate cake. We soooo know how to live! We spent the rest of our food comas in a calm evening of GloZell's translations and a relatively early bedtime.
Sunday consisted of sleeping in, tamales and horchata for breakfast, checking out the local food market, packing our bags, and the very long trip back to Puebla. All in all, a great success!
No comments:
Post a Comment