Guanajuato Things to Do

A very large amount of Guanajuato is pedestrian, no vehicle traffic allowed, so this is a perfect spot to get some excersise in on your holidays. The streets are quite narrow, so no cars would fit. This city is not too large (pop. 100,000) also, located at alt: 2017 metres. It was in the past historically one of Mexico's richest. After silver was found in Zacatecas, Spanish prospectors combed the rugged lands north of Mexico City and were rewarded by discoveries of silver, gold, iron, lead, zinc and tin. For two centuries 30% to 40% of the world's silver was mined in Guanajuato. In my humble opinion, Guanajuato is the perfect quiet honeymoon spot, very, very romantic.
You can hire a taxi tour up into the hills surrounding the city, this I have not done, but perhaps next time I get down there. You know what it's like, all the best laid plans of mice and men....don't always pan out. This beautiful painting was done by a local Vancouver artist by the name of Sam Logan, who has himself travelled extensively. Check out his website.

It may sound creepy, and perhaps a little grotesque... but it's a different kind of museum. It's pretty cool. They have around 100 mummified bodies and a few heads. If you get the tour, you'll get to understand the whole mummifying process and stuff. It’s quite interesting.

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In Guanajuato there is a mummy museum, its as freakish as it sounds. Turns out that in my understanding, families must continue to pay to have their relatives interned in the graveyard, and when they can't or won't keep paying, the authorities must make room for more bodies so they began removing some. Because of the conditions with the climate and soil, it was discovered, that the corpses where perfectly mummified.
There are well over 100 corpses in there for your viewing pleasure, but a note here: have breakfast before you go, because you probably won't feel like eating anything afterwards. Not even the candy corpses the sellers try and hit you up with as you exit the place.

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The Alhondiga was the city grainery of Guanajuato, and it was the scene of a very important battle in the early days of the Mexican revolution. In September 1810 Padre Hidalgo and his army of 80,000 peasant supporters attacked the city of Guanajuato. The Spanish retreated into the Alhondiga. Hidalgo's untrained men, many of them armed only with mining tools, began hurling rocks at the Alhondiga. Many indentations caused by these rocks are clearly visible on the outside of the building today. With the Spanish pouring boiling water from the windows down onto the revolutionaries, the situation for Hidalgo's men looked hopeless.

If local folklore is to be believed (the authenticity of this story is debated), the turning point came when a young miner nicknamed El Pipila (The Turkeycock) tied a slab of stone to his back to protect himself, grabbed a burning torch, stumbled to the wooden gates and set them alight. El Pipila was killed in the process, but his actions enabled Hidalgo's men to storm the building, massacre the Spaniards and capture the city.

Six months later Hidalgo was captured and killed, and his head was hung in a cage from a corner of the building for all to see, a reminder to the people of the dangers of disobedience. From the other three corners hung the heads of three more revolutionaries - Ignacio Allende, Juan Alolama and Mario Jimenez. They would remain there for ten more years until independence was achieved.

The Alhondiga is now open to the public as a museum and has lots of interesting exhibits related to the revolution inside. I don't have any photos of the building, so these two murals are artistic representations of the Alhondiga battle and of Hidalgo's head displayed in the cage. These murals are in the independence museum in the town of Dolores Hidalgo (see my Dolores Hidalgo page for more info). The statue of El Pipila is on top of a hill with a great view of the city. For two pesos you can even climb inside the statue all the way up to El Pipila's shoulder.

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This is a very popular destination for visitors to Guanajuato, but be warned it can be very disturbing for some people. Many dead bodies in varying states of preservation are on display, including those of children and babies. There is one mummy of a woman who, judging by the position of her body, was apparently buried alive, then later woke up in her coffin and tried unsuccessfully to force her way out.

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The Boca Mina de San Cayetano is one of 23 interconnecting mines in Guanajuato and is named after the patron saint of miners. It is still operational, but it's also open for tours in which miners lead tourists 60 metres down inside the mine.

The mine was opened in 1550, just 31 years after Cortes first landed in what is now Mexico. In colonial times it was worked by Indians who received no pay other than food and lodging. They descended 750 metres, then climed back up with 75 kgs of minerals on their backs, then back down and up again twelve times a day, retreiving 900 kgs each per day. Most of the miners died from being overworked within ten years, and many of them went blind due to working by candlelight in pitch black darkness.

The miners who work there today have better conditions - they use elevators rather than steps - but the wages are still incredibly low. Our guide Ramiro told us he is paid 37 pesos (US$ 3.33) for eight hours of work.

Callejon del beso means the alleyway of the kiss. It is so called because the lane is so narrow, and thus the buildings on each side so close together, that it's possible for two neighbours to lean out of their windows and kiss from across the street. Of course this has spawned many legends of star-crossed lovers, which you will undoubtedly hear if you join a callejoneada (see my callejoneada tip).

Callejon is the Spanish word for a small street or alleyway, and a callejoneada is a musical tour led by a local minstrel group through the many small alleyways of Guanajuato. The tour starts in the main plaza, where a group of University students dressed in renaissance-era costumes will play a few songs to get people interested while they try to sell tickets. With the purchase of a ticket you get a small jug which you are allowed to refill with wine throughout the tour. Once a large enough group has formed, the musicians will lead the crowd through the callejones, singing songs and telling stories and legends about different points of interest, often including rather dirty jokes. All of this is in Spanish only, but the atmosphere can make it worthwhile even if you don't understand anything.

While our guidebook encouraged bringing your own bottle of wine instead of buying a ticket, this is not really possible, at least not to follow the whole tour. There is one point where the alley is very narrow, and they will stop you there and not let you pass through if you don't have a ticket.