More Guana

I´m now sitting in the open window of a great little cafe drinking my espresso, people watching out the window, and writing this journal.The sun is shining, the air is warm. The temp is probably in the low 70´s, but it feels great.
The moment I walk somewhere in this town,I immediately get lost in the twisty narow little pedestrian-only alleys. But what fun! One problem is: if I find something interesting, I´ll never be able to find my way back to it again. However, the town is small, so by just walking, I ultimately come to something I recognize. Enroute I saw a street artist intricately painting the tops of bottle caps with pretty amazing detail. The houses are bright and colorful: blue,yellow, red, everything bright. For my color-challenged eyes the colors are wonderful! Sometimes the narrow streets or alleyways will end in a dead end with steep stairs going down to the narrow one-way traffic tunnels down below, and presumably a bus stop down there. Now I wish I had brought with me the camera Jeff gave me. Guanajuato is a photographer´s dream with so many eye-catching perspectives, views, interesting houses and people, etc.
Guanajuato offers regular plazas, little plazas, and gardens. One of the nicest is the "Union Garden." It has outside tables all around the square from the restaurants that line the square. There´s a mariachi band doing its thing all hours of the day and night. Not only do they play great, but they look terrific: black pants, black vests, white shirts, black sombreros, shiny buttons.
In this garden, there are ficus trees about 30 feet tall which have been grown to grow together, starting about 10 feet off the ground. The result is they offer shade to all the folks sitting at the outside tables. I´m sitting on a bench in the inside of the garden, freeloading-listening to the band perform for the patrons in the restaurants.
Their music is different from what we usually think of (at least what I think of when thinking of mariachis: sort of blaring trumpets and a sometimes grating sound. S. tells me the music of this area is different. It´s called "roballa", consisting of accordion, guitars, bass, drums, and all performers singing either romantic songs or sad songs of loves won and lost, etc.
Guanajuato is the home of the Mexican revolution. In 1810 (I think), Fr. Jose Manuel Hidalgo rang a church bell and shouted (el "grito") at Mexicans to start the revolution against Spain. It worked. Every year on the anniversary of Mexico´s independence day, the President rings the same bell at midnight in the huge square of Mexico City in front of thousands of people and repeats the cry for Mexican independence. However, here in Guanajuato is where it pretty much started.
Hidalgo headed up a group of rag-tag revolutionaries. The Spanish troops barricaded themselves in a large grain house, called the Alhondiga. The Spanish had superior firepower and could have held out for a long time. Instead, a peasant hero, Pipila, tied a stone slab to his back to repel bullets and was able to crawl unwounded up to the main door of the Alhondiga, with bullets ricocheting off him. He lit the great wooden door on fire and the rebels were able to enter and conquer the Spaniards (background music rises to a crescendo). There´s now a large stone monument on the top of a hill, reached by a funicular, dedicated to Pipila. The words on the monument warn ominously: "There are other Alhondigas to burn!"
As the sun begins to go down,the temperature likewise drops. The people bundle up in wool mittens and scarves and caps and talk about the "killer cold." It´s probably about 50 degrees, tame by Quincy standards. The mariachis shiver and brave on, the waiters continue to do their thing. Only the tourists, most of them Mexican, retreat to the warmth of their rooms or indoor bars. And with that, so will I. Hasta luego and Good night!