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From my vantage point I could see everything. Sitting in a small sidewalk café with the very original name, El Café
(The Café), I was working on my third cup of Nescafe while watching
Mexicans walking by like someone was chasing them. Of the many Twilight
Zone events I've had while living in Guanajuato, Mexico, this is really
the most bizarre. It is a cultural fact that you could bet the farm on
that Mexicans will never get to an appointment on time-ever. Setting up
an appointment at three in the afternoon, for example, can mean a host
of things, none of which means that the person will show up at three.
So just where they are going in such an apparent hurry, I cannot
possibly say.
From that point of view, Guanajuato is not an
especially nice place to walk between the hours of ten in the morning
and two in the afternoon. To test this hypothesis, try walking from a
barrio called Embajadoras to the Super, Comercial Mexicana, between
those hours. Here's a tip: Make sure your Tourist's Insurance Premiums
are paid up.
El Café is located on the side of Guanajuato's
magnificently ostentatious Juarez Theater and diagonally across from
the main plaza, El Jardin. From here, you can watch the city, at least
in El Centro (The Center), wake up. I watched vendors buzzing about
like so many bees in a busy swarm toting restaurant supplies on their
little dollies making hurried deliveries. Shopkeepers were busy opening
up their doors and removing the huge wooden panels from their boarded
windows. Sidewalks were swept and mopped (I just love that!). I've
written often that this is the very best time to see Guanajuato-in the
early mornings-without the fear of being swept off a sidewalk by the
race-walking, pressing throng.
After the third cup of Nescafe and finally reaching that I-am-now-going-to-vomit-myself-to-death taste in my mouth, I decided it was time to get moving on the day. But first, I have to explain the Nescafe angle in this town.
Nescafe is what is served in most small cafés in Guanajuato. If you want a cup of Americano,
Nescafe is what you will get. Now, I have no ill will toward Nescafe
and will indulge in a cup when there is nothing else to order. The
strategy to successfully surviving a morning of this brew without
suffering a possible stroke is to add more sugar than the human body
can possibly handle and then throwing it back like you are tossing back
a shot of tequila. And, note this, there are rarely free refills. I
must add a note here: El Café does serve great scrambled eggs with
chorizo.
My objective, the target of my sleuthing travel writing
quest, was to journey, entirely on foot, to La Plaza de la Paz (The
plaza of peace). For this arduous hike, I was duly fortified and
knowing it would take all of sixty seconds, I was ready for it. But
before I could go, I had to deal with the line of beggars and vendors
who had queued at my table.
These people always know when I come
into town. They must send each other messages on their Blackberry's
when one of them spots me ambling along the streets. It doesn't matter
what time of day I show up, "Red Alert...Bower's coming!" They come,
one after another, to my table with assorted items from which I can
chose NOT to buy. One lady had candy bars, or so she claimed, wrapped
in red cellophane with Chinese characters on the packaging. The
lettering looked faded like it had been manufactured in 1945 and
probably read something like, "Chin-a-Lax-a-Tive". Next, the Doily Lady
came rolling up.
I believe The Doily Lady has to have convinced
herself that she will sell us something before she dies, which seems
imminent. For the past six years, she has tried selling us stuff that
frankly looks like she got it at Wal-Mart. She always hits on us and
when we refuse, she has a follow-up sales pitch to try and overcome our
long-term refusal. She never gives up, ever. Once, we tried ignoring
her while we kept walking. This would not do. Oh no. She grabbed hold
of the belt on the back of my wife's pants and was dragged along as
though she was water skiing and my wife was the motorboat. I had to
dislodge her hands and yell at my wife to run. The poor old thing is
that persistent. And here the kicker: I've never seen anyone, Gringo or
Mexican, buy the dear's stuff. Sad, really.
After that bit of
distraction, I walked to La Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
Guanajuato's parish church. La Basilica doesn't look all that
impressive when approaching the plaza in which it sits and that is
because the traffic on both streets that run parallel to it goes the
wrong direction. So, for example, if you were to take an automobile of
any sort into the plaza, you wouldn't know what the structure was
unless someone hit you on the head and said, "Hey, look at that
church." And, even then, you would have to twist your head backwards in
Linda Blair style to see it. The visual impact of the church would
indeed be impressive if the traffic flow was reversed. This 17th-century
Baroque church is most impressive when viewed on foot from the opposite
side of the plaza. In its elevated splendor, the main entrance is
reached by climbing semicircular and steep stairs. In older photos, the
church's entrance is at street level. This is no longer the case.
I
was there at about nine in the morning to get a better look at the most
unique object in the church. Though I had seen pictures of this 8th-century
statue, I had yet to see her in the actual context of the church's
altar. She used to sit on the back wall, behind the alter and to the
left. You really couldn't see it since services were always in progress
when I was there. Many American tourists will, unfortunately, think
they should have access to the churches, like the churches are Museums,
and will often march to the front during a service and start squeezing
off snapshots. We saw this happen at a child's funeral. The tourists,
dressed for the beach, rushed to the front when the casket was being
opened and snapped photos. The churches are not museums and are there
for the spiritual needs of the locals.
When I settled into a pew
and got out my writing things, I noticed five people sitting toward the
front and in the right side of the pews. I always fret when I walk into
a church on a writing gig and there are parishioners making spooky but
soft chanting sounds, as these five were. They were all hunched over
like they were suffering stomach cramps in unison and erupting in
sudden moans and groans. I thought they were either sick or practicing
some esoteric religious moaning exercises with which I was unfamiliar.
Whatever it was, they didn't seem to mind a horde of workers who were
climbing scaffolding and dropping things to the church floor from
dizzying heights. The one thing I was very pleased about is that the
virgin I came to see was brought to the front of the altar and sat in
what looked like a dessert case at Denny's. She was locked up snug and
in a glass container where all could view without difficulty.
The story about this religious icon is a great one and one which I love.
Our
Lady of Guadalupe is a sculpture standing 1.15 meters high and depicts
the Virgin holding Baby Jesus. Depending on the version of history you
find, it was alleged to have been created around 714 A.D. and was
hidden, probably in caves or catacombs, in Spain during the
five-hundred year Moorish rule. King Charles V of Spain donated the
statute that was rediscovered. In 1557, the statue arrived in
Guanajuato and later came to be called Our Lady of Guanajuato. It was
actually Charles' son, Phillip II, who was entrusted with the icon's
journey to and safe arrival in Guanajuato.
Though nothing is
really known about the sea voyage of the icon to Mexico across the
Atlantic, one can only imagine the peril it faced. Perafán de Rivera,
the nobleman assigned to bring the statue to Mexico, didn't know where
Guanajuato was exactly and became essentially lost. Just a suburb away
in the area today known as Yerbabuena, he stopped to reconnoiter and
prayed to the icon for help. According to legend, a pair of white doves
guided him in safety to the city of Guanajuato.
Considered to
be the oldest piece of Christian art and carved from one piece of
cedar, the statue has actually a rather interesting part in its history
in which thieves made off with the jewels sewn into the sculpture's
garment. The thieves didn't get far and the jewels were recovered. I
cannot begin to imagine what the locals must have done to the thieves.
Though
the actual icon looks rather dull, it is amazing that it is so old and
so well preserved. Presently (Fall 2008), when there are no services
going on, you can walk right up to the front and have a look at what
two members of the Spanish royalty and a geographically-challenged
nobleman went to a lot of trouble to bring to the new world-New Spain,
today Mexico.
I looked over my left shoulder and the five moaning
parishioners were still rocking and moaning, the workers were still on
their scaffolding dropping things from the rafters, and I took my leave
with my mission accomplished.
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 A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue for a Christmas Special I am offering...
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