Week 63 - ‘Mexico, real Mexico’

​As previously stated (it can’t be stated enough really) we’re happy to finally be on the mainland. This week was a good week, a very very good week. We started off the week in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city. It was the first real city we’ve been in in, well months (since leaving Phoenix really). We decided the best bet was to get an airbnb and park Milton in a safe place. Luckily the cities here are full of parking lots, and we managed to park Milton up two blocks away from our accommodation for just a few bucks. 
 
We wandered through the city which was a lot nicer than we expected. Mexico has a very dark sort of surrealist undertone, in both it’s art and cityscape. We visited the art museum to see the famous, and frankly very horrifying, murals and then ate some local delicacies. We found out there were so many more overlanders in town, so we arranged to meet up with them over mariachis on a plaza. After being serenaded by numerous older, larger gentlemen we moved on to the Lucha Libre - Mexican wrestling.  Jonathan had low expectations but I went in hyped. And it lived up to the hype. It was funny, exciting, hard hitting and pretty well acted. And as a bonus, the crowd was getting into it in a classic upstairs/downstairs argument. One man actually threw coins at people, I think yelling that next time they could afford better seats. They had some pretty serious stereotypes in operation, but I’d like to think it was all in good fun.
 
After leaving Guadalajara we moved on to Guanajuato. This city wasn’t even on our radar until all the overlanders in front of us kept throwing it up on Instagram - we felt like we couldn’t miss it. The drive in was… well it was pretty terrifying. When driving situations get sticky, Jonathan gets flustered and I just try not to throw-up. It was a very steep, very narrow, very slippery road up to our campsite. And what a campsite it was. Overlooking the colourful city, we felt very happy to have made the drive. It’s a charming city, full of coffee, tortas and singers.  We took part in a callejoneadas, which is a speciality in Guanajuato, whereby singers lead crowds of people through the narrow streets, singing, telling stories, dancing and cracking jokes. We couldn’t understand everything, but we got the idea and really enjoyed ourselves. The city is built on a ravine and used to have a river running underneath it, but later the river was diverted and the tunnels underneath were turned into roads, so now the city is essentially carless which makes it even better for walking. 
 
After the charm of Guanajuato we were heading back into the highlands, and stopped at a beautiful waterfall called Puentes de Dios, in a tiny town on our way to Xilitla. It was definitely of the gods. Gorgeous, colourful and as bonus, warm. I didn’t get in but Jonathan enjoyed himself flouncing about in waterfalls and swimming in bath water warm pools.
 
We couldn’t be happier to be on the road again and there’s lots more to come!