Pope Benedict XVI Will Visit Guanajuato This Month Katherine Corcoran - Associated Press
go to original March 11, 2012

The Basilica Colegiata de Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato is lit at night in the colonial city of Guanajuato, Mexico. (Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press)

GUANAJUATO, Mexico — Walking uphill on cobblestone, I am struck by the altitude’s perfect mix of hot sun and crisp air. A street vendor’s cry echoes in a canyon of brightly colored stucco facades, and I can’t help think this mystical, medieval-looking city is my favorite on Earth.

Though I hate to choose among Mexico’s colonial beauties, Guanajuato remains unique no matter how many others I’ve seen. Perhaps because I spent two months there 15 years ago, my first extended stay in Mexico, and every street corner brings a memory. Or perhaps because I’m still taken with the city’s energy and charm as if I were seeing it for the first time.

Guanajuato, founded in the mid-1500s on a rich vein of silver, is the birthplace of many things Mexican, including the fight for independence from Spain and famed muralist Diego Rivera. Its mummy museum, filled with dozens of naturally preserved corpses, boldly exhibits the Mexican comfort with death.

The city is the capital of the state of former President Vicente Fox, whose historic election in 2000 ended 71 years of single party rule. It’s also one of Mexico’s most conservative Catholic states, where an uprising took place in the 1920s over anti-religious laws.

A visit by Pope Benedict XVI scheduled to begin March 23 will put Guanajuato in the spotlight. But even before you take in its rich history, the scenery of a city built in a canyon at 6,600 feet (2,000 meters) will sweep you away.

A cable car takes you in minutes from the city center to the main lookout, where the Spanish colonial domes, Gothic spires, and lavender, fuchsia, orange and blue houses look as if they were painted on the hillside by Rivera himself.

Underground, catacomb-like tunnels look like they’re straight out of the Middle Ages, though they were built in the late 1800s for flood control.

Today they handle the city’s traffic, because many streets are steep alleyways and in some cases stairs and they can’t accommodate cars.

Young actors dressed as medieval minstrels roam the square to recruit tourists for their “callejoneadas,” street performances they lead through the passageways, singing and storytelling about betrayal and unrequited love.

Guanajuato has always been a popular place for Mexican tourists visiting their heritage.

Dolores Hidalgo, the town where Hidalgo made Mexico’s first cry of independence in the church square, is just on the other side of the hill. The Valenciana mine, which dates from the city’s founding and once produced 30 percent of the world’s silver, is another short day trip, where you can see the gilded church altar and go into the now dormant mine shafts.

The home where Diego Rivera was born on Dec. 8, 1886, now has one of his most diverse collections, from Mexican landscapes to an impressionist painting of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral and portraits from Rivera’s cubist era. Rivera’s family moved to Mexico City when he was 6.

Uphill at the city’s public cemetery, families with small children line up to see the famous momias, or mummies, dozens of bodies bearing papery, weathered clothing and skin. They were naturally preserved some say because of the mineral-rich climate and the crypts, though no one knows for sure. They were dug up starting in the 1860s because their families could no longer pay burial fees, and put on display.

Many of the faces are frozen in ghastly expressions, one woman with her arms over her face, an indication curators say that she may have been accidentally buried alive.

Outside the city, the 60-foot Christ the King statue looms on a hill, marking the 1920s Cristero wars between religious zealots and an atheist government that banned even the wearing of priest collars in public.

Nice rooms at a colonial hotel in the town center are less than $100. Good restaurants are scarce.

Guanajuato city is quiet and safe, though there have been incidents of drug violence in other parts of the state.

Still, it has lost tourism due to fears that travelers, particularly Americans, have about the interior of Mexico.

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!