Many roads lead to Guanajuato: the prospect of the most beautiful colonial town in all of Mexico, the presence of Sarah (company and hospitality all in one delightful package) and what I thought was the country’s biggest beer festival. Most of these turned out to be accurate preconceptions.
The city was a painter’s palette of warm and vibrant hues which played with glee in the sunlight, running from cobbled passages to airy squares. Spilling down the surrounding hills, the town’s colours are evidence of Mexico’s status as a nation of colours. The Spanish-style buildings are a world away from the concrete cubes of Cosoleacaque and Minatitlan. I shocked myself by staring with amusement at all the ‘gueros’ ambling past me. I realised it had been weeks since I had physically seen a blonde, blue-eyed European/North American in the flesh. I suddenly found myself snarling at them with disdain, as if they were trespassing on my Mexican territory. The idea of transposing yourself into a country without compromising any of your rigid cultural ideas, without fully immersing yourself into the grinding routine of a place, now seems to me amateurish and misguided. I hated to think that I also looked like a tourist. I suppose however long I stay here I always will be. But I hope that by working like a demon on my Spanish and adapting my socks off, I can play down by ‘extranjero’ status.
Sarah oozed company and hospitality. She showed me her ‘locals’, her favourite hangouts and showed me ruddy bloody good time. As a past tenant of the city she knew it like a sister, but we still managed to make some memories, in the restaurants and bars, and on the salsa dance floor. We were joined in our shimmying by Anna, Alannah and Christine: ‘El Bar’ (original name) played host a spectacular display of British Council gyrating, booty-shaking and general attempts at moving with the rhythm.
The only disappointment was in myself. I had led myself to believe that ‘Cervantino’ was a massive beerfest. My pea-sized, lager-lout, uneducated brain, failed to make the obvious connection between the festival name and the highly-regarded Spanish writer, Cervantes. If I had, I would have realised that asking where the giant beer ten was ten times a day would never reap any further response than ‘what giant beer tent?’ I also would have prepared myself for the intimidating amounts of culture I found myself confronted with. Plays, improvisation, dance shows, comedians, circus acts, musical performances lay in wait on almost every inch of the city, it was impossible to avoid. Even when we sat in a chillaxalicious square for a quiet beer. We were treated to a nine-peice mariachi show, and a punk-goth street performance of a story of ‘two absolutely insane lovers’. It didn’t end happily. I still got my beer, but I also felt a little more educated for having visited Guanajuato when I did.
30-hours on a coach well-spent.
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