The city of Guanajuato looks like a collaboration between M.C. Escher and Dr. Seuss.
A riot of colors, shapes and angles clings to the accordion folds of steep and rugged hills, conforming to their shape with no attempt made to alter the landscape to fit the designs of the city’s denizens.
Although the area of Guanajuato has been populated for millennia, its population boomed after the Spanish arrived, thanks to its massive mineral deposits, including the Spaniard’s favorite mineral, gold. The streets of Guanajuato largely consist of the tunnels that were once used to transport detritus and minerals from the mines to points downriver. This means that many of Guanajuato’s streets run underground, which makes for a very interesting driving experience.
Our initial tunnel driving experience was a bit of a surprise as we had planned not to drive through them. We were warned not to, in fact, as they constitute a narrow, confusing and one-way labyrinth. However, I missed the turn off for the Panorámico, the road that circumnavigates Guanajuato. The sign for the Panoramica blurred by, giving us just enough time to say “Oh, sh-“, before plunging into the maw of a tunnel. Our GPS immediately lost signal and we were left weaving and winding through Guanajuato’s underside.
As Bob Ross was fond of saying, there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents. Our foray into the tunnels was one such accident. Time was on our side, so we relaxed into the subterranean roller coaster and let ourselves be awed by the architecture we glimpsed through the windshield.
Time-rich or not, we eventually had to find our way out of the tunnels and to the campsite where we planned to spend the next few days. Having missed the Panoramica, the climb to the campsite was another mini-adventure. Rather than drive down a short, if rather steep descent from the Panoramica to the hillside campground, we had to drive straight up the hill, the steepness of which is difficult to overstate. The road up was cobbled, narrow, winding and two-way. Turning corners involved honking to alert other drivers that you were coming up. We used our car’s low-gear/high-torque setting for the first time and I am pleased to report that it worked quite well. With the engine howling, we executed a hairpin right turn into the campsite and toasted our adventure with a couple of well-earned cervezas.
We had arrived in Guanajuato at a fortunate moment. The city was in the midst of celebrating its 44th Festival Internacional Cervantino, one of Latin America’s biggest celebrations of art, music and culture. Rooted in the plays of Miguel de Cervantes and taking liberal inspiration from Don Quijote, the festival is a non-stop act, populated by pantaloon-clad student minstrels, actors, art shows, musicians, clowns, buskers of all colors and enthusiastic tourists from every country in Latin America and many beyond.
We were months late in being able to buy tickets to any of the indoor events, but with so much taking place on the street, we didn’t feel left out of anything. Simply navigating Guanajuato’s mad geometry made for a complete day of fun. The city is all winding streets, stairs up mountainsides and comically narrow alleys. Our view would frequently be restricted to an arm’s length diameter between the walls of a steep alley only to be suddenly unlimited upon turning a corner onto a mountainside vantage point.
Before coming to Mexico, I had never even heard of Guanajuato. Now I feel like it should be on every person’s bucket list.
Each day of exploration ended at the campsite with a bottle of wine and some good company while the late evening sun set fire to the colors of the city. The good company came in the form of our campsite neighbors, who were frequently other overlanders making their own way through the Americas.
Meeting our fellow travelers was great. It felt good to share our experiences of life on the road and to feel part of a community of vagabond travelers. There were two young couples, one of which consisted of newlyweds, a retired couple from Germany, a middle-aged Quebecois couple taking a year off and a French-American family of six, out to show their kids the world before the kids grew too old to want to travel with their parents.
Another advantage of our campsite was its proximity to a brewery. Mexican beer has a bad reputation for good reason. The best that I can say about Mexico’s main beer labels is that they are quite refreshing if the beer is very cold and the day is very hot. However, Mexico is currently passing through the opening movements of a craft brewing revolution and the craft beers that we’ve tasted so far have been great.
Cervercería Gambusino lay at a five minute walk from our campground. Jordan and I hiked up the slope to it with Jenna and Jonathan, the newlywed couple. Described in one review as a “brewpub”, it was not quite what I expected. There was a line of taps just inside the front door, but there the “pub” look ended. The first floor is just a brewery, with the home of one of the brewers occupying the second floor.
That particular brewer happened to be in when we entered and he quickly cleared off a picnic table and found some plastic chairs for us before inviting us to one of their beers. The other brewer in the team arrived during our tasting, along with another business partner and the seven of us spent some time chatting about and sipping beer. They had six or seven styles of really very good beer on hand and we tried most of them before deciding that our bellies needed to be fuller before trying another.
We could easily have stayed in Guanajuato longer. However, Mexico is a big and beautiful country and there is a lot left to see. We can’t see it all on this trip (unfortunately!), so after four full days in the city, we made our way back through the tunnels, on our way to el Nevado de Toluca.
