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2/13/01 11PM Hotel de la Soledad, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico
This morning at 9 AM the parents except for Liz and Nancy Dorr went to Guanajuato. It's a 2 hour ride each way. The countryside was very interesting. The roadside shrines to highway victims were much more elaborate then the ones we have in California. They were also more permanent, with carved stone markers and statuary. They were also MUCH more numerous. A short drive in the countryside tells you why. Stop signs are apparently optional. Everyone drives very aggressively. There are no railroad crossing guards. Cars pass other cars and trucks based on how fast they want to go regardless of oncoming traffic or other inconveniences. Our taxi driver was no exception. Next time we should prepare a shrine for ourselves and carry it with us, just in case.The hillsides and vegetation look a lot like Southern California but with more cactus including some large saguaro-looking ones. Lots of people are burning the weeds off their land. Of course we passed some pretty squalid housing here and there but the majority of housing looked old but clean and livable. The cemeteries look, well, festive. Lots of colors and statuary and ribbons and such. It looked like a real happy place. Great to be dead. I tried to get pictures but every time we would see one it was gone by the time I got the camera up. There was no way I was going to ask the driver to go back. He might try something that could make us residents of the place instead of gawkers.
Guanajuato is a town of about 500,000 that is built on several hilltops, sort of like San Francisco but with much steeper hills. There is a network of tunnels running under the city. These tunnels were originally for sewage but now are used for vehicle traffic. We drove in these tunnels today. There are intersections, driveways and parking lots, all underground. The city has many old large churches, a beautiful university and the birthplace/museum of Diego Rivera. We all went and saw many original paintings and drawings. There were also many original Salvador Dali works. I guess they were buddies. I missed my wife the most so far when we were there. There was also an opera house built in the early 1800s. Very impressive.
Guanajuato, like Morelia is a very old town. While the people here were building major cathedrals and tunnels, Anglo settlers in North America were just getting a foothold in cabins in the shoreline wilderness. Both cities remind me very much of Italian cities. I've never been to Spain so I guess they probably were built using the then-current architecture and construction techniques used in Spanish cities. Anyway, the look and feel is definitely more Old World then New.
After our tour, provided as part of the taxi service, we ate another great meal. We were going to go to the mines but they were closed so we went back to Morelia. I then went to bed to write this. Good night.
--Bill Tomkovic