Observations

3 things to sum up the great city of Guanajuato: Hair gel, Making-out in the streets, and obsession with the dead.

Seriously, I'm not sure what the deal is with this place, but they LOVE their hair gel. I need to get some pics of some of the guys walking around here - Think vertical Mohawk, horizontal Mohawk, the combined vertical/horizontal Mohawk, the corn-row Mowhawk, the frosted, shaved side of head Mohawk, you get the picture. I can't imagine the amount of hair gel one must use to get their hair to do the things they get it to do, but they are masters of hair sculpting here in Guanajuato.

Making out in the streets: seriously, like everywhere. I don't know if this is a popular honeymoon spot, or just a good city to make out in - but people definitely take advantage of the make-out-ability of the place. Old, young, skinny, fat - you get the picture - all around you all the time there are people making out. If you ever visit Guanajuato, I would recommend staying out of dark alleyways at night - not because you will be in danger, but because you might walk up on something that would make you blush. If they are making out in the streets, I'll let you imagine what they are doing in the dark.

Obsession with the dead: We visited "El Museo de las Momias," or the Mummy museum today. Apparently the local cemetery got too full a while back and they started to dig up the bodies of people who's families never came to pay the "rent" or claim the bodies. The weather here is really dry and just the right temperature to preserve the bodies. Many of the bodies go back hundreds of years, and one body in the museum as recently as 1973. It was definitely kind of creepy, but at least this museum was tastefully put together...

The next museum was like a cheap Disney exhibit trying to scare little kids, only they used real bodies and then covered them in fake spider webs and cheesy lighting to try and make it creepy. I'm not sure what the thinking was on that, but I think dead people with their skeletons and eye sockets hanging off them is probably scary enough. The cool think about this museum was a bonafide chastity belt from the times of the inquisition - I'm not kidding - look at the picture. Those poor women.

Speaking of inquisition, our next stop was another cheesy museum (though it didn't need to be) of the torture chamber used during the inquisition to torture the accused. I guess there was some super perverted Catholic priest that was sent to Guanajuato to straighten things out - turns out this guy was one sick freak - all kinds of ways to twist certain parts of your body, dismember you, shove all kinds of spikes into you from all different directions, different ways to display what was left of you after they were done - you get the picture. Of course to cheese it up, they had all kinds of "special lighting," and our guide put on some kind of monk robes as he led us through the dungeon. C'mon guys, this was a torture chamber - already creepy enough without your cheesy music and fake cobwebs all over the place.

Lastly, we did get a chance to go to one of the mines. One of the reasons this city is so rich in colonial architecture is that for over 200 years, more than 40% of the worlds gold and silver came from the mines in the area. There is a labyrinth of underground tunnels that makes up the roads in the city as well as beautiful building abounding all over the hills in the area.

The city is rich with history, this being where Hidalgo beat back the Spaniards in Mexico's fight for independence. The city is also the birthplace of Diego Rivera and supposedly there is a cool museum, but we weren't able to find it.

Today was a really full day and we blew through a lot of money. I think tomorrow we are planning on just bumming around the city and maybe do a little hiking to see some of the city vistas.