In my last posting, I completely failed to mention Halloween, All Souls Day, and Day of the Dead (Dia de Morte). In Guanajuato, I saw few kids in the streets on Holloween. The ones I did see were almost all witches and devils. The few adults in costume were almost all zombies, except for one Fred Flintstone.
On the night of All Saints Day (November first for all you
non-Catholics) I saw more kids in costume than on Holloween. A few of them came looking for candy at the restaurant where I had dinner.
The big holiday of the week was Day of the Dead (November 2). Traditionally, this is a day where graves of departed loved ones are decorated and places are adorned with skeletons and the like. For days leading up to Day of the Dead, there were scores of stalls in the street selling candy skulls, "dead bread", cemetery wreaths, flowers, and all manner of death-related trinkets.
On the night of Day of the Dead, the plazas and restaurants were packed. I don't know how much of this was due to the holiday and how much was due to the fact that it was simply a Friday night.
On weekend nights in Guanajuato, a group of professional musicians in costume called callejoneanadas (a callejon is an alley) wander through town with a following of people (mainly tourists). The play music, sing songs, and stop in various plazas to tell comedic stories. I caught a bit of them as they were in the plaza outside the internet cafe I was using. It was quite enjoyable, but I found when I got out of the cafe, I really had no desire to follow them around. I ran into them again in another plaza a few minutes later.
Guanajuato is big on street performers, and by that I do not mean the noisy beggars you find in most cities. There are the usual bands of singers with guitarists wandering through restaurants for tips (which I abhor). There are also actual bands that play in the bandstand in the Jardin de Union (I caught one doing Strauss pieces one night and another doing more traditional Mexican music on another.) People dance around the bandstand as the band plays.
There are other musicians that plant themselves in other plazas around town or in front of the Teatro Juarez. There are often clowns entertaining children and adults (not this one) in front of the theater.
There are, however, a few unfortunate instances of music. While I was in an internet cafe, there was someone strangling a bagpipe in the plaza outside. Bagpipes are never the most harmonious instraments, but this one was so bad that I had to put on my headphones and drown it out with some music. I would have preferred to listen to a leaf blower.
Speaking of noise, there are some interesting noises in town. The church bells seem to ring at random. Firecrackers go off a lot. At first, I thought this was leading up to the Day of the Dead. Then it continued for the next week. I found out that the churches light the firecrackers to call worshippers to mass for their particular saint.
All in all, however, Guanajuato is a pretty quiet town. Even though there is a lively nightlife with many bars, there is not a lot of noise pollution from them.
Speaking of which, I finally got to experience some of the Guanajuato night life. I had taken a one-day bus trip to San Miguel de Allende (see a forthcoming blog entry for details of that trip) and was seated next to a German girl on the bus ride there. The girl, Sybilla, and I talked quite a bit on the trip, ended up on the same bus back to Guanajuato later that day, and then ended up on local bus with me from the bus station to town. She invited me to go out with some of her friends that night.
I met Sybilla and her friends at a bar called Bora Bora behind the Theatro Juarez. This bar was filled pretty much with gringos. It was a nice enough place, kind of trendy. Sybilla's friends consisted of a friend of Sybilla's mother and this woman's daughter, Julia. The pair have lived in Guanajuato for the past 3 years and apparently go out to bars together regularly.
The next bar was Alkatraz, around the corner from the Jardin de Union, which I had walked past about a billion times. When we entered, it was playing very Mexican music, but by the time we left, it had morphed into more US-style bar music. Larlo, a member of the Mexican family in whose house Sybilla is staying, joined us there.
I commented to Julia that she looked awfully young, which led to everyone (except the mother) revealing their ages. Larlo and Sybilla are both 24, and Julia is 17. This did not prevent Julia from knowing the workers in the next two bars and getting us in without paying the cover.
After Alkatraz, we headed to the dance clubs. The first was Guanajuato Grill. It was a kitchen disco--no dance floor. This makes it rather hard to mingle with anyone other than the people you came with. We bought a bottle of vodka and a couple of containers of juice. This put us back about US$65.
After Guanajuato Grill, we went to Capitola, tucked away in the far corner of Plaza La Paz. This was another disco with a more open floor plan, but still not as open as I would have liked. All of the places we went were crowded, but this place probably more than the others. Like many dance clubs in San Francisco on a busy night, it was so crowded that it was less like dancing and more like frotage. I was up since 7am, so I was the first to leave, just before 2am.
The next day was spent sleeping.
I'm sure David C. is disappointed that I have not mentioned diarrhea yet on this trip. Aside from a minor bout lasting only a few hours in Puerto Vallarta, there hasn't been any. However, since I have been in Mexico, I have been releasing so much gas that I expect to be mentioned by name in the next Kyoto treaty.
Spanish school has been going well. I decided to take a second week of classes, both because I need the practice and because I like the city. People were surprised to hear that I had never taken a Spanish class before. I'm definitely holding my own. Although I can converse with other students and teachers in Spanish, I still can't understand what most of the people say to me on the street.
My first day in class, I met a septegenarian from Seattle name Marriete. We ended up taking the same route back to town (the school is a 25 minute walk from the town center) and she asked if I was in a hotel or staying with a family. When I told her I was in a hotel, she told me about her homestay and asked if I was interested. The next day, the family invited me for dinner and the following day I was living there. The room is nice, the food is great (if a bit overabundant), the location is right in the town center (near where my hotel was) and room and board is about US$22 a day. I get a private room with a bathroom. And, as importantly, I get lots of Spanish practice.
Well, this entry has turned into a book, so I will end here and post next time about my trip to San Miguel. This weekend, I intend to head to Mexico City.
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