The Return Pt. 2: Guanajuato

The first night I stayed in a hostal but the following nights I slept on a thin mattress with a thin blanket on the floor of Bar Fly. This time I won’t pretend that it was, in fact, a learning experience to view this social underbelly of Guanajuato, this group of close friends and travelers who love each other dearly but always know that good byes are coming, this constant, gossipy, festive, directionless swirl of partying and meandering people. Truth is, I like these people. They make me feel at home every time and we all share a unique love for life and each other. And, of course, they give me a free place to stay anytime I’m in town. With these folks I can even tolerate the terrible nickname given to me when I first came to Mexico which follows me ever since, even when they slap their hands on both sides of their face and shout “Ahhhhhh!!!” (again, think Home Alone) when I walk into the room. Everyone is mildly frustrating and completely endearing and you can’t help but get the feeling that if you double cross even one of them, you’ll get run out of town.

So, I swung back into the rhythm of this tight-knit bunch, parties, food runs, dog walks, coffee breaks, drama, belly laughs, confusion, familiarity and all. Again I found myself pushing back my trip to Mexico City day after day. It was a combination of really loving where I was at and really dreading getting back on a bus anytime soon. I mean, why not spend an entire afternoon at Café El Santo, drinking coffee and chatting with a Norwegian lady that had decided to make Guanajuato her home? Or, going to get pizza at the mall (I’m still not sure why we went to the mall) and then playing for hours in the parking lot with dogs and shopping carts and escalators? Or walking all around the twisting, rising, falling streets with a Canadian traveler who shares my affinity for taking pictures of doors? I had no real reason for staying in Guanajuato other than I really was enjoying my time (Heaven forbid), but one morning I woke up feeling so great that I packed up my things, asked an Italian couple on the street corner if they were also going to the bus station and wanted to share a cab, and a bit later I got on a bus for the monstrous and beautiful city of Mexico.