Guanajuato

I’m sitting in Café Té Arte, a very cute, very welcoming little cafe just a short 10-minute walk south of the Centro Histórico de Guanajuato, in the central Mexican city of Guanajuato. I recently finished a waffle with fruit and some kind of lovely sweetened condensed milk drizzled on top, and I’m “milking” my tall cappuccino served to me by a beautiful, kind barista as I sit facing out to the narrow brick sun-soaked street. Locals walk by with shopping bags in hand, or with children in tow, or with cell phones pressed to their ears. The occasional car passes while inside I’m bathed in the muzak of soft jazz. A version of The Scorpions “Winds of Change” just ended. Now it’s “Careless Whisper.”

I’m finishing my third week in Guanajuato. I’ll be heading back to snowy Minnesota on Sunday. The trip was intended to be a mix of relaxation, an escape from the cold, gray winter, Spanish language learning, a chance to meet new people and an opportunity to spend time in a place and culture mostly very new to me. I’d been to Mexico before, but only to border towns and beach destinations. This was my first chance to go to the interior of the country, and really immerse myself in the lifestyle here. It’s been all I had expected and hoped for.

Every weekday I’ve been here, I’ve been attending classes at “Escuela Mexicana,” a Spanish language school in the heart of Guanajuato. Save for the first several nights which I spent in the quirky “Casa de Pita” hotel, I’ve also been living on site at the school in a small, colorful, bright and comfortable studio apartment. The idea of improving my Spanish wasn’t necessarily meant to be the main purpose of my stay. Of course I’m always looking to become a more fluent Spanish speaker, but by attending Spanish classes I knew I was bound to enjoy the experience and also bound to meet a bunch of cool people. My experience last summer as a solo traveler taught me that being alone for any stretch of time while on vacation isn’t something I enjoy very much. So, while I wanted to retreat from the cold Minnesota winter to a warm, sunny place, I also knew I needed an experience that was somewhat purposeful and one in which I would have ample opportunity to meet fellow travelers like me.

That’s just what happened. In my first week of classes I met Jade from Canada, Julia from Brooklyn, Mary Ann from Wisconsin and Heather and Joe from New Hampshire. I also met Sue from Wisconsin and fun, sweet Sara from Austin, a neighbor at “Casa de Pita.” I became fast friends with wild and crazy France and Sylvie, two French Canadians who would later become my neighbors in adjacent apartments at the school. These last two weeks I’ve met Michael from New Jersey and his travel companions Casey and Laurie. I met Esme from Bristol, UK and Aaron from southern CA. I met Georgia from San Diego and Steven and Johnny from New York. This week’s neighbor of mine at the school has been Lisa from Florida. Through Sara, I met locals Iván and Debbie, Spanish teachers and tutors. I met Louie, a León fútbol fanatic, co-organizer of Spanish-English intercambios (language exchanges) on the “Nigromante” restaurant rooftop every Tuesday night, and a member of the trombone section of Guanajuato’s symphony orchestra. It’s been a colorful assortment of folks, and cherished new relationships that only seem to happen through experiences like this. The teachers and workers at the school have also been amazing. Most of them are young people, working multiple jobs, studying or teaching at the university, and teaching private English lessons or doing other side hustles to fill their days. One particularly sweet woman from the school is Hayde. She’s a bit of a jack of all trades, doing the cleaning, providing treats for morning coffee, attending to the apartments and providing cooking classes Friday afternoons. She’s super kind and generous with her time, even though it seems as though she’s always working. I met a few of her kids and learned that, of course, she does other work on the side as well. She works the cash register (I think?) at a swanky nightclub called “Grill” every Saturday night from 11:00pm until 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. I don’t know much about the local economy, or how difficult it is to make ends meet here, but it seems pretty clear that the people of Guanajuato are very hard-working and that one job must not be enough to provide for oneself or one’s family.

My biggest partners in crime the first couple of weeks here were Sara, Sylvie and France. We had great times, deep conversations, and lots of laughs together. I’ll miss those ladies and sincerely hope our paths cross again one day. We did tons of dinners together, strolled the city streets, attempted a night of disco, consumed much mezcal, took in some music and museums, and spent several late nights at our favorite bar, “Los Lobos.” It was very sad to say goodbye to all three of them last weekend.

I’m going to backtrack for a second and bring up something quite personal and something a little difficult to write, or talk about. But, I feel like this is a big part of my travels, both past and present. Both realized and unrealized. And that’s my struggle with depression and anxiety.

The last time I wrote it was August, 2022 and I was sitting on the sunny island of Lopud, in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of mainland Croatia. If you read that last post from my summer travels, you’ll perhaps remember that I had hit my travel wall. That I had intended to continue traveling well into September but had changed plans and returned to Minnesota about a month earlier than I had previously intended. It’s true. I had hit my travel wall. But what I didn’t fully disclose in that post - due in part to shame and embarrassment and in part to feeling reticent to share the personal details of my struggle - was that I was dealing with major depression. At that point in my trip I was finding it difficult just to get out of bed, and the enjoyment of seeing new places and experiencing new things had been replaced with anxiety, an inability to concentrate or plan, a lack of motivation to do things, and a complete loss of pleasure in experiences that weeks earlier would have brought me intense joy and gratitude. A combination of things had happened along my travels that had caused me to sink into a very dark place. It absolutely sucked, and for me, at the time, the only real solution or answer was to return home.

So that’s what I did. But my depression didn’t go away. And next on my list of travel destinations during my sabbatical was supposed to be Qatar in November for the 2022 soccer World Cup. Prior to Europe I had been insanely pumped to take this trip, but in the aftermath of my summer travels, and amid continued intense depression and anxiety, I canceled. I was just too low, too anxious and too worried that I’d sink into a deep depression once again, overseas, in a strange place, mostly on my own. My depression and anxiety is often triggered by culture shock or being in unfamiliar surroundings, as I’ve written in previous posts.

I continued to wrestle and deal with my mental health throughout December and January, with things happily progressing mostly in a positive direction, but I was frustrated that my anxiety and depression were still holding me back from doing many of the things I had hoped to do during my leave. I still wanted to travel. I wanted to take advantage of the time and freedom I was enjoying. So, I made a plan to go to Mexico, and I told myself, “You’ll be alright. You’ll enjoy it. It will more than likely be a fantastic experience. And, if you start feeling like shit again, you can simply return to Minnesota.” This may all sound very dramatic, or maybe very unusual to you. Like, why should a simple trip to Mexico be such a big deal? I wish it wasn’t. But that’s the stupid anxiety. It’s hard to explain, and probably very difficult to understand if you’ve never faced it in this way, but it’s at times a huge issue and struggle for me.

So, with a healthy amount of fear, I took off for Mexico on February 19th. And now my trip is about to end. I’m claiming victory. A big one. My depression has lingered (mostly in the background) throughout my trip, but I’ve managed it. It hasn’t gotten the better of me. And in many ways I’ve thrived here. I’ve met and hung out with a bunch of amazing people, I’ve enjoyed the city, my Spanish classes have been fun, I’ve been able to feel those feelings of awe and gratitude I felt during most of my Europe trip, and overall I’ve had that fantastic time I’d hoped I’d have when I was optimistically anticipating this trip.

Okay, enough with all that serious bullshit… Some highlights of my trip…

The location of my apartment at the school was great, on the southeast edge of the historical center, which made getting into the center super easy but which also made dipping away from the more touristy center very easy. I fell in love with the section of town just outside the center, with its local feel, its busy neighborhoods, an amazing bakery, a couple of great little coffee shops and my favorite local market, Mercado Embajadoras. It was at this market that I enjoyed some of the best food in the city, including the most amazing tortas de carnitas at this little carnitas stand that churned out the sandwiches and that was always packed with locals downing the hugely stuffed $2.00 tortas. Bliss.

The street food in Guanajuato was the best food. Sweets and pastries. Freshly baked hard rolls to take back to my apartment. Empanadas filled with sweet fruit or savory cheeses, meats or tuna. And gorditas. I consumed muchas, muchas gorditas. Mostly from a group of four ladies who worked a lively, busy stand called Gorditas "Las Güeras" near my first accommodations in Plaza Baratillo. This place effin’ rocked, as the typically long line would attest. They cooked the tortillas on the spot and stuffed the gorditas - little pita pocket-like things - with all sorts of wonderful things from beans and cheese, to peppers, to chorizo to my favorite - picadillo - a concoction of ground meat, tomatoes, and vegetables in a red salsa. A bit like a Mexican sloppy joe, but of course with much more flavor and spice. This corner stand was my go-to place when I had a short break from school or when I wanted to grab a quick snack after class.

On the drinking side, my liver mostly had to contend with quite a few bottles of Victoria beer and the occasion shot of mezcal. Beer is cheap here, as is mezcal, and not being much of a cocktail guy anyway, the cold ones out of a tall-neck bottle on a sunny, warm afternoon always satisfied me more than any foofoo cocktail - for 5 times the price - ever could. I hadn’t had much mezcal prior to this trip, but I learned to really appreciate it. Each bar seemed to have their own local “house” mezcal, often served in a little ceramic shot glass and always accompanied by orange slices and a red, spicy, salty, peppery sal de Gusano (worm salt). Sipping those little bad boys on an outdoor terrace with a cold beer chaser among new friends was a joy to be had.

A few other highlights were… A favorite little outdoor bar situated under an enormous ficus tree we frequented quite often…Bar Los Lobos, a super funky, awesome bar just below the school with several lounging nooks, an outdoor rooftop bar, a well-worn pool table, intense artwork covering the walls from floor to ceiling, occasional live music, caguamas (large bottles) of Corona, and a satisfying selection of 70s and 80s rock hits loudly pumping well into the early hours of the morning…sitting around Jardín de la Unión listening to the almost constant sounds of various strolling mariachi bands…taking in a very large, very passionate march on the eve of International Women’s Day…an afternoon spent walking to and “enjoying” the iconic and very creepy Mummy Museum with Sara…going to the Bocamina San Ramón silver mine with Sylvie and France and learning all about the slave conditions of the mining industry that thrived here for centuries and that brought enormous wealth to Spain…taking the funicular to the monument “El Pipila,” high above the streets of Guanajuato that celebrates a man (maybe real, maybe legend) who, in 1810, trapped and burned alive a group of influential, retreating Spaniards in the Alhóndiga granary of Guanajuao…singing karaoke versions of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “I Want it that Way” to a crowd of perplexed Mexicanos…and…the final highlight…a hot, sweaty climb with new friends Casey, Michael, Esme, Aaron and Georgia up “La Bufa,” Guanajuato’s highest peak.

My trip is over. And it’s been great. At times relaxing. At times party-like. Overall, a mix of fun, culture, great food and good times. I’m so, so happy I did it, and I’m proud of myself for facing some fears and stepping outside my comfort zone. The risk was amazingly worth it.

Next??? A trip to Namibia for my brother, Nathan's wedding in early April. Holy crap, I’m excited for that one! And, damn, of course quite nervous and anxious as well. But, this trip to Mexico has filled me with a renewed sense of my capabilities and the reminder that travel - doing new things, experiencing new cultures, and meeting new people - has the potential to bring me great joy and gratitude. So…back to Minnesota…then off to Africa. I’m blessed.