Guanajuato-- again

We returned to Guanajuato, in part to see what it would look like through our year-old Mexican eyes: have we become so used to Mexican towns that the beauty of this place that we loved last July would have tarnished?  The answer was NO - it is a lovely town that will never get old to us.  We still marvelled at the color of the houses, the character of the doors, the steepness of the streets and alleys.

We stayed in a nice hotel, the Posada Santa Fe, right on the central plaza.  It was a bit of a splurge but we enjoyed being in the center of town this time.  The main problem was that the top floor of the un-airconditioned hotel got incredibly hot from the sun beating down on the roof.     Here is the sink of our hotel room: all Mexican tiles, atop an old wood dresser.

 

The central plaza was a wonderful shady oasis of green, ringed with sidewalk restaurants and alive with musicians at night.
One difference, after a year in Mexico, was that our eyes had finally adjusted to the square trees!
 

 


Margaret took it upon herself to photograph many of the interesting and varied doors.  Here are a few of her pictures:
   

   



View from the monument "El Pipila" looking out of the the city.  We climbed up in the morning, and then again in the evening to watch the city lights come on.
 

 

 

 




Mostly we just wandered the narrow streets and alleys for hours.  That is one of the truly fun things about this town.
   

 

   

 





Don got to have chili on his pineapple sherbet.

 

 

We followed this group of singers down the streets on Saturday evening.  These types of groups are called "tunas" (I don't know the origin of the name). Like the pied piper they attracted a crowd as they strolled the streets, stopping once in a while for a short set of songs.  We were taken by surprise as we returned from dinner, but they are apparently one of the evening traditions in Guanajuato.