We arrived in Guanajuato City on a Saturday. The flights were quick and easy, and there was no line at all for immigration and customs in Mexico City. Andrew was worried about having to pay taxes on his laptop when we arrived (apparently this is a common thing because electronics are cheaper in the U.S. and people travel from Mexico to bring them home for personal use or to resell them), but nobody asked about our electronics. We were also expecting to have to pick up our bags in Mexico City and recheck them before our flight to Guanajuato, but after waiting at the baggage carousel until all the bags were gone, a woman kindly explained that our bags would be waiting for us at our final destination. We had to wait a while for a taxi when we landed in Leon (about an hour from Guanajuato), but overall it was a seamless and easy travel day.
Guanajuato is an old mining town, and they did something really cool with all the tunnels when the mining industry dried up. They turned them into underground roads throughout the city, so it’s a very pedestrian-friendly town. We knew we were getting close to town when our taxi drove into the first tunnel, temporarily leaving behind a landscape of sparsely developed hills and valleys.
The tunnels periodically pop up at intersections where you glimpse the street level and buildings before diving back underground quickly. It was at one of these intersections that our driver pulled over on the side of the road next to a waving, smiling Norma. She was our Airbnb host and was meeting us to show us our accommodations. Andrew and I usually prefer to just check into a place alone, but we were grateful to Norma and her friend Guillermo for carrying our bags up the long, steep stairs.
Our apartment was one of two units in a house high up on a hill overlooking the town center, which is in a bowl surrounded by hills. From our porch we could see the main church, the university, el Pipila (a huge statue of a local hero across the valley) and the funicular that climbs up the hillside to it from the center of town. The apartment had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a good-size kitchen and dining table, a lounge that would become Andrew’s office, and a seating area in front of a wall of windows with that amazing view of the city. We had a washing machine and a water filter attached to the kitchen sink for drinking water, something we didn’t truly appreciate until we moved to Mexico City and had to get our own drinking water. There was one man (also from the United States) living in the unit above us with three dogs. We became friendly, but he was a bit of a recluse. He had people deliver his groceries, walk his dogs, and do any other chores that would have required him to leave the house.
After Norma showed us around the apartment and gave us advice for walking into town, Andrew and I headed out to explore. The first day in a new place is the best feeling! We trekked down the stairs outside our house (we later learned from Norma it’s the equivalent of four floors in a building), crossed the intersection outside the gate, and headed down a series of winding stairways through the city that led us into the city center in the valley. Our main agenda was to ride the funicular up to el Pipila, have a michelada at a bar we heard about at the top, and then walk back down to the city center. It’s a rough life.
Walking around Guanajuato is a tourist activity in its own right. There are narrow, pedestrian-only alleys and streets climbing all over the hills and into the valley of town that occasionally converge in a picturesque square surrounded by plants and trees, maybe with a cafe with some tables and chairs, or maybe a class of school kids eating lunch outside. The houses along the callejons (alleyways) and squares are brightly painted and most include plants hanging out of windows or on balconies. The best house in town also included a cat that stuck its head out of the window to yell hola to passersby. It was sunny and mild. A few of the larger streets allowed car traffic, but most of the time I forgot about cars completely.
