# 40 When You Visit Fascinating Guanajuato with New Friends
On sharing stories, food, and consternation in a colonial town in Mexico
Traveling with friends can expand our experiences abroad, because we meet each moment through multiple lives.
Or if that’s too poetic for you: Traveling with friends is great!
Solo travel has its advantages, as does sticking to one trusted travel companion. Which in my case is my husband, Daniel. But my recent 2-day trip to Guanajuato confirmed the joys of traveling with friends, and told me to organize more of such trips in the future.
My Travel Companions—an Introduction of Characters
You may know my travel companions from their popular Substack newsletter :
and (yes, the one who looks like George Clooney).When I discovered they would be living in San Miguel de Allende for several months during the same period
and I would be housesitting there, I asked whether they had time to meet.They did and we met, and all four of us realized we’d like to see more of one another before we, as two nomad couples, would inevitably part ways again. So when Michael invited us to join him and Brent on an overnight trip to Guanajuato, Daniel and I said: Yes!
(Read more about the joys of saying yes here.)
The View and the Tour Guide
We shared a taxi—the first advantage of traveling together—and drove from San Miguel de Allende to Guanajuato in about 90 minutes. Michael, with his longer legs, sat upfront and documented the journey, while Brent, Daniel, and I squeezed together in the back to discuss the joys and frustrations of writing in a changing publishing world as authors who are no longer (so) young. Time flew by. How wonderful to speak freely and with such passion about subjects so close to the heart!
Guanajuato welcomed us with sprawling views of the colorful town. Brent and Michael had booked a hotel high on the hill, with free cable car passes and close to the tall Pípila monument.
“Pípila was a local hero of the Mexican revolution,” I said, and briefly told them the story of Pípila’s role in breaking down the doors of the granary where the Spanish had ensconced themselves in 1810.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to play the tour guide,” I added. But as I was saying it, I thought: I actually like playing the tour guide. I like giving whatever I’ve learned about a place to a small audience that seems intrigued. It’s why I’m writing this newsletter. Meaning multiplies when shared.
But playing the tour guide brings risks. You may bore your audience or worse: You may misremember things and spread misinformation. Which is what unfortunately happened to me in Guanajuato. My story about Pípila didn’t really make sense when I heard myself retelling it. He tied a burning log to his body?
We have an expression for this in Dutch: You’ve heard the bell ring, but don’t know where the clapper hangs. Meaning: You sort of remember the gist of the events, but you mess up the details.
Because misinformation should be halted whenever possible, I looked up the story later and sent my fellow travelers an amended version on WhatsApp.
The “real” legend goes like this: Although the independence fighters greatly outnumbered the Spaniards, they had difficulty getting into the granary, where the Spaniards were hiding. Pípila tied a slab of stone to his back to shield him from the Spanish muskets. Once he got to the thick wooden doors, he set them on fire with tar and a torch. The revolutionaries then stormed the building and… killed all the Spaniards inside.
Music, Theater, and Art
Guanajuato, founded in 1741 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988, was a mining town once, housing the people who owned and worked at the nearby Valenciana and Cata silver mines. Over time, the place reinvented itself, and walking through Guanajuato nowadays is uplifting.
Art is visible everywhere, from the impressive Teatro Juárez to museums, architecture, statues, churches, and musicians roaming the streets in black renaissance clothes, like troubadours.
“It’s a tradition here,” I heard myself say, playing the tour guide again, “to assemble a small group of visitors and take them on a walk through the town while singing songs, playing music, and telling tales.” Most of the musicians are students seeking to make some money on the side.
The four of us climbed the massive steps of the university, strolled around the jardíns and plazas, and even briefly walked underground in one of the tunnels that used to be a channel for flood control.
We talked about our traveling lives and pointed things out to one another. Our erratic movements in this town turned into a connection of revolving perspectives.
Breaking Corn Tortillas at the Market
A Belgium train station in a Mexican town? Yes, why not? The design had already been drafted, and because the building would not rise in Belgium, the plans got sold to someone in Guanajuato, who thought it would make an excellent public market.
Mercado Hidalgo is indeed a great place to shop, have a snack, or enjoy a lunch. The clock tower on top is rumored to be designed by no other than Monsieur Gustav Eiffel.
The four of us found spots at the metal counter of the most promising eatery and bit into our rich gorditas. I watched the three men devour their food and saw myself in their eyes, licking the leaking sauce from my hands, smearing the juice all over my chin, and blinking away tears from the chilies.
Sharing food or breaking bread or in this case breaking corn tortillas is of course a quick way to fall into friendship.
Eating together can make us feel vulnerable; nobody wants to make a mess of themselves in front of others or smile with cilantro stuck in their teeth. But this vulnerability is binding.
As is the taste of good food. Joy, like meaning, multiplies when shared.
Our Maze of Hotel
Daniel and I settled into a hotel with old-world charm and literary aspirations: El Mesón de los Poetas (The house of the Poets). A man who could have been a character in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel showed us various rooms in what I can best describe as a maze of hotel. He took obvious pleasure in our inability to grasp the layout of the building.
Later, I felt like a kid having a play date when I asked Brent and Michael: “Do you want to see our room?” They did, and we showed them around and we were pleased.
Breakfast the next day came with a maraschino cherry on top and was served in a covered courtyard that looked like a Medieval hall. Michael later offered to take my picture and here I am.
Diego Rivera's House Museum
After Daniel and I visited the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City and went to see many of the impressive murals painted by her life partner, Diego Riviera, we knew we had to visit the house in which he was born if we ever got the chance.
That chance was now. While Brent and Michael went to see the famous Guanajuato mummies in the morning, we entered the red house and admired the period furniture and some of Rivera’s early artworks. The cubist paintings he made! The talent he already showed at the age of twelve!
I was surprised by Rivera’s rather posh upbringing, considering his socialist beliefs. Perhaps he’d felt guilty for his father’s role in the mining industry. Perhaps witnessing the miners’ hardships made him a revolutionary at heart.
Alhóndiga de Granaditas: Hooks and Murals
At noon, Daniel and I got together again with Brent and Michael in the pillared courtyard of the granary, officially known as the Alhóndiga de Granaditas Regional Museum. This is the place where the Spaniards ensconced themselves before being killed.
Years later, different Spanish men got back in power and took revenge. They shot the four main insurgents—Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende (who gave San Miguel its name), Juan Aldama, and José Mariano Jiménez—and decapitated them. Their heads were hung from the corners of the granary to discourage other uprisings. They supposedly hung there for ten years. Now only the hooks remain, a gruesome sight.
The hooks, however, were not as gruesome as the murals inside the granary.
The depiction of the End of Slavery left the four of us temporarily without words.
The murals would have no doubt made an impact on me had I seen them alone, yet as I witnessed my own consternation mirrored on the faces of my travel companions, my experience deepened.
The Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera
Before Daniel and I headed back to San Miguel de Allende, the four of us took a taxi to a once luxurious hacienda that had been turned into a museum.
We were the only visitors and took our time taking in the countless rooms and extended gardens. The headless angel that was promised to us in the name of an outlook appeared to be missing (climb-bait!) and there was no water in the beautifully dilapidated pool. But none of that mattered. We simply strolled and talked, stood still and talked, and strolled some more, weaving our separate lives into a common narrative.
“I feel like we’re in a movie,” Brent said. “One without much plot.”
“And one that probably wouldn’t find any funding,” Daniel said.
But our movie was already playing. We were living this journey together, and although the heat was making me sleepy, I felt wonderfully awake to its depth.
Author News
I wrote a piece for Jane Friedman’s website that got published last Tuesday! You can read it for free through the link below.
“What Happens When We Treat Agents and Publishers as Genuine Partners.”
It’s about how I got a publication deal for my flash fiction collection Woman of the Hour and links to my submission materials available online.
Interested in Working with Me?
Between now and July 15th, I’m available for freelance work.
Please contact me at clairepolders@gmail.com for editing, ghostwriting, mentoring, book coaching, and other writing-related queries.
Or read more about these services on my website.
Related Essays
If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in reading:
Time to Say Goodbye
Daniel and I are physically still in San Miguel de Allende, housesitting for a reader of this newsletter, but in our minds we’re already in Peru. We’ve been researching hikes and ruins, booked trains and trails, and cannot wait to try some of the world’s best food. This summer will be epic.
All my best,
Claire
P.S. By recommending, sharing, liking, and commenting, you will draw more readers to my work. And I genuinely love your feedback. I’m grateful for your support.
Spent a summer there a LONG time ago- this brought back memories!
I noticed you didn’t mention the momias…
Thanks letting me vicariously travel with you! I only spent about a day in Guanajuato--what a great little city! I can't wait to go back!