Guanajuato
A beautiful little city.
This is the most quirky and fascinating city I’ve been to in Mexico. It is beautiful due to its brightly colored buildings and its interesting geography — it is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains. Think of a city at the bottom of a cereal bowl, with houses of vivid colors built up the sides of the bowl. The other feature that makes it unique is that the entire city is built on top of tunnels that have been turned into roads, taking much of the traffic underground and away from the narrow surface streets. This makes walking in Guanajuato much more enjoyable.
Guanajuato was founded in 1548, and started as a mining town, which explains the many tunnels. This was not just any mineral rich area. The La Valenciana mine here once accounted for two-thirds of the world’s silver production. Some stories from the pre-Hispanic Aztec period say that nuggets of gold could be found just laying on the ground. It was the wealthiest city in Mexico during the 18th century.
All this wealth was poured into architecture and churches. The La Compañía and La Valenciana churches are considered among the most beautiful examples of Baroque architecture in Central and South America, and were decorated with precious metals from the mines.
The historical significance of the city goes beyond the mines. In 1810, the class divide between rich and poor was immense, and the people rebelled, with the priest Miguel Hidalgo starting the Mexican War of Independence in the nearby town of Dolores. He raised an army which marched to Guanajuato. The Spanish troops were sheltered in a granary, which was heavily defended until a miner nicknamed El Pipila tied a large stone to his back to act as a shield, and burned the main wooden doors. This allowed the insurgent army to enter the granary and defeat the Spanish. This heroic act has been memorialized with an enormous 20 meter high statue of El Pipila that looks out over the city and can be seen from every quarter.
Today Guanajuato is the capital city of Guanajuato state, and is a cultural center. It has several art museums, the beautiful Juarez Theatre, a center devoted to Don Quixote, and of course the famous Mummy Museum. I am looking forward to going back.
