Guanajuato

Guanajuato is a city that everyone should visit.  To see it is to realize a whole new world has cracked open before you.  The weather is perfect, the architecture causes you to gaze, and the steep roads lead you to imagine that anything could lie in wait at the top of the next hill.  And just when you think you have experienced it all, its history and beauty pick you up and then plop you back down somewhere else that you didn’t even know you wanted to be. 

At times, the city feels a bit claustrophobic because everything is so compact, but this simply adds to its charm.  There are two major roadways and a bunch of narrow alleys, but most of the traffic runs on a series of over sixty underground tunnels.  Plazas are decorated with statues to pay homage to the likes of Diego Rivera, Cervantes, Don Quixote, and a myriad of other Guanajuatan revolutionaries.  Mounted on the highest hill is Pipila, the man responsible for securing Guanajuato’s first victory towards independence.  As the story goes, he strapped a stone slab on his back like a bulletproof vest and then set the doors of the of Alhondiga (a large grain bin-like structure) gates ablaze.  Thus, the holed up Spanish army was forced from its fortress and was easily taken over by the revolutionary forces.

Mexicans were first attracted to this city for its rich resources of silver and gold, but today you should visit it to see rows of red-roofed houses and kids playing soccer in the plaza shouting challenges and insults at one another. People raised in this city must weep when they leave and discover the dismal sprawl of the rest of the world.   I can’t blame them.  The imagery of this town makes me want to be only here.

In case you still aren’t convinced, Guanajuato has this amazing roadside hamburger stand that only sets up shop in the evenings.  The line is long, but the hamburgers are spicy and savory and topped with some sort of pickled carrot and pepper deliciousness that has had me scouring the internet to find the recipe for the greater part of a baseball game.

So, skip the beaches and head straight to Guanajuato.  Its colonial charisma is one of a kind.