This is the second time we’ve transitioned out of the US. The first was when we started this folly and left for Oaxaca. Our response to that transition was roughly, “Holy shit, we’re really doing this.”

We had a different response this time, when we left Chicago after Dorothy’s right hip replacement. It was more like, “Aaah, we’re back where we belong.” Managing the routine of not having a routine.

I think we were both surprised at how much it felt like we were coming home, even though we’ve never been here. The closest comparison I can make is that if felt like getting remarried after we’d gotten divorced.

Relationship math says that you’re on solid ground if the positives outweigh the negatives. But the negatives are still there, still a source of friction. The thing about getting remarried was that it involved a very conscious calculus, not so much a willingness to accept the negatives as a part of the deal, and more the acknowledgement that continuing to give the negatives weight was just stupid. They exist, but they’ve been intentionally chosen, with full knowledge of the alternatives, and not grudgingly accepted.

Living this lifestyle is much the same. We’re gaining things of real value, but we’ve both had to give up things that matter to us: a settled home, a weekly boardgame night, a fully stocked sewing room, time spent apart, the ability to speak to other people in our native tongue, a fully stocked liquor cabinet, time spent apart…

After seven weeks in the US, our primary response to Guanajuato was relief. It was the understanding that the things we’ve given up weren’t just costs we were willing to absorb, but that they didn’t even matter. They’ve been chosen, rather than accepted. We’re now relaxed into this adventure in the same way we relaxed into our second marriage. Although it’s unlikely to last as long.

The Apartment

We have another bedsit, like in Chetumal, but without even the room divider we had there. It’s more like a hotel room with a kitchenette than an apartment. We’re only here five weeks, so it’s fine, but I think it would be a little claustrophobic if we were here three months.

I’ve mentioned before that part of our settling in process involves picking up whatever housewares we need to cover what’s missing in a new apartment. We just leave those behind when we exit, and consider it the cost of being comfortable while we’re there. You can see in the budget I’ve posted what some of those costs look like for representative months, but I thought I’d provide a little more detail this time.

For this apartment we picked up: a pitcher for tea, a compost pail (most everywhere we go the trash cans don’t seal well, so if we don’t keep organic waste covered we get flies, but we don’t actually compost), two bath towels, a large skillet (we’ve left behind a large skillet in almost every apartment – we’re going to see if we can shed enough weight to make room for it when we leave), a small rolling cart (you can see it under the sink in the photos above – very poor storage in this apartment), a serving tray (to use as a lap desk on the sofa), hangers (another thing we always have to buy and leave behind), two tumblers, and four melmac bowls. Total cost: $63.52 for a five week stay. Obviously, the longer we stay someplace (we’re five weeks here, but three months is our target) the less money we churn doing this.

The Elephant In the Bathroom

Or, Is Geography Destiny?

Guanajuato is not the only city in the world carved into a mountainside. There’s La Paz, Quito, Setenil de las Bodegas, Sana’a… But it may be the most colorful, and it’s the only one we’ve visited, so it’s obviously special.

Guanajuato has been occupied for thousands of years, but the city proper dates from the 1500s, and has the Colonial architecture to prove it. The area was rich with silver and gold deposits, which were utilized by the Aztecs and their forebears prior to the Spanish. Leave it to the Spanish to industrialize the process, exploiting both the resources and the population.

At its peak, a single Guanajuato silver mine, La Valenciana, churned out 2/3 of worldwide production. This was no Silver Rush. Over a 250 year period, La Valenciana alone produced 30% of the world’s silver. Unsurprisingly, Guanajuato was Mexico’s richest city at the peak of silver production in the 1800s.

The steep mountainsides forced the residential equivalent of terrace farming, with successive layers of housing climbing up the mountain. That’s where the mountain in our bathroom comes from – our building is literally clinging to the rocks.

What’s not clear is why that pattern required that the housing be connected by narrow alleys instead of actual streets. Density is surely one reason. Narrowing the pathways permitted more housing to be built, and I’m sure the labor demands of mining at scale required lots of housing. While the climate is mountain temperate, Guanajuato is pretty high up, and the narrow alleys also tend to reduce the impact of the sun and promote cooling. Maybe it was for defensive purposes. Maybe nobody was paying attention, and it just happened.

Whatever the origin story, the narrow alleys have all kinds of practical impacts. First, there’s no way to navigate a car, or any kind of vehicle, or even a cart, up into the web of alleys. If you want something in your home, you carry it up. Although I did see a pair of pack mules, which makes perfect sense. But I also saw men carrying loads of concrete blocks up the stairs on their backs.

But it’s honestly hard to grasp the landscape from still photos. OK, there are some narrow alleys. So what? This video should provide more of the full experience. As I approach, the opening is so narrow it just looks like the gap between buildings. Then you see stairs, and it just has to be leading to someone’s front door. But, no. It’s actually part of the legitimate navigational terrain.

Guanajuato is also a fairly rainy climate. When we moved in, our host cautioned us to keep our windows closed when we weren’t in, to make sure rain didn’t enter. Which made no sense. The alleys are so narrow, rain can fall down, but there’s just no space for the wind to whip it sideways.

Then we had our first rainstorm.

The narrow alleys act as spillways, channeling the rainfall into rapids. We had to close the windows because we were getting whitewater splashing in from the current, not from the sky.

Nowadays the tourist trap legend says that if you kiss on the third step of the Callejón you’ll get 15 years of great relationship mojo, but a kiss on any other step and you’re fucked. Duh.

The Neighborhood

When we were planning this adventure I read as many travel blogs as I could, to pick up helpful tips and tricks. I’m happy to learn from other people’s mistakes. I don’t insist on only heeding my own.

One of the tips I read, which seemed to make a lot of sense, was to never book your accommodations for the length of your stay in advance. Instead, pick up a week’s Airbnb, then look around once you get there to find the right place for the rest of the stay. The theory being that there’s no way to tell without being there whether a neighborhood is safe, or convenient, or desirable. Hedge your bets.

Aspirationally, that was advice I really wanted to follow. Practically, we haven’t done it yet. Just the thought of getting off an airplane, unpacking into an Airbnb, and then sprinting for the next week to find longer term housing, so we could pack up, move, and resettle yet again… I’m exhausted describing it. We decided we’d rather settle for a less than perfect neighborhood than have to run that particular gauntlet.

But here’s the weird thing: so far, every single apartment we’ve rented has been in the absolutely perfect location. Once we know the city, we always say, “This is the location we’d have picked if we actually knew anything.” I know it’s better to be lucky than good, and we’ve been attributing this outcome to luck. But it’s been so consistent that it’s starting to look like a weird, inexplicable skill instead.

I’ll regret that, because I’ve now guaranteed that our next neighborhood will be a shithole (looking at you, Rosarito Beach). It’s not like I don’t understand how hubris works. A seemingly indifferent universe can rouse itself and notice you, which never ends well. But at least this time, we fell into a pot of jam once again. Our apartment here is ideally situated.

There are small tiendas dotted everywhere, selling everything from housewares to produce. Compared to Oaxaca, there are fewer restaurants but more little shops and street vendors. We also have a Soriana supermercado a few blocks away, and just two blocks further is Mercado Hidalgo, the main traditional mercado. The structure was originally designed as a train station, but by the time construction was complete in 1910 they were like “Fuck the trains. It’s a mercado!” It’s been in continuous service since.

We’re so close to the shopping because we’re hard by the Centro. The Centro is in the flats, the valley below the mountains. So while the pattern of narrow, twisting alleys remains, walking the Centro is more like taking a stroll than staging an ascent of K2.

Plaza De Las Ranas

Guanajuato isn’t just a place name. It’s also a word in the Purépecha language. It means hill of frogs. Apparently, there used to be a lot of frogs here. Kind of like how US subdivisions are always named for the features that were destroyed during their construction. Twin Oaks. Green Valley. Creekside.

So… no more frogs. But they’re still Guanajuato’s spirit animal, and they figure prominently around the city as iconography. No more so than at the Plaza of Frogs. The Plaza features twenty different frog sculptures, plus the enormous mosaic frog that takes up most of the plaza floor. Unfortunately, there’s no way to get a good angle on that from the ground. But we took pictures of all twenty (Gotta catch ’em all!), and share with you these greatest frog hits from Plaza de las Ranas.

It Really Is Uphill Both Ways

Guanajuato is a notably vertical city, with housing climbing up the sides of the mountains. But there’s even more to it than the height. The city also has a subterranean component, with tunnels and roadways existing on multiple levels.

Back in the mining days, the Rio Guanajuato ran through town and regularly flooded the city. Which was apparently OK with everyone until the mines started flooding, and then it was all hands on deck. As it happened, the mining companies knew a thing or two about blowing up mountains, so they blasted a series of tunnels to divert the floodwaters.

Still photos don’t do the tunnels justice, so here’s a quick walk through a short section. At the point where this video ends, it took me almost eight more minutes to walk the straight path ahead to the tunnel’s exit. These tunnels are long.

Charmed, I’m Sure…

I’m going out on a limb and claiming that, all things considered, Guanajuato out-charms Oaxaca. Oaxaca is charming because of what people are doing in it. The calendas and processions, the public performances, the way that the entire city feels like one big town square. If you neutron bombed the people out, the empty city that was left would be interesting, but it wouldn’t be charming.

Not for nothing, Guanajuato is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (as is Oaxaca, to be fair), and is charming in its own right. Even without people, you’d walk the town and be all, “Damn, this is cute.” There’s also more than a faint whiff of Antigua, Guatemala. Like Antigua, Guanajuato is chock-a-block with some serious, high-end Colonial buildings, both residential and public. While the mountainsides may have been housing for the peasants, there was serious money here, and the city shows it.

I keep comparing Oaxaca and Guanajuato, but they’re both spectacular cities, and so different. Oaxaca feels more knowable, for example. It’s laid out on a fairly rational grid, and there are zones and neighborhoods that aren’t that hard to pick up. After a couple of weeks, you can feel like you know both how and where to navigate.

Guanajuato, on the other hand, with its twisted alleys and recursive geometry, feels like it’s hiding a secret around every corner. Where Oaxaca gives itself up, Guanajuato holds itself back. Oaxaca welcomes where Guanajuato dares. OK, fine. Oaxaca is a dog and Guanajuato is a cat. Happy now?

We knew nothing about Guanajuato before this visit, but it was highly recommended by our friend Lyna when she knew we were planning most of our first year in Mexico. Many thanks, as this is fast becoming our favorite place in Mexico.