Visiting Central Mexico: We Found a Haven in Guanajuato

We intended to arrive in Guanajuato much sooner than we did. After two years of agonizing over the decision, we finally thought we were ready to make an exploratory trip to Guanajuato, the capital of the state of Guanajuato. We spent nearly two years in our local Barnes and Noble sipping café mochas in overstuffed chairs while reading everything we could on México in general and Guanajuato in particular. We used B&N as a library. They never complained as long as we kept drinking their overpriced specialty coffees. Then, along came the insane act by Islamic terrorists that put us off flying for a while, something you can understand. Insane Act is my commentary on that whole business and that is all I have to say about that horror.

We had never been to Guanajuato before. We had been thinking about visiting since meeting some wonderful folks who owned a Mexican restaurant in our Kansas City neighborhood. We began talking about our desire not only to study Spanish in México but also maybe even to live there. It was then our friends began their lobbying campaign to convince us that Guanajuato, their hometown, was the place we needed to visit.

I had wanted to go to México since my first day of Spanish class in the tenth grade. I became so enchanted with the language, culture, and the country itself that my best friend told me I must have Mexican blood running through my veins. My friend might have been right. My obsession to visit México never wavered.

I was married when the thought again reared its head. I was terrified of what my beloved Cynthia would think about going to México. I just did not know what her reaction would be. Now mind you, Cindi is a well-traveled woman. She spent several months after her college graduation in Europe studying a little German and doing a lot of traveling. She tromped all over Germany, England, France, and Belgium on her own, with no assistance, and loved every dirty Youth Hostel minute of it. I should have known she would be open to visiting México.

I had been to México before and was quite sure there was nothing in Europe that could compare. My best friend and I went to Tijuana after our high school graduation. We traveled three days from Kansas to southern California for some summer classes. We were going to spend the summer there before heading back to the university where he would study art and I, music.

We walked across the border into Tijuana. Not knowing much Spanish and not knowing where we were going, we suddenly found ourselves in front of a bar around ten in the morning. Now, you would think even the Méxicans would not be about the business of boozing it up at ten on a Saturday morning. But, I was wrong. I would later learn they never left the bar from the night before.

Not knowing what this place was (though the smell and loudly singing caballeros should have been a clue), we peeked in the window. Out shot three very drunk and smelly Méxicans. They grabbed my friend and dragged him into the bar with them, leaving me standing on the sidewalk unsure what had just happened. Nothing in my entire 18 years of existence on this planet had prepared me for such an event.

I must have looked pathetic and in shock. I honestly do not recall what I did next. But, two men, not much older than I, asked me in English if they could help me. In my shock-induced haze, I learned one was an American marine and the other an American sailor who were in town to have a good time over the weekend. I told them what happened. The next thing I knew, they were dragging me by the arm to the bar where my friend had been taken captive against his will.

I suddenly found myself standing in the bar with the two burly American servicemen on either side of my weak, girlie-man body. I was shaking like a leaf. My friend was sitting at the bar protesting loudly that he not only could not drink any tequila but he wasn't even sure what it was. The servicemen yelled something at the Méxicans. I am sure it was something that cast doubts about the virtue of their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, and aunts. The Méxicans shouted something back. I am sure it meant something like, "You were sired by an ass." Méxican men are quite protective of their womenfolk, so tempers became heated in an instant.

Without warning, I felt like we were in the middle of a fight scene in a Jackie Chan movie. Chairs, bottles, ashtrays, and Méxicans were flying through the air like birds. I ran to my friend and jerked him to floor. Like two cowards, we crawled across the floor to the front door while our two American servicemen were kicking some Méxican bootie and having a great time. I am sure the fight weighed heavily in favor of the Americans since all the Méxicans looked like the drunken sods in Moe's bar on the Simpson's, and the servicemen were fresh, sober, and sporting for a row.

We ran for our lives back to the border. We didn't even wait to see if our rescuers came out the victors. We assumed they did. The best the Méxicans were doing was cussing a lot, belching beer, and getting the crap beaten out of them. To this day, I do not know who the guys were who rescued my friend and I, but I want to thank them for their bravery.

I had told this story many times over the years to my wife. I was sure it would be thrown back into my face if I ever dared suggest something like, "Oh, honey bun, my apple dumpling, let's go to México to study Spanish. Maybe we should think about moving there to spend the rest of our days." Yeah, right.

To my utter surprise, Cynthia all but ran for the suitcases when I brought it up. She was thrilled at the prospect. She had been thinking we were going to have to move to another country to survive financially. This, sadly, is what is bringing more and more Americans to live out their days in México. They see the handwriting on the wall that retirement will not be affordable in America, the land of our birth.

Even from 33,000 feet, I could tell this country was different. I spent the better part of the trip clutching my wife's hand rather than looking out the window of the airplane. My wife is used to this. I do not fly well. I can get into the plane all right but what lies between boarding the flying behemoth and deplaning is what bothers me.

Finally, I worked up the courage to steal a look at the Méxican mountains over which the captain was safely navigating the plane on its flight path from Houston, Texas, to the International airport of Guanajuato, México. Excitement welled up in me. I was in the "real" México at last.

It is hard for many Americans to see through the stereotypes, political tensions and the shouting match over the illegal immigration issue and treat themselves to the magnificent culture, history, and language of this country and its people. As an American who was largely ignorant of México, I was on my way, my wife's hand firmly grasped in mine, to learn this lesson.

In my pretrip research, I learned many facts that honestly amazed me. One was México is a country of great ethnic diversity. There is a melting pot cooking in México. Of its 106 million inhabitants, about 60% are of the Mestizos ethnic group. These are the people who are the offspring of the original pairing of Europeans (mostly Spanish) and Native Americans. This is the largest of the ethnic groups in México.

Native Americans form the next largest group, making up anywhere from 10% (the official number) to maybe 30% of the population. These are the original Mexicans. This group is often viewed, perhaps with a little ethnic pride, as the "unmixed" racial group. Because of the Mexican government's propensity to use linguistic classification rather than tribal memberships, the official statistic is probably much lower than the reality. México's attempt to assimilate the indigenous people into the mainstream has resulted in most indigenous people losing their native languages, thus accounting for the 10%-30% discrepancy.

Further confusion exists because many of the 60% number of Mestizos may in fact be Hispanisized Native Americans. This could push the number of Mestizos from 60% to 80% of the total Mexican population. This figure may forever be skewed as long as language classification is used for census purposes. The Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca have the largest number of Native Americans. In central México, the indigenous people form the largest minority group. In México's northern states, the indigenous people form the smallest minority group.

The most surprising diversity in the population I found was in those of so-called unmixed white European heritage that forms 9% of the total population. In this group were not only Spanish but also American, Yugoslavian, German, Polish, Russian, Jewish, British, Greek, French, and God only knows what other blood thrown into the mix. This fact of Mexican culture escaped me. Most of this "white" Mexican population lives in the México City, Sonora, Coahuila, Tamaululipas, Nuevo León, and Chihuahua areas. (There were also some Mormon and Mennonite enclaves in some of the northern states.)

But what really threw me was learning that an Ashkenazic Jewish population has been living in México since the Spanish Inquisition. I cannot even begin to imagine what those people went through during such a dark and unforgiving time as the Inquisition. In addition, others from various Middle Eastern groups emigrated to México. Today, there are Mexicans of Lebanese and Turkish heritage. Some of the Mexicans who come from Jewish, Lebanese, and Turkish blood speak "Ladino"-closely related to Spanish.

During a dark period in American history when Orientals were run out of the country during the 19th and early 20th centuries, many eventually settled in México. Thus, México has a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Mexicans.

There has also been an infusion of African blood into the mix. Most of these Africans were brought to México as slaves during colonial times. They make up a mere 0.5% of today's population. Most live in Veracruz and Yucatan, though there are also large groups in México City and other large cities. Most were brought here as slaves, but not all. I did not know many fled to México from the United States to escape the discrimination they suffered during the early 20th century. Something interesting is that some genetic studies show most Mexicans now have some African blood. The strain has largely been absorbed into the population.

México has a literacy rate of more than 92.2%. This breaks down to 94% literacy in males and 90.6% in females. You might be interested to know one of the most common negative stereotypes I have encountered about Mexicans is they are massively illiterate. This is clearly not true.

This trip to Guanajuato was serving double duty for my wife and me. Not only was this to be our most adventurous vacation yet, it also was a reconnaissance mission to test the waters. We wanted to check out this central Mexican city as a place to live. We planned to take Spanish classes at one of the local schools and to stay with a host family. This is the way to go if you are not well traveled and would like to take a trip to México in a protected bubble that provides for all your needs. At the airport, Chucho and Luzma Cardenas met us. They were not only our gracious hosts for two weeks but also became our good friends.

We stepped off the plane into a 75-degree winter day in mid-February. We would soon learn this is the basic year-round temperature in the Land of Eternal Springtime. When we left Kansas City, it was a dreadful 20 degrees. This was paradise.

Our trip from the airport just outside León, Guanajuato, to the small colonial capital of the state, Guanajuato, was uneventful but interesting. León is a large city nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. At times, the temperature can be as much as 10 degrees higher than Guanajuato's temperature. It has a lot of urban sprawl with modern architecture everywhere you look. León has an "old" downtown area that still gives one the feel of an "older" Mexican city.

The highway to Guanajuato was a modern-looking road that winds through the hills and eventually into the higher elevations of our destination. Guanajuato, at an elevation of 6700 feet, was our target. We could feel the air getting a bit chillier and definitely more pleasant than the more polluted air of León.

The countryside looked much like an area of the United States in which I once lived-Tonopah, Nevada --where we had a mountain desert. We were at a high enough elevation where there was snow in the winters, yet the desert climate in the summers. The difference between the two is Guanajuato does not have snow. Guanajuato is located in what is called a Steppe Climate where desert-like shrubs and other flora thrive.

A Steppe Climate is one in which evaporation exceeds precipitation. Note that this is a generalization because technically, the entire state of Guanajuato has three types of climates: semi-dry, temperate, and semi-warm.

The city of Guanajuato is located right along the dividing line between the "temperate semi-humid" and the "semi-warm, sub-humid" regions. We get a little of both of the two sub-climates. There are shrubs, cactus, and yellowish, hay-like grass in our little neck of the Mexican woods. Guanajuato is a mountain desert, just without the blowing sand. In addition, the rainy season from May through mid-September transforms the topography into a luscious carpet of greenery so the poor animals have something to eat. The state also has some regions of temperate climate.

I am not sure either of us would have noticed if anything happened on the drive into Guanajuato. We weren't exhausted but a bit heady because we were in central México and had started an adventure we, as a couple, had never dared try before. We were relieved to be in the capable hands of two gracious and lovely people whose ancestral roots went deep into antiquity. They came from an amazing people. I could not keep my mind from drifting to the history these wonderful new friends represented.

An outstanding and remarkable fact of this history is how mankind arrived in the Americas. The implication of this escapes the average Joe but is certainly worth a second or two of pondering. This was almost a supernatural event considering the timetable involved.

Man planted his first footsteps on this side of the planet perhaps as early as 30,000 B.C., making a series of nomadic adventures across the Bering land-bridge that linked Russia with what is Alaska today. These were a hardy lot of northeastern Asian people who, perhaps in the pursuit of their sustenance, game, made their way into unknown territory. The then ice-free corridor led them into a strange but plentiful land south over the Rockies and into the Great Plains. There they found an assortment of animals to hunt. And hunt they would, driving many of the animals to extinction.

What led these intrepid early pioneers further south was probably the continual hunt for more and more game and more plant foods for survival. How they trekked southward is open for speculation. Some think they simply walked while some believe they had primitive boats in which they followed the shoreline southward. However, they did it, southward they went, finding much warmer climates with a diversity of flora and fauna plentiful enough to meet their needs.

As time went on, they added more plant foods into the diet, decreasing the need for hunting large and dangerous animals for food. The wild animals they encountered in the Americas were every bit the prehistoric monsters of "Jurassic Park" movie proportions. An interesting story from archeology was about an event that took place around 11,000 B.C. Apparently, a brave hunting party had surrounded a mastodon in what would become the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. A woman was trampled under the foot of this behemoth. Scientists discovered her skeletal remains and her misfortune, testimony to the risk of a life that depended on hunting. I think plant foodstuffs began, at some point, to look good. I am sure gathering plants compared with facing an enraged mastodon became a no-brainer.

The early settlers of the Americas continued their adventure southward, eventually becoming gatherers of edible plant stuffs as well as occasionally hunting for what wildlife they could find. Onward they plodded until they reached the furthest points of South America. They left groups of their kinsmen from Alaska to Patagonia. Not only did they survive the journey that ended sometime in 7,000 B.C. but it also took 700 generations and lasted for more than 20,000 years. These men and women were a determined and most certainly a stubborn lot. They were not only first-class conquerors of what had to be a hostile land but were an equal opportunity people. They actually took women on dangerous hunts for rampaging and vicious animals.

This is the stock from which the Mexican people hail inspired me to want to know them better.

I was brought back to reality by our arrival at the beautiful home of Chucho and Luzma in the barrio known as San Javier. As an abogado , Mr. Cardenas was able to provide his family with a home in one of the more modern barrios of Guanajuato. Their home was nestled among many newer ones, though all were built in colonial-style architecture. Their children were away in León at the university. They came home most weekends and, just like American college kids, brought home a carload of laundry for mom to do.

Our hosts asked if we wanted to rest and freshen up a bit after our arrival. I jumped at the opportunity. We had left Kansas City at 7:00 a.m. and were travel worn. Traversing airports and having to get into an aircraft that defies the laws of gravity is not my idea of a good and relaxing time. I needed the time to unwind and get my bearings. I could hardly believe we were actually in central México-a trip that we had been planning for more than three years.

La Cena, or dinner, was served at the traditional hour of 3 o'clock. This is México's main and heaviest meal of the day. We were in for a major surprise. Our Mexican hostess is a trained, professional cook who would ply us with Mexican dishes mainly unknown in the USA. Taco Bell had never seen the likes of the food on which we were to dine for the next two weeks.

After a delicious meal of enchiladas mineras , salad, rice, steaming hot corn tortillas, and flan for dessert, Chucho suggested we go on a tour of the city. All four of us piled into his car and off we went to see the town.

The tour our hosts provided was an event of sensory overload. We remember hearing the names of places we had read during our research but the sights were a blur. There was so much color and so much history that we couldn't take it all in. It turned out two weeks was not enough time to truly appreciate all Guanajuato has to offer.

Over the next two weeks, we spent part of our time in the unimaginably beautiful Valenciana area of Guanajuato where our Spanish school was located. Each day at 8:30 a.m., the school's minivan pulled up in front of the church in San Javier, and off we went for three hours of Spanish instruction. Time was a premium.

We attempted to see as much of the city as we could after classes. We restricted ourselves to exploring part of the downtown (El Centro) area, as our time and energy were limited. We found the altitude and the many hills (mountains.) very tiring.

Our host family expected us for lunch at 3:00, an event we were reluctant to miss because of our hostess's wonderful culinary skills. After lunch, we followed the tradition of taking a siesta. Then, we spent the evening doing homework, watching television (in Spanish), and chatting with our hosts. They were always willing to help us when we had problems understanding our homework assignments.

The two weeks passed all too quickly and it was time to return home to Kansas. Our hosts tearfully took us back to the airport where we took our reluctant leave of one another. We promised we would return soon. At that moment, we didn't know just how quickly we'd be back. Sitting in the airport waiting for our flight, we looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Let's just stay here and not go back to Kansas." Alas, we had to go back, if only for a short time, to tie up the loose ends of our life in the USA.

With tears in our eyes, we waved at León from the airplane window as we took off. After about 90 minutes, we arrived in Houston to get our connecting flight to Kansas City. We had no idea what awaited us there. It took three hours to get through customs. (Thank you, you insane Islamic terrorists.) We finally navigated our way through that mess and found our departing gate for Kansas City. We had a two-hour wait.

Something took place in the Houston airport while we waited for our flight that convinced us that México, specifically Guanajuato, was where we wanted to live.

Imagine, if you will, a place where not only is there little to no public rage, but also where there is a general absence of wild-eyed people screaming profanities. Surely, you object, this cannot be. There cannot be such a place. During our two weeks in Guanajuato, México, what impressed us most was the absence of public rage and profanity. We felt the tension we Americans experience when we go out in public leaving us when we were in Guanajuato.

But in the Houston airport, across from our gate, one of our fellow Americans was being, well, American. He had obviously missed his flight. He was demanding, with all the appropriate shits, godamn you's, and what the fucks that angry Americans can use so easily, the employee reopen the doors and let him board. I guess he thought he would leap on the plane as it drove to the runway to take off. Perhaps he thought the poor little gate agent could call the plane back and inconvenience everyone else on board.

When the woman told him he would have to wait for another plane, he went into his imitation of the Incredible Hulk. He transformed into a madman. He began kicking the wall, pounding the counter, screaming unintelligible things. Then, as if that weren't enough, he picked up his suitcase and hurled it through the air like a missile. He disappeared into the airport, no doubt to the nearest bar. Fortunately, we never saw or heard him again.

Neither my wife nor I said a word for some time. I think we were in shock. I think the shock stemmed from knowing we had found a haven, in Guanajuato, where a scene like this was an exception, not a way of life. We have lived in México for more than three years and have never seen anything close to this type public rage displayed.

Doesn't that make you stop and wonder why?

That was indeed the "straw that broke the camel's back" for us (not to mention Kansas City's 25-degree weather when we returned after 2 weeks of 75-degree weather in Guanajuato.). We went home, made a plan to return, and did so just short of six months later.