Mexican Moments with Greg and Peg: Beautiful Guanajuato

Saturday and Sunday, Mar 14 - 15th

THOUGHT: "HOPE IS PUTTING FAITH TO WORK WHEN
DOUBTING WOULD BE EASIER!" Thomas S. Monson

Sat - We woke up in our beautiful hotel where I stayed with Rachel, Sara and Richie 15 years ago on a humanitarian trip with Choice Humanitarian. Guanajuato is a colonial city in the historic Bajio of Mexico where their war of independence started in nearby Dolores of Hidalgo. There are no traffic lights, no modern buildings and they recently dug a lot of tunnels where cars go under the city instead of clogging the streets which are cobblestone and very narrow. They say that the dead live above ground and the living live below ground in this city (dead are buried in crypts and so many streets are underground.) It was a very rainy day so pictures did not do this city justice. It is an old mining city with 5 active mines currently (think Park city 100 years ago.) We first went to see the mummies of Guanajuato -the unique minerals in the ground here preserve bodies -in the 1860's they found a bunch of bodies well preserved in crypts and have been putting them on display since. Even babies! After seeing the mummies we went to explore a Silver mine. We walked into the mine about 100 yards and were 100 yards below the surface. The men started working at age 20 and signed a 12 year contract. By 32 most were about ready to die - they all got horrible lung disease from the dust, all were deaf from the noise and blind from living in darkness. Very few made it to 40 to enjoy their retirement. We then went to a catholic church built on top of a mine and visited some silver shops (of course Peg bought ear rings.) The tour group that was taking us around dropped us off in the town square where we had a very nice meal. I had Divorced Enchiladas - two with green sauce and two with Mole. We were then taken to our hotel where we drove home the 4 1/2 hours to Mexico City. It was a wonderful day. Sunday was church as usual then we left to go to the airport for a flight to Cuidad Obregon - a city almost to the California border. We arranged to drive to the temple grounds which are near the airport then our friends the Smiths were going to drive us to the airport and we will leave our car there on the temple grounds. I then realized that we did not have our passports and we made a wild drive back to our hotel, picked up our passports and the traffic cooperated - we made it on time back to the airport. Our flight was about 2 1/2 hours and the Munives picked us up at the airport. He is from he north of Mexico City and she is from Leon. They have their three children living with them - one is 14, one is 17 and a recently returned daughter from the Canada Montreal mission who is 20. They speak enough English to communicate with Peg and have a beautiful house (minus the 3 inch cockroach I found in the bathroom - they grow them big in parts of Mexico.)

Our hotel room - looks and feels like a little cabin

Fun bathroom sink with cool tile.

Huge nails on bathroom door for towels

Fancy shower! Look at the cool tile!

See the top of the dresser - it looks like
a jewelry box! You lift it up and
there is an little ironing board underneath!

The entrance to the hotel!

Pool area with Greg in the rain!

Pretty walkway down the side of the hotel!

Old well!

Awesome collection of cactus!

Pics of around the outside of the hotel!

Entrance to hotel!

Cute mummies!

I wish I had some of these guys for my
Halloween party!
I could have some fun!!!

Especially this one!

Baby all dressed up!
I have a lot of other pics, but
didn't put them up here!

We got to go deep into a silver mine!

They carved out a little chapel deep in there!
See that gold vein in upper left corner.
This is what they followed for over a mile into this mountain!