The anciently new ways of Guanajuato.

by María Alcántara (Mexico)

I didn't expect to find Mexico

When you visit Guanajuato, you need to understand that you are entering a place that lives on its own time. Not only has the passing of time done very little or virtually nothing at all to change/modernize the city. As you go through its narrow streets you can very easily imagine the time of the Spaniards riding their carriages through the same streets. I believed it stared as an accident, some mine workers stayed overnight near a mine, soon others would have camped near them. Then time went by their wife’s started to arrive to make sure they hadn’t run of with someone else. Those tents turned to little houses one on top of the other. To live in Guanajuato, you would have to have the vocation of an insane goat, oh but how wonderful are said goats. They live in hills that are at time impossible to reach by car, this was the place where the workers lived, so there is not much grandeur in its alleys. However, it’s lack of grandeur that makes such a quaint little city. Guanajuato marches to its own beat, with made up holidays only they celebrate. Like the day of the Dam. They used to make prisoners open the dam and whoever didn’t drown got pardon, now they only pardon prisoners with short sentences, but don’t make them fight the water. There is also the cave day, when they walk up a mountain to do a picnic inside a cave, and obviously get ridiculously drunk along the way. I have been traveling to Guanajuato my whole life and cannot truly say I Know it all. It’s impossible, the streets layouts appear to be drawn by drunk donkey doing its best to get up the hill… then down the hill and up again. Every time I visit there is something new, some new art exhibit, new café, or some really old cantina that is new to you. Home to a big public university it has become lately a place of social activism. Which no one expected in highly conservative state like Guanajuato, especially in a city so set in old traditions (they still dye their pan de muerto –bread of the dead- red to represent the blood of the deceased) however it was greatly welcomed. After a brutal femicide of one of their students’ feminist groups called a strike and the whole town chipped in. This is honestly the event that has surprised me the most in Guanajuato, you would see bus drivers stopping near the university to help the student place banners in his bus to get word out. There were small shop owners allowing the students to use their power to keep their phones charged and continue to be connected, old grandmas giving them sandwich’s and many more. So to the topic of something you weren’t expecting, I guess there’s always some unexpected ancient tradition going on in Guanajuato and nowadays there's new social movements brewing something great for the future.