Guanajato… you may never find the way out, but why would you want to leave?

The road turns like a bobby pin, the brightly colored houses painted pink, turquois and orange disappear, there is a tunnel.  Suddenly Greta Garmin protests, “Return to the Highlighted Route” but then the satellite signal is lost, as you are.  Underground in a tunnel made with carved stone big drops of water fall on the windshield, the road splits, left or right?  Who knows?  Suddenly the sun is shining on the car and we sit in a traffic jam surrounded by Sunday shoppers and tourists at the Mercado assaulted by the colors after being in the dark.  As Greta starts to yell to turn right then left on some unknown street, a tourist guide steps in front of the car waving frantically, did we do something wrong?  No he just wants to sell us a tour to the mines, or show us to a fancy hotel.  We continue on… where too?  We don’t know.

Guanajato is more than a city on a hill like San Francisco.  It is a Medieval city in a ravine.  The streets are so steep they use stair cases to get from one level to another and the drainage tunnels are now used by cars that can’t fit through the walking paths above.  And at the same time it is so colorful and full of life, the open air stalls selling tacos, fruit, juices and all sorts of knick knacks, pedestrians crossing in front of buses that sit in traffic too dense to move.  I wonder how the buses navigate these streets that a VW bug seems too big to fit in.  Around a corner appears a castle or an old wall and in the distance where the city has grown is a modern building.  The Hodge-podge design works, buildings stacked one on the other, older at the bottom and modern at the top.

Our Hotel (Las Estrellas de Valenciana) sits high above the beautiful chaos, the view alone is worth the $700 pesos a night, which is good because the beds are made out of wood and the shower is only hot for a few hours a day, but they took our dogs and we have the view.

It is hard to believe that the cities keep getting better and better, someday I would like to spend enough time here to know the city, it’s turns and secret short cuts.  But that time will have to wait, today we leave for Morelia… The adventure continues!