Towering over Guanajuato is the massive pink sandstone statue of El Pípila, a hero of the Mexican revolution. Clocking in at 20 meters tall, the statue can be seen from almost anywhere in the city.

There are multiple ways to get up to the park that houses the statue, but only one of them is frightening. Most people, I think, take a car or taxi, but you can also walk. You’d have to be both much younger and much more masochistic than we are to try walking up the switchback steps from the base to the summit.

But it was nothing. In fact, it was fun. But what’s funny is we agonized over whether this was a good idea, and it was fine, but then waltzed into the mummies exhibit like it was a picnic, and that shit was deeply disturbing. That’s where playing all four quarters of the mental game might have paid off.

Once up top, there are two things going on: communing with El Pípila his own self, and the view. He looks big from the bottom, but he’s… really big up close. I’m not sure whether that 20 meter measurement includes the base or not, but either way, that’s a lot of statue.

But the view… This is unquestionably the best view of the city.

So, What’s This Guy’s Story?

El Pípila’s story is pretty good. So, Spain, war of independence, yada yada yada. This may be reductive, but I think the Mexican Spanish wanted the right to abuse the indigenous population without having to get permission from the mothership. You know, independence.

So, just outside Guanajuato, one Father Miguel Hidalgo raised an army to take it to the Spanish, and marched into the city unchecked. The Spanish forces, along with the citizens who owned enough wealth and property to side with the royalists, retreated to the town’s granary, the Alhóndiga de Granaditas. Thus began the Siege of the Alhondiga.

To be fair, this is a very imposing building, with thick walls and the high ground. But this move still seems pretty idiotic. The Spanish forces permitted themselves to be surrounded, holed up in a fortress with no ability to resupply. Rooftop soldiers were able to keep the rebel forces from approaching the entrance, but the stalemate was only going to last as long as their food.

Enter El Pípila, a miner whose actual name was Juan José de los Reyes Martínez. An impatient fellow, he was unwilling to wait for the Spanish to starve, so he grabbed a torch and some pitch, strapped a large stone to his back to protect himself from them muskets, and crawled to the front door. A strategic application of pitch and torch burnt the entrance wide open, whereupon the superior rebel forces (20,000 rebels to 300 royalists) entered and slaughtered every one of the inhabitants, soldier and civilian alike. And then, because they had some free time, they pillaged the city.

This was the first victory for the rebels in the war for independence from Spain, but it was hardly the end of things. In fact, in some ways, it set the rebel cause back. It seems there were plenty of folk who craved an omelet but were squikked by the breaking of eggs. It’s not like the tactics employed were tuned to capture hearts and minds. In fact, Hidalgo had planned to march on Mexico City, but wasn’t sure he could control the forces he’d mustered.

Plus, the Spanish didn’t turn tail and flee at the first sign of discontent. The siege occurred in September 1810. The Mexican declaration of independence was executed in September 1821, eleven bloody years later.

But that’s not the end of the story for our heroes. Miguel Hidalgo and his three chief co-conspirators were captured by the Spanish and executed, their decapitated heads displayed at the four corners of Alhóndiga de Granaditas. The heads were left up for the entire period of the revolution. (“I shall see your brutality, sir, and raise you butchery”). Miguel’s would have looked down over the plot of land that now houses the Mercado Hidalgo. Named after him. So… happy ending!

Alhóndiga de Granaditas

Today, the Alhóndiga is a museum, compressing history from pre-Colonial to post-Colonial into a nice, tight package. It’s made from the green and pink striated sandstone native to the area, which is no less beautiful for being ubiquitous.

I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of celebrating the Colonial era in post-Colonial sites. There’s only so many portraits of Colonial nobles and so many artifacts from the Hall of Overdesigned Furniture I can process before it all curdles. The “servile veneration of European stupidity,” indeed.

The pre-Colombian exhibits, though, were well worth the trouble. The first hall was full of sellos, or seals. These were used to transfer patterns to textiles, paper, and ceramics, but they’re also wonderful artifacts in their own right.

The remainder of the pre-Colombian exhibits were primarily ceramics. Because the wooden stuff didn’t make it. It is, of course, impossible to know how these pieces were viewed at the time, but from our vantage point the design and execution read as playful. Even the sellos above have a notably jaunty profile. The premier collection of pre-Colombian art has to be Diego Rivera’s Museo Anahuacalli, but for a small collection, the Alhóndiga is lovely.

And then there are… these.

“Do you like this? You want some of this, don’t you?”

I had confessed to my sister and niece recently that my long-thwarted, lifelong ambition was to write fiction, but that I was crippled by a lack of imagination. They assured me that I was more than capable (so if I ever do try my hand at fiction, you know who to blame), but I swear there’s a novel in this portrait.

What is it about this? Is it the defiant poses of three girls in front? The crossed knife and fork on the Napoleonic chapeaux? The slightly abashed expressions on our boys? All of it? I want to know WTF is going on, but I also don’t want to know, so I can tell my own story. Perhaps I will.