Can we go back to Cervantino?

The long awaited Cervantino finally happened! Cervantino is an arts festival in Guanajuato City, the capital of the state of Guanajuato. My friend Bruno and I left Toluca for Guanajuato Thursday night. It took us a while to get there, though, because on the way a rock fell from the mountains we were driving between and did some damage to our car and the car behind us. So we finally arrived at about 1AM on Friday. And we needed some tacos. Obviously. Then we decided to explore the night life scene. We found a place to dance and decided to stay. Again, obviously.

On Friday, we took a day trip to San Miguel de Allende. It’s about an hour away from Guanajuato. We walked around the downtown area for most of the afternoon. We found an art museum with some awesome exhibits. Could you tell I like art from all the art museums I go to? My favorite exhibit at this museum was a room that every part of the room was painted except the floor. But the floor had footprints to show you where to stand to have different vantage points of the room. There was a sculpture at the end of the room that provided the best view. We walked through the San Miguel de Allende cathedral and a few other churches. The view from outside the cathedral was the best though. Especially at night. We ate traditional food from the Yucatan for dinner at La Casa del Diezmo. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves since we didn’t eat at a regular meal time. Then we headed back to Guanajuato to go to a traditional callejoneada performed by an estudiantina. We basically followed carolers around the city. It was a blast! There were more than 100 people in our group. After that, we found a cumbia and salsa club and danced the night away!

Saturday was devoted to exploring Guanajuato. We started by going to the huge indoor market where I bought floral crowns for Halfway to EDC and some gifts for people back home. Then we marched over to the Museo de la Alhóndiga de Granaditas. This was an important building in Mexico’s independence. It was stormed and taken over by Miguel Hidalgo and Juan José Martínez “El Pípila”. There is a large statue of El Pípila in Guanajuato which is where we went next. It’s at a high point in the city and the view was incredible! Someone dropped their beer bottle and the 200 people that were there all shouted the same thing at him. I love Mexican culture. Then we toured a mine and a torture museum. It was more comical than scary. The tour ended in a candy store. They knew how to get my stamp of approval. After we returned to the downtown area we went to a Cervantino event in which there were acrobats tethered to the top of an interactive screen. They would run across the screen and do flips over each other. Then we went to a rock concert in Spanish. And of course the night ended in dancing yet again!

Sunday we woke up way too early to drive to Mexico City so that I could catch a flight to Chicago. When I went to print out my ticket (which I had purchased the day before), they told me I needed a slip of paper I was given when I entered into Mexico which was in Toluca! I went to immigration and all was resolved because they said I just needed to show my residence card. Gracias a Dios. When I boarded the plane, one of my friends from the poms team in high school was my flight attendant! What are the odds? I enjoyed the complimentary beverage and snacks!