Guanajuato

So, not much else happened in Matehuala. The second night we were there, Petra announced she was going to play a little Nethack. She then sat in front of the computer for about 30 hours straight before sleeping for about five and then playing all the next day. It was a good game but her healer finally died, and she consoled herself by playing Civilization IV the entirety of that night. So I got a lot of reading done and walked around the Easter-time fiesta a bit (lot of stalls and it seemed like a parade or some entertainment was always about to start, but I never actually saw anything happen), and watched Petra play on the computer all weekend. It would have been boring if the 16-year-old "stupid junior" still within me didn't think it made Petra about the coolest, sexiest woman on earth.

We decided to stay Monday in Matehuala, since stores finally opened back up (a lot started to close on Holy Thursday) and we could finally get some overdue laundry cleaned. Tuesday we decided to go to Guanajuato. Petra and I had met a bike messenger in San Francisco at a bar while we were there in November and he had mentioned it as a neat place to go, and we've heard good things about it on the way down. So we took a bus to San Luis Potosi, changed for Leon, and then changed for the last hour to Guanajuato.

We both fell in love with the city as soon as we got here. Built on the slopes of a couple of hills, sometimes the brightly colored buildings seem literally stacked on top of each other, but walking around is not the minor adventure into mountain climbing that Real de Catorce was. It's a university town with a lot of tourists, so there is a nice mix of people and lots going on. The city itself reminded both Petra and I of Italy, with little roads twisting up between the buildings and lots of cafes and boutique shops. There are also performers everywhere: musicians in costumes playing period instruments, magicians on the street, or just some college student with his guitar sitting in front of the cafe. And the views are spectacular.

The first night we stayed at Hostel La Casa del Tio, a proper hostel with an attached sushi restaurant (which we never got around to trying, but the limited selection of rolls were 45-70 pesos). It has dorms for 100 pesos a person, but Petra managed to get us a private room (with shared bath) there for the same price as two dorm beds. It has a laundry machine (which makes the extra day we spent in Matehuala kind of a waste, but after the dust of Wadley our clothes /really/ needed washed), a small stove for cooking, and a rooftop terrace with great views of the city; the only thing we didn't like was that breakfast was included, but all it was was a piece of pre-made toast, store jam, and bad coffee. Still, 200 pesos is more than we wanted to spend and we spent Wednesday pricing all the hostels and hotels we could find. We really liked another nearby hostel, Estacion Esperanza, which had great decor, homemade bread and preserves for breakfast, and was right next door to one of the neatest cafes in the city. Unfortunately the dorms were also 100/person/night.

In a slightly different part of town a bit nearer to the university we found Hotel Parador del la Gadarza Diego Rivera for 150 pesos a night. It also had a great shower and our first television since Ciudad Victoria, which we took intermittent use of.
As you walk around Guanajuato, you'll see pictures and statues of Don Quixote everywhere. The town bills itself as the Cervantes Capital of the Americas, for reasons that I never quite figured out. I've never read Don Quixote, but I'm a fan of the musical "Man of La Mancha" and so know at least the first half of the story from the book. There was even a museum of Quixote art that has free entry on Sundays; I had planned to check it out, but came down with the stomach thing on a Saturday and never quite got around to doing much after that. Still, the public art was great, especially a pair of statues of Don Quixote and Sancho by the Teatro Cervantes.
We had a big night out one evening, catching a Mexican ska band in one bar before heading over to catch another band somewhere else. On the way home, we met a bunch of performers from the Renaissance Festival that was in town -- four sword fighters and their resident gypsy. We had seen advertisements for the festival and had planned to check it out, and had a lot of fun chatting. The next evening we ran into them again, as the Renaissance performers paraded through town. So we marched along with our friends most of the route, dodging out of the way as they fought with some other performers; Mexican swordfighters use real metal swords and axes instead of foam "boffo" swords, so we definitely wanted to stay clear. It was interesting, though, how they would communicate back and forth about what they were going to do and where they were going to attack; it didn't look like any of it was stage managed before hand, but rather they were good at improvising an entire battle while not actually hitting each other in the process.
The parade also had a piper babe! It occurred to me that I don't think I had ever seen a woman playing the bagpipes before, a fact that seems odd in retrospect. There were also dancing horses -- I can't remember the exact term for the sort of riding, but the horses would kind of clop and pose in rhythm to the music, which made for an odd spectacle. And then there was the fire breather, who must have used a couple of liters of oil as he all but singed the eyebrows off the nearby spectators.
The next day we did go to the festival itself, but it looked to be a very small affair mostly comprised of Corona tents set up in a baseball field, and cost 50 pesos to enter. After the parade we figured we had gotten a taste of pretty much all the entertainment, and we just got the feeling we wouldn't be missing that much not going to the festival itself.
We wound up staying a lot longer than expected in Guanajuato since after about a week we both came down with either food poisoning or some sort of stomach bug, which put us out of commission for nearly another week. Every evening we would swear we were leaving the next day, but in the morning we'd still feel queasy and just stay in bed.