Guanajuato (wahn-ah-wa-toe)

A beautiful part of the world, Guanajuato is an old colonial mining town that's now a UNESCO heritage site. For a couple of hundred years, it supplied something ridiculous, like, 40% of the world's silver. There's a heap of old money in this town and a thriving tourist industry means the upkeep is pretty successful.


There's an intricate and facinating network of tunnels beneath the city proper. Built obviously for transporting the miners and silver, it now takes the multitude of silver-wearing tourists from one of end of town to the other.

There's a large student contingent living and studying here. That means great cafes and music. Beret-wearing, bearded, boho-hobo students are thick on the ground :)

Apart from its silver, Guanajuato is also famed for its mummy museum. The soil conditions in the area are ideal for corpse preservation. Every so oftern, the local cemetry will exhume the bodies of people whose family haven't kept up payments for maintenance and display the best specimens in the museum. So the 'mummies' behind the glass are sometimes only a couple of decades old !

It's also home to the smallest mummy in the world - a 5 month old fetus. Trust me, it was gruesome.

It's utter desecration but at the same time, terribly pragmatic and purposeful. Mexicans appear to have a very healthy consideration about death.

(I hope to learn more during the upcoming Day of the Dead 'Día de Muertos')

This was the balcony of our hostel. Ludicrously inexpensive, we sat drinking tequila overlooking the shimmering mountains as mariachi music wafted from the streets below. Glorious.