Day trip to Guanajuato

The next day, Dali took us on another drive, to Guanajuato! Eric and I had briefly visited this fascinating city before, but it had been a long time and we didn't have the benefit of having Dali and his impressive breadth of knowledge with us.

The girls used the 1 1/2-drive to make Father's Day cards...

A view of the city from the vantage point of the El Pipilla statue, and impressively HUGE

As you can kind of see here, there's pretty much no right angles in GTO - it's all crazy angles and tiny narrow streets. I wish I'd taken some photos of the tunnels. Many of the city's streets are fully or partially underground or carved in a mountain. It's like driving in and out of subway tunnels!

El Pipila, a hero in the battle for independence from Spain.

Another view of El Pipila, from below in the city square. See him up there?

Apparently a "must-see" in GTO is the Museo de la Momias - the Mummy Museum. I won't like - it's creepy. It made me (I think all of us) feel pretty uncomfortable, seeing the remains of these humans. And they're not actually mummies, they're decomposed remains of bodies that were kept somewhat in tact by their burial method (pine boxes). Most of them were unearthed because their descendants didn't pay the taxes for their graves. Sad face! They're all from the past 150 years or so.

Onto more pretty things! Our next stop was Teatro Juarez, or Juarez Theater. This impressive building opened more than 100 years ago, after 30-ish years of construction (which means is holds many architectural designs and styles - I see French, Italian, Moorish and of course Spanish elements).

Inside the theater. It still has its original seats! It's a gorgeous space. I'd love to see a performance there some day. Happy Father's Day to these awesome and adventurous dads!

In front of the theater - a parade! The history and meaning of this parade is way too lengthy for me to go into here, apparently over the generations it has turned into "La Fiesta de los Locos," or the fiesta of crazy people. I didn't capture all the wild and hilarious costumes very well, but let's just say lots of kids were dressed up looking pretty crazy and cracking whips!

Just a really cool door.

The girls loved watching this spray paint artist in the Jardin.

A special Father's Day lunch - hey look, I made it into a photo!