Guanajuato

A group of 19 of us went the Guanajuato (226 miles northwest of Mexico City) on Mon Jan 17. It is a beautiful colonial city where not many Gringos visit. It spills across cliffs and hillsides down to a series of tree-shaded plazas. It was a prominent silver-mining city a couple of centuries ago. It is in a gorge surrounded by mountains. It has cobblestone streets, dotted with colorful houses. It has a vast subterranean roadway where a rushing river once coursed through the city. It was made a World Heritage Site in 1988. We used our Christmas gift money for transportation, lunch, and remembrances.

Elder Norton taking Sister Norton's picture on the pictureque street. It would remind you of Europe.

In 1905 due to a lot of rain and that the city is built on these waterways. The water reached a depth indicated by the blue sign on the wall.

Statue of Eulalio Ferrer, writer and journalist, fled Fascist Spain for Mexico after his imprisonment in a Spanish concentration camp in the 1930s. He was fascinated by Cervantes's classic novel Don Quixote and developed a life long passions for the character.

Statues of Don Quixote and his side kick.

A beggar woman we passed on the street.

The University of Guanajuato built of sandstone. Origianally founded in 1732 as a Jesuit seminary. This facade was built in 1955.

Sister Monte

Statue of Diego Rivera, a well known artist who depicts many events that took place during the independence of Mexico. We have seen some of his murals in Mexico City. He was a communist and had leanings toward Lenin.

Birth place of Diego Rivera and now a museum.

A very steep street.

Jewelry vendors in front of Albondiga de Granaditas, an 18th century granery later served as a jail and a fortress during the War of Independence. The next two pictures show the hooks that dangle on the exterior of this massive stone structure on which the Spanish Royalists hung the severed heads of Father Hildalgo and Ignacio Allende and two others.

Mummified human corpses are on display in this museum. Because of the mineral properties of the local soil, these cadavers (some 130 years old) are in astonishingly good condition. It was at the top of a very steep hill.