Mexican Madness: 2005-2006

We are back in the pleasant but cooler mountains after more than a week on the Pacific coast. The nights are cool but not too cold and the days warm up nicely. If only the ocean was closer, we would gladly stay in either Guanajuato or San Miguel de Allende for the winter!

Friday found us in a bus, heading north on the same road as the day before to Puerto Vallarta (PV). We had arranged a timeshare exchange at the Mayan Palace resort complex in Nueva Vallarta, about 20 km north of PV on the Bahia de Banderas. Our first inkling of the high prices in PV was the taxi fare, almost the same as we had paid to travel three hours from Melaque. We opted for the public bus instead. It was just a fifteen minute ride that took us right to our hotel, the Mayan Sea Garden, the simplest, but still luxurious hotel in the huge Mayan Palace complex.

Nueva Vallarta stretches several Km along a sandy beach. The southern 1 or more Km, consisting of the Mayan Palace hotels, is separated by a large marina from the northern section of Nueva Vallarta. Our hotel, the Mayan Sea Garden had a large three section heated pool, with a bar in the middle of the largest section and lots of umbrellas and chairs around the perimeter. There were more umbrellas and chairs on the beach, where long rollers made boogie boarding and jumping through the waves the best options.

We took a walk to visit the other Mayan buildings, all on the beachfront. Walking south we passed three large buildings that are expensive wholly owned units. Next was the gigantic, new, super-luxurious Grand Mayan with the weirdest lobby I have ever seen. You enter in the dark to eventually see super-sized Mayan warriors and a waterfall surrounding you - very dramatic. The original Mayan Palace, facing a golf course, is the furthest south. The three hotel buildings sit around canals where you can kayak, the largest pool in the Americas (so they told us).

Each hotel had a selection of good but pricey restaurants and since we didn't have a meal plan or a kitchen, we went looking for better options. Our favourite was a small place facing the marina called Estudio-Cafe, with an art Gallery run by a man from Mexico City and a great, small restaurant run by his wife. The owners do not advertise at all, preferring to rely on word of mouth and not be inundated with clients. We wished we had come upon this gem the first day!

We took the bus into busy Puerto Vallarta twice. PV is not an old town. The Mexican government started flights to the area in 1954 but it was the filming of The Night of the Iguana ten years later that started the tourist invasion. Now the whole area is crowded with hotels, bars, restaurants and souvenir stands. The beaches, especially in front of the older section, were crowded with both Mexican families and North American tourists, but the waters remain clean. The town is still pleasant to walk around in and there is a good boardwalk stretching several Km along the coast. There were two cruise ships in port when we were there and there are plans to greatly expand the port facilities for these behemoth ships. I would hate to be there when ten cruise ships arrive at once.

A fellow Rideau Trail Club Wednesday Walker, Bill Mander and his wife Shirl, were staying just up the coast from us in the small beach town of Sayulita. They were spending a few days at the beach prior to starting a bicycle tour the following Monday from PV south to Manzanillo. It was an easy bus ride to visit them for a day. The presence of two surfboards laid across the handrail in our bus warned us that Sayulita was a serious surfing beach. The surf was high that day but Bill and Shirl had a nice swimming pool alternative at their very comfortable hotel. We had a walk on the beach watching the surfers and explored this laid back community with our hosts. With lots of good restaurants and shops, Bill and Shirl picked a good place to veg out.

A highlight of our visit to the area was a day cruise in the Bay. About 90 of us boarded a tour boat one morning. The tour the day before us was lucky enough to see several Grey whales in the Bay, but the majority had picked another route that day. We had to be content with one baby whale that sounded several times near the boat and a lone dolphin that drafted us for several Km.

Our first stop was just south of PV at Los Arcos, three rocky spires with small caves at the waterline. We donned snorkelling gear and jumped in to see schools of colourful fish rushing to nibble at the food thrown to them by the boat crew. Further on we stopped at a small beach where we had the option of getting off to swim or continue on to visit waterfalls in the hills. About half of the passengers got off and the rest of us continued on down the coast to a small village where we had the option of riding horses or hiking up to the waterfalls. Of course we walked. It was only 15 or 20 minutes of pleasant uphill walking to get to a small restaurant complex beside the waterfalls. Ray and I joined several others, jumping into the chilly waters of a natural pool at the base of the falls. After we got used to the cold we stayed in quite a while watching a few more adventurous ones climb up the slippery rocks beside the falls and slide down into the pool.

Back on the boat we returned to the beach where the rest of the passengers had disembarked. We were all hungry by that time and appreciated the chicken dinner provided for us at the local beach restaurant before the long return trip to the marina in PV.

The bus ride to Guanajuato was the longest yet. It was five hours to Guadalajara from PV, then another four hours to Guanajuato, but it was worth it. Guanajuato at 2017 M is a lovely town. Built in a narrow ravine and spreading up the sides of the mountains, the colonial architecture of the town has merited it UNESCO rating. The University of Guanajuato, with 21,000 students, is noted for its excellent music, theater, law and mining programs. The imposing white stone buildings dominate the skyline above the main plaza. Many tourists stay the winter in Guanajuato, especially to attend courses at the University.

We stayed in a nice hostal reached by a steep set of stone stairs leading to a small plaza, then through another steep but narrow passageway leading to the doorway of Casa Bertha. Our room was up four sets of stairs, just below a scenic rooftop terrace. We kept in shape just by climbing to our room from the main town several times a day.

Guanajuato started life as a silver and gold mining town in 1559. For the next 200 years it produced 20% of the world's silver. Many of the major streets are underground in Guanajuato, producing pedestrian only areas in much of the historic section of the city. The biggest underground route is the dry riverbed of Rio Guanajuato. After a major flood in the 1950s the river was re-routed and the bed became a roadway. Other tunnels were built in the 1980s and 1990s to divert growing traffic from the historic areas. It would be even better if all vehicles were banned from city streets to eliminate traffic jams in the remaining narrow streets.

The city is full of pretty well kept parks around which the silver barons built their mansions. These mansions have now been converted into stores, banks and hotels but the area is very popular with the locals and tourists. We arrived on a Friday night and walked the short distance to the Jardin de la Union, obviously the place to see and be seen on a weekend evening. People were thronged in the many outdoor cafes and along the pedestrian shopping streets adjacent to the park. Young people, many of whom attend the University, sat on the steps of the beautiful Teatro Juarez to watch street buskers and Mariachi players entertain the crowd.

The indigenous people around Guanajuato worked in the mines as slaves for the Spanish owners so it was no surprise when they joined with Hidalgo in the movement for independence in 1810. After issuing his famous Grito de Independencia (Cry for Independence) in nearby Dolores Hidalgo, the insurgents marched to Guanajuato to find the Spanish holed up in the Alhondigo de Granaditas. Built as a grainary and finished in 1808, this fortress-like building was the undoing of the Spanish. Hidalgo directed an indigenous mine worker known as El Pipila, to strap a stone slab on his back to protect him from Spanish bullets. El Pipila managed to reach the gates of the Alhondiga and set them on fire with a flaming torch. The Spanish were caught inside and the city was captured, the first victory for the insurgents. Unfortunately the four original leaders of the uprising, Hidalgo, Aldama, Allende and Jimenez were captured and executed within a year. They were beheaded and their heads hung inside metal cages from the four exterior corners of the Alhondiga until Independence was finally gained in 1821. After serving as a granary and a prison for 100 years, the Alhondiga became a museum in 1967. We visited the museum to learn more about the history of the city from displays ranging from pre-Hispanic pottery, homage to the Independence leaders and current day conditions. They even had the original metal head cages on display and one figures prominently in the dramatic murals by Chavez Morado painted over the staircases in the museum.

Reached by a new funicular or by a 20 minute walk up steep narrow streets (of course we did the latter), is a gigantic stone block statue of El Pipila holding his flaming torch aloft. The inscription under the statue reads, translated, “There are still Alhondigas to burn”. The main reason we walked up to the statue was for the view. We could clearly see the center of town down below and the surrounding hills.

The Mexicans have a fascination with death, as evidenced by the Day of the Dead figures and displays we have seen in other cities. Guanajuato is no exception. In 1865 city officials started to exhume bodies from the overcrowded main cemetery. To their surprise, they did not find a pile of bones. The minerals in the soil combined with the dry climate had mummified the bodies. Every few years more bodies are exhumed if their occupants have not arranged for upkeep in perpetuity. It has been determined that it only takes 5 to 6 years for a body to mummify. Only 1-2% of those exhumed is deemed to be display quality, the rest are cremated. There are now 119 bodies on display in the weird Museo de Mumias and we went to see them. Ray started to have second thoughts about the whole experience after merely viewing a photographic display of other mummies found in the world, but we soon got used to the idea. The mummies on display ranged from an unborn foetus to the elderly, some clothed in their work attire, some in their finest attire and the rest naked.

Diego Rivera was born and lived the first six years of his life in Guanajuato. His original home is now a museum and gallery of his works. The rooms in the lower floor are decorated in the period of the 1860s while the upper two floors house his paintings. There were works from 1908 through the 1940s as well as sketches for some of his later murals, some of which we saw in Mexico City.

Guanajuatans love festivals. In October the Cervantes Festival attracts thousands who come to see theatrical productions, many of which are staged in the outdoor parks. The festival started as just depictions of Cervantes tales but has branched out in many directions. The last Sunday we were there we rushed to the main street leading from the Basilica when we heard band music. Interspersed with several local bands was a group of mostly young girls dressed in bridal dresses for first communion and then a group of indigenous people with wooden bells around their ankles and elaborate feathered head-dresses, dancing to the beat of a traditional drum. When asked, our landlady said it was just a regular religious occasion, nothing very special, except to us!

We are now enjoying another Colonial town, San Miguel de Allende, also in the hills but a little lower at 1840 M. The Spanish Government declared San Miguel a National Monument in order to protect and preserve the colonial houses and cobbled streets. We have been walking around admiring the parks and architecture and sampling the many restaurants. San Miguel was an artist's mecca in the 1940s and still has many galleries displaying the work of locals. It is now a favourite wintering spot for ex-pats, many of whom have built large homes in the area. English is the second language although Spanish language schools abound.

We missed by one day a major festival honouring the birthday of their favourite son, Ignacio Allende, one of the martyred heroes of the 1810 rebellion. Apparently the parades in his honour were so large the entire downtown area was closed down for hours. We were near the central plaza on Monday, called the Jardin, when the church bells began to peel continuously. We rushed over to see an almost unending line-up of Mexicans of all ages, some carrying large altars on their shoulders, stream into and out of the biggest church in town. To honour the Virgen of San Juan, hundreds of pilgrims were walking for nine days to the small town of San Juan de Lagos, stopping at all the major churches along the way.

We were signed up to go on a guided walk into the hills today, but guess what? It was raining for the first time on our trip, so we rescheduled for the next day. Iit didn’t stop raining the next day either and the forecast was more of the same for several days so we cut our visit short. But before we did, we visited one of the loveliest houses in San Miguel, the home of Kathy Greiner’s Aunt Jean Evans and her partner Sal Mesina. Jean was vacationing in Hawaii when we were there but Sal graciously received us and allowed us to tour their home and beautiful gardens.