A side trip to San Miguel

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San Miguel de Allende is a lovely (colonial of course) town to the east of here. There's a lot more foreign (mainly US) investment there and consequently the buildings and town (and prices) show a degree of wealth not much evident in Guanajuato. Generally a lot more greenery exists in the streets and the city has several large parks in addition to the usual plazas. It's quite a pretty and relaxed place although receives some criticism for having "too many Americans". Not sure about the level of geography studied here.

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There are lots of cafes, bars and restaurants. We had a lovely evening and dinner on a rooftop terrace overlooking the cathederal drinking absolutely fabulous, antartic margaritas with Anna from our grammer classes.

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San Miguel was a short bus ride away from Guanajuato (an hour and a half) but an interminable ride back. Driving at hair-raising speed around blind bends on the wrong side of the road and overtaking on curves and up hill (on crests) were part of it. A tendency to pull in front of other vehicles and slam on the brakes for effect (and presumably to annoy the other driver) was the icing on the cake. On our (unexpected) safe return I was inspired to use my best Spanish to lodge a complaint ("me no gusta"; "muy peligroso") at the teminal office. The man there appeared to take me seriously. Mind you, his look of concern could have easily been about my lack of words rather than my intended message. I'm seeing that look quite a lot. Back to school....

A walk in the hills

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I had my eye on the hills (mountains I guess) around Guanajuato from the moment I saw them. How to get into them though was a mystery. The odd conversation produced a few hints and suggested, although it always seems dodgey to head off into the "beyond", it was a safe thing to do.

We actually set off for a little trip to the famous-person-statue that looks out over Guanajuato. That turned into a stroll along the road (La Panaramica) that circles around the top of the town. A place not to be ventured into at night apparently (even for Mexicans - as warned by a staff member of our Spanish school). And then we just got closer and closer (comments like "around the next corner"; "just a little bit higher" (from Mary!) etc) and before we knew it, were climbing into the spectacular hills that rise up around Guanajuato.
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Starting from the upper edge of the town, which sits at around 2000m, it's a fairly impressive scramble up to a plateau with massive rocky outcrops worthy of the equivalent of national park status. The land is fairly dry despite regular afternoon thunder storms. The odd burro is grazed up there. There are no fences so the poor things have their front legs tied (tightly) together to stop them going too far.