Guanajuato, Mexico (photo sequence)
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On the Sunday before Lent a parade winds through the streets of the narrow ravine in which Guanajuato nests. The ravine filled up long ago. The town has no new buildings.
Unsurprisingly, the parade ends with the Virgin Mary on the hood of a pickup truck.
Cars are routed into a network of tunnels that branch out from the ancient riverbed the town was built around.
Many of the central streets are pedestrian only.
Most of the streets that are for cars are not jammed because the surface streets are all really on ramps to the tunnels.
Higher up the ravine in the university district the lanes are picturesque in a more familiar way.
Downtown the exterior of the Teatro Juarez flaunts of the city's wealthy past.
The interior of the theater is, arguably, the most beautiful in the Americas.
This mine is where they found most of the money for the city's elegant buildings, fountains and gardens.
Deep in the heart of another mine you see, or rather you don't see, a vein of silver that 2,000 miners gave their lives to remove.
Looking down on Guanajuato note that the city’s central square is a triangle. (As the lanes follow the contours of the ravine, nothing here is square.)
The city marathon begins beside that central triangle.
Underneath the branches mariachis wait for the rest of the band to show so they can begin serenading the diners at the sidewalk cafes.
With old Spanish love songs university students lead a singing and drinking tour of the twisting alleyways of the old town.
The next photo looks into this working class bar from the open window to the left of the saloon doors .
A salsa bar with an interior that looks like a set at the end of a Quentin Taratino film.
The more typically dive bar look of the reggae bar.
Finally, a showing of Bladerunner on the steps of the University of Guanajuato.
