My taxi from the airport dropped me off in a tunnel underneath Guanajuato’s old city. Beyond there, it’s closed to vehicles the driver explained.
I was a little hesitant not knowing how far I would have to walk at night with my luggage, but I realized I had no choice. So, I walked up the stone steps and emerged in a hive of activity.
There were musicians playing in all directions, young people dressed in traditional capes, light and festivities. I assumed I was in Jardin de la Union, the central plaza, but I asked someone to be sure. And where was my hotel? He pointed to a colonial building about 20 feet behind me.
It was like I had stepped out of the tunnel into a magical world.
I began the day back in San Diego, and took the trolley down to San Ysidro, where the main border crossing is to Tijuana, Mexico.
My plan though was not to cross there, but rather take a shuttle to CBX, Cross Border Express, a special crossing from San Diego to Tijuana airport. It’s new, fast and convenient. And it’s not crowded because only people who have boarding passes for a flight may use it.
You simply walk a few hundred feet through an overhead passage across the border, and there’s no significant wait at Mexican customs. I left plenty of time knowing I would be crossing an international boundary and there could be delays, but it was so fast that I had a lot of time to kill waiting for my plane in Tijuana airport.
The flight was comfortable and the ticket on discount airline Volaris was very reasonable. About three hours and two time zones later, I arrived at Leon-Guanajuato airport.
The only transit available to Guanajuato is a fixed-rate taxi that you prepay. It is quite expensive – the price was 485 pesos, just under $35 Canadian. I gave the lady a 1000-peso bill and she gave me 15 pesos change and my tickets. I paused and waited for her to give me the remaining 500 pesos. She suddenly apologized, said she forgot, and give it to me without incident.
When I told the taxi driver what had happened and said I wasn’t sure if it was an honest mistake or was intentional, he thought it was probably an honest mistake. I’m not so sure. This has happened before to me and typically only in places that see a lot of naïve tourists.
It was after 8 p.m. Central Standard Time when I arrived in my hotel. After getting comfortable, my immediate priority was to get a Mexican SIM card for my phone. A convenience store that sold these was just two doors away. It took me a while to figure out how to activate an internet plan and recharge the phone, which means purchasing time, but it was actually very easy and not expensive.
Then, with my body still on Pacific time and revved up, I decided to explore the old city centre around me. There was life everywhere and the party continued long after I went to bed. I felt very safe walking around, there were lots of people, but it wasn’t so crowded that you needed to worry about pickpockets. Everything was well lit.
Guanajuato is an amazing old colonial city with many buildings dating back to the 1700s and earlier. So much to photograph, but I only brought my point and shoot camera on the walk, and it’s not as good as my real camera for night photography. Still, I snapped a few frames and figured out where to go back later with a real camera.
