El Pípila is the nickname of a Mexican hero from the War of Independence. There is a big statue on a high hill with great views of Guanajuato. On the home page of this website is our picture taken there from 2018. Yesterday we walked up the hill and we are just now catching our breath.
These are the stairs we took down. We went up by a more zigzag path. We are probably a third of the way down in this picture.
Guanajuato has a maze of tunnels under the city’s center for car and bus traffic. The tunnels were originally constructed to allow water to drain during the rainy season, and were eventually widened and converted into roads. The tunnels are well lit and have sidewalks for pedestrians. Some open up and are not all dark and scary. (Some are long, dark and scary, meant for cars only). Yesterday we walked through a few.
There are stairs down in many places, mostly near the underground bus stops.
There’s even art down below.
Our apartment has a mural on one wall and we found the location that was used as inspiration.
On Sunday we went to the Presa neighborhood for Sunday Brunch. It’s far enough away that we took one of the city buses to get there. In most cities we’ve been to, the buses have numbers and the bus stops have signs indicating routes. Guanajuato has bus stops with shelters and benches, like normal cities. But there are no route maps or route numbers to be found, online or printed anywhere. Each bus has its stops written on the front windshield. So how do you know which bus stop to stand at to catch the bus you want? Luckily it’s like being on an island, so you can’t really get lost. We’re in a valley surrounded by even higher mountain peaks. Most buses seem to have a circular route, and there are many one way streets. By looking at a map and making an educated guess, we managed to get on the right bus on the first try.
There’s a nice park in the neighborhood.
Another of Guanajuato’s mysteries: there are multiple statues of Don Quixote around town. There’s a Don Quixote museum. There’s a festival every year named after the author (Miguel de Cervantes).
Us in a park
The University of Guanajuato was established in the 1700’s but the main building shown below was built in the 1950’s.
We didn’t walk up the stairs, but we did walk up the street to the left of the building, which goes much higher than those stairs.
