Two On Tour

Lovely place, but we’re mostly on the sofa watching the World Cup.

Thursday 11 June

Mexico kick off the World Cup against South Africa as we grab a quick unappetising lunch at Guanajuato bus station. Within ten minutes Mexico are a goal up, but you wouldn’t know it — the bus station is nearly empty. Who but us and a few misguided souls with no interest in footie would be travelling today?

“You’re not going to watch the match?”, I ask our taxi driver. “What can I do? I have to work”, he laments. As we zip the six km into the centre through rolling hills, I tell him Mexico are already a goal up. This cheers him instantly. He drops us at the Monumento Al Pipila and within moments we’ve located our host Naye and her daughter, who have come out to find us.

The building is, as prmised, no more than fifty metres from the monument. It clings to a steep hillside, the entrance gate on the roof, where on the covered terrace a table full of locals in green Mexico shirts and a partying mood are watching the game. Naye leads us two floors down to our flat. With so much hubbub going on, I’m floundering in Spanish, but it’s all straightforward enough — especially when another daughter, with better English than my Spanish, pops up over Naye’s shoulder.

Our new place is the usual grab bag of pros and cons. Let’s start with the pros:

Unquestionably, that is the most stunning view we’re had in three years on the road. The terrace faces north and should be in the shade most of the day. More pros: a large, cool bedroom away from large windows, with a king-size bed. Tasteful art on the walls. A deep-pile rug on the living room floor.

Cons: The internet is fickle. It improves after a late-afternoon intervention from Naye, but the signal strength continues to fluctuate. We’ll live. No water pump for the bulky 20-litre water container on the floor. No kettle. Skeletal, although brand new, kitchen utensils. The bathroom light switch is behind the door — this may sound petty, but in an already cramped bathroom, it’s awkward. And one con we were already aware of from the Airbnb photos: no armrests on the sofa. Really, who on earth would design a sofa without handrests?

But the view. That’s what we’re paying for.

The local hypermarket is a pleasant enough walk, with open views of the surrounding hills, vaguely reminiscent of our route to the supermarket in Bodrum two years ago. We toss a cheap kettle into the trolley with the groceries. It’s fine. But I’ll ask for a water pump.

The second match of the World Cup, Czechia vs South Korea, isn’t on free-to-air TV. We tune into BBC 5 Live until Tim chips in unsolicited from Hua Hin with a dodgy link to RTÉ. After scratching our heads a while, it dawns on us to route our VPN through Thailand. Then it works just fine. Let’s hope it lasts through El Mundial.

Friday 12 June

Our first full day in Guanajuato, like first days everywhere, is about establishing routines: When does the morning sun drive me in from the terrace? Where to exercise? Where to sit?

The sun chases me inside shortly before seven — it rises earlier, but has to climb over the hill opposite before it hits the terrace. The brand-new deep-pile rug is perfect for morning exercise. I roll up the yoga mat I’ve placed next to the rug and ease into the luxury of doing push-ups with palms half buried in the carpet pile.

A fabulously comfy armchair offsets the awkward armless sofa. I make the armchair my nesting spot for everything but TV (it sits directly under the screen).

Clearly, the World Cup is also going to loom large over our routine. Over lunch, we keep an eye on Canada vs Bosnia via a phone propped against the fruitbowl. And K postpones cooking dinner until the USA have hammered Paraguay 4–1. Tim’s dodgy link works smoothly. We’re in the right time zone with a free link to every match, with English commentary. We could stay home all month.

But we can’t, of course. There’s a city to explore. Between games, we start exploring at the nearby Pipila monument, then head down a steep alley to the centre to get orientated. Our gameplan: find a promising place to watch Scotland vs Haiti tomorrow night. Google Maps leads us to a sports bar away from the charming — but no doubt overpriced — main plaza. But it turns out to be a dilapidated dive. Perhaps we’ll just park ourselves on the plaza after all. All the restaurants there have placed TVs outside for the football. What’s a few extra pesos?

Saturday 13 June

Football. Football. Football. Four matches a day for the next eleven days. We can’t watch them all, but we’re already making up for many past World Cups in awkward time zones.

Early afternoon we keep one eye on Qatar vs Switzerland (1–1), before settling down for Brazil vs Morocco (also 1–1). Then the main attraction: we wander down to the compact plaza, Jardín de la Unión, to watch Scotland’s first match at the World Cup finals since 1998.

At the first restaurant on the plaza, we find an empty table close to a TV. Camped directly in the front of the screen, sporting a Scotland shirt, is Alex from Dundee via Kirkcaldy. He seems to be the only other extrajeño tonight, and we immediately start chatting. It’s his first time in Mexico. He’s in Guanajuato because his dad rather improbably has a house here — something to do with a Costa Rican girlfriend who decided Costa Rica had become too dangerous. We soon learn Alex was born in 1998, the last time Scotland reached the finals. A whole generation of Alexes has grown up since then. And I’ve aged an entire generation.

After quiet San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato is buzzing and the Jardín de la Reunión is thronged. Mariachi bands drift from one busy restaurant to another. At any moment at least two bands compete to be heard, while diners compete to be heard over the trumpets. It’s loud. It’s chaotic. But it’s a riveting atmosphere.

Scotland score, then somehow hold on against a dangerous Haiti side who threaten to equalise. Despite this, Alex — who can talk the hind legs off any creature you care to name — curiously finds us more interesting than his beloved Scotland. He spends much of the second half peppering us with questions, his back to the TV. I’m flattered, but several times I have to direct him back to the action on screen as Haiti come close again and again.

Scotland hold out for a 1–0 win, their first at a World Cup since 1990. We hug, pose for photos, and wish him well.

The climb back up to the flat feels safe — the path is quiet but well lit. There’s still time to squeeze in a final game as a well-organised Australia beat dark horses Turkey 2–0.

Sunday 14 June

“I wrote a check and I bought an old house
I got a TV and a worn‑out couch
Hired a guy named Gustavo and his friends to fix it up from the foundation
Oh god, those mother f***ers drove me nuts
With their electrical saws and mariachi music
But they really stepped it up man, and put their backs into it.”
Mark Kozelek – Gustavo

Electrical saws and mariachi music. Mexico in a nutshell.

It’s Sunday. For much of the world, a day of peace and rest. Not here. To be fair, no electrical saws today. Electrical saws are strictly reserved for disturbing the peace on weekdays.

But the mariachi music is driving me nuts. Today it starts soon after the Sunday morning fireworks boom and echo across the valley. All day the goose honk drifts up from the city centre. It doesn’t let up until well after dark, except for brief pauses during two torrential downpours. The moment the rain stops, it’s back again like a neighbour’s dog that never learns.

How the locals live with it, I’ve no idea. Thankfully, it seems to be a weekend thing only. Just the electrical saws to deal with the rest of the week.

Japan scramble a 2–2 draw against a Netherlands team full of familiar Premier League faces. Tiny Curaçao score a goal against Germany before going down 7–1. And while Sweden vs Tunisia is hardly on our must-watch list, we tune in for the second half and watch Sweden go from 2–1 up at half-time to thump Tunisia 5–1 by the final whistle.

Between matches, I make myself at home in the small bedroom with a view across the valley — reading, listening to podcasts, and continuing to work on my Spanish. Realistically, my Spanish isn’t going to improve much more now. The World Cup is too big a distraction, and there’s an inevitable sense of our time in el mundo hispanohablante beginning to wind down.

A brisk walk around the neighbourhood gets me outside for forty minutes. Further along the hillside, I pause at a small viewpoint to peer down into the town, fruitlessly scouring for invisible mariachi bands. They remain invisible.

Monday 15 June

To be fair, no electrical saws disturb us today. In fact, much of the day is extraordinarily peaceful.

Cape Verde hold Spain to a famous 0–0 draw, but it’s a morning kick-off here. World Cup or not, even we have other business to keep us occupied until lunchtime.

For a second day, we remain up on our hill, leaving the flat only to stock up on groceries. A different route sticks to the local neighbourhood. K says the rather shabby streets near the supermarket remind her of that violent police-procedual The Gringo Hunters. She’s right, but we agree we feel safe.

Before New Zealand kick off against Iran, I touch base with Auntie Sue. She has to work, so I promise we’ll cheer on the Kiwis for her. Twice they go ahead, but have to settle for a 2–2 draw. It’s a terrific match — end to end for 90 minutes.

Tuesday 16 June

After two days on the hillside, we finally wander down to the town — but only after watching France comfortably dispatch Senegal.

It’s 116 steps up to the university entrance, from where we have views across to our neighbourhood. Next, we head for a small art museum/gallery. Some art is simply to look at; some comes with hefty price tags. It’s a quirky place: one room is accessible only via a narrow wrought‑iron spiral staircase. Easily worth the £1 entrance fee.

We return on the tiny funicular, which holds eight people packed upright like pilchards in a can. A woman with a North American accent remarks to her companion how the ride compares and contrasts to the Taipei 101 elevators. Contrast is the operative word. The two rides are as different as sausage rolls are to brake fluid.

More football: France looked strong earlier today, but Argentina do the old ‘hold my beer’ routine — Messi grabs a hat‑trick as they brush past Algeria 3–0.

Outside, a storm lets loose. Before long, water is discovering novel routes into the flat. A little rainwater found a way inside a couple of days ago, but this is on an entirely different scale. Water drips through cracks in the living room and spare bedroom ceilings. It seeps through the exterior walls. The spare bed is gradually becoming a water bed. Thankfully, our own bedroom stays dry.

We throw the spare set of towels on the floor, hope it doesn’t rain all night, and head to bed.

Wednesday 17 June

Twice during the night, I get up to use the bathroom and find the towels on the floor soaked in rainwater. Twice, I wring them out, lay them back, and return to bed.

By morning the rain has stopped, but water is still dripping through several cracks in the ceiling. I message Naye to explain we’re going to need a replacement set of towels, with pictures and video to show why.

She arrives ten minutes later with a pile of dry towels and we assess the situation. She’s full of apologies. She could hardly not be. I know there’s a limit to what repairs she can arrange in the rainy season, but she wants to at least explore emergency patching up. This would mean moving to another flat across town for a couple of days. I’m not exactly keen, but in the circumstances it would be churlish to insist on staying put. We agree to discuss with our other halves — K’s still in bed — and report back.

Most of this is achieved with Google Translate, of course. Since the World Cup began, and especially this week (I’m busy working), I feel my Spanish is going backwards. It’s sobering to think how fast it’s going to atrophy once we leave Mexico if I don’t make a committed effort to stick with it.

Later, England surprise millions of cynics, me included, by playing a hugely entertaining game of football, beating Croatia 4–2 in their opening match. We’re nearly a week into the World Cup, but it’s only today that all 48 teams complete their first game. It’s sprawling, but we do at least have time to watch the never-ending spectacle. This evening, we even watch Uzbekistan take on Colombia — not a fixture I exactly had circled on my calendar.

With the England match taking up much of the afternoon, we nip out only to locate the alternative accommodation we may be moving into for a couple of days. On the way we also locate the Airbnb we’d originally booked — and the nightclub next door that disgruntled reviewers warned about. Even with a leaky ceiling, we’re clearly better off where we are. 

By the time we’ve found the other flat, it’s gone five. “Coffee?”, I ask K. “Nah, let’s just go back”, she replies. So we do. After all, who would want to miss Uzbekistan?

Thursday 18 June

A brief break from football to visit the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato. Initially, it’s a heck of a climb to the municipal cemetery from where the bodies were exhumed:

The museum sits beside the cemetery. It clearly attracts visitors — there’s a large queuing area. But today it’s empty. We walk straight in.

With its cult of all things dead, Mexico feels an ideal place to dedicate a museum to mummified corpses. We’ve watched a few YouTube videos of visitors who come away feeling it wasn’t for them. There are, I suppose, legitimate objections to displaying dozens of dead bodies — some with horrific facial expressions — for entertainment. (Apparently, those expressions are usually the result of postmortem processes, not, as some gruesomely believe, the terror of being accidently buried alive.)

Both of us find it fascinating — more education than entertainment. The bodies were disinterred between the 1850s and 1950s, a time when Mexico imposed a burial tax. If the family couldn’t keep paying, the body was removed. Some had mummified naturally. There’s still dispute as to why.

We don’t believe in an afterlife, but we do have a quiet respect for the dead and opt not to take close-ups photos. We don’t need to. Dozens of mummified faces aren’t something we’ll forget in a hurry. This photo is enough for a general impression:

In the inevitable gift shop, we take a pass on the mummy t-shirts and head into the cemetery next door. It’s a beautiful afternoon and once again we have the place more-or-less to ourselves. One curiosity: it seems families with sufficient means install a memorial plaque; those without simply trace bare biographical details into the wet cement:

After an ice-cream pick-me-up, we arrive at the rooftop bar outside the flat to watch tonight’s clash between Mexico and Korea. It’s forty‑five minutes until kick-off and so far we’re the only customers. The view is predicably stunning, but a little company wouldn’t go amiss.

A few minutes before kick-off, customers start drifting in. All but one — Sue from Shepperton — appear to be local. “You sound like you might be English”, Sue pipes up. We get chatting. She’s lived in Guanajuato for three years and seems to have found her place. She claims her Spanish remains far from fluent, but she’s accompanied by local friends and babbles away merrily with them. I mention we spent a month in San Miguel de Allende. She snorts. “Full of expats!” She’s right of course. One reason we’re enjoying Guanajuato so much is that it’s not a retirement community for North Americans.

Sue’s great — uncannily like Alison in appearance, mannerisms, humour, and free‑spirited personality. I never find out if she’s working here or retired. She’s probably a few years older than me. Could be either.

The game is far from a classic, but Mexico hold out to win 1–0.

Back at the flat, Sue’s still just visible in red in the bar, vodka in one hand, cigarette in the other:

Friday 19 June

A quiet day. We book tickets from Ottawa to Montreal — we’re taking the bus; it’s half the train fare. Supermarket. Football. In their second match, hapless Scotland lose to a single Moroccan goal scored on 71 seconds, while Haiti and Turkey become the first teams to exit despite having one more game to play.

After dark, a thunderstorm rumbles over the town. Rain trickles through the spare bedroom ceiling again. This time we’re ready with towels.

Saturday 20 June

We’re already into our second weekend in Guanajuato. Time’s racing by, the constant diet of football making it hard to distinguish one day from another. I suspect I’ll recall Guanajuato one day as little more than one big blur of footie. And a mummy museum.

Good news: the flat gets some emergency repairs — and they seem to be holding up. After dark it rains heavily, but tonight the flat remains dry. Naye invites us to her father’s birthday party upstairs, but we graciously decline. Our painfully limited Spanish conversation skills would only make our presence awkward — besides which we’ve already planned to eat in town and watch the football.

We catch the first half of Ecuador vs Curaçao in the flat, then dart down to the Jardín de la Unión for the restart. The match is what the World Cup is about: Curaçao hold Ecuador 0–0 despite facing 27 shots, 15 of them on target. Watching tiny Curaçao hang on is every bit as stressful as watching England. Curaçao goalie Eloy Room instantly becomes a household name.

Sunday 21 June

I’ve spotted some sort of quirky art museum on Google Maps, so my solitary Sunday ramble takes me to the east edge of Guanajuato to locate it. We’ll visit properly another day. The town is buzzing: locals have squeezed into the few green spaces for Sunday afternoon picnics. Street food vendors are doing brisk business. The air smells of barbequed chicken wings.

Before returning to the flat, I pause at the Pipila Monument to people-watch. A team of patrolling soldiers — male and female — pose for photos with the eye-popping view behind them. And a grim reaper sits on a low wall chatting to his neighbour:

It’s marvellous. I treat myself to a small tub of guava sorbet and return to the monument to eat it, before deciding I should probably take it back and share it with K. It’s a double scoop, after all.

Back in the flat, plucky Cape Verde pinch a 2–2 draw against Uruguay. It’s not as startling as their earlier 0–0 draw against Spain, but hey, two goals. Later, New Zealand take an early lead against Egypt but eventually go down 1–3, Egypt clearly the stronger side.

We round off the evening by booking accommodation in Nicosia next February/March. Just a few days in Turkish Cyprus still to sort out, then we’ll be fine-tuning plans for Albania and North Macedonia.

Monday 22 June

Another day perched on the hillside without troubling the town below with our presence.

I wake to learn Keir Starmer has resigned. It looked inevitable, but still has a residue shock value.

It’s not football that keeps us from exploring today but groceries. Just as we reach the supermarket, rain starts falling. By the time we reach the checkout, a violent thunderstorm is raging outside. The check-out assistant has barely handed us our receipt than there’s an almighty crash as the supermarket takes a direct lightning hit and plunges into darkness. The lights return a few moments later, but the tills remain down as staff stare at blank monitors. We feel for those behind us, but we’re relieved to have finished paying seconds earlier.

There’s no chance of leaving. Rain is lashing down outside. We loiter near the sliding doors as several more bolts of lightning strike unnervingly close and everyone jumps out of their skin with fright. Nearly half an hour passes before it feels safe enough to step out and call an Uber:

We while away the rest of the day with one eye on the football, the other on everything else — British news in my case. Tomorrow marks ten years since the Brexit referendum. The UK is about to get its seventh PM since that fateful day. How long before number eight?

Tuesday 23 June

A long catch-up with Ashley today. We haven’t spoken face-to-face since we popped up in Hong Kong at the same time in April last year. Far too long. It’s the sort of rambling, easy chat between friends with a half a lifetime’s shared history. It’s good to see her flat — exactly two years ago we were housesitting there for Gordon and Freddie, while Ash disappeared to a wedding in Colombia. Today, we’re the ones in Latin America, and she’s at home in Bodrum.

Barely an hour later, a surprise: Helen sends two five-minute videos she’s digitised from the old English Centre gang reunion in Istanbul in 2001. Jon recently found an old VHS cassette and posted a photo on Facebook. Helen replied she had the original footage and could probably digitise it. And she has. It’s grainy, but there we are: 25 years ago, in our sunny early thirties. In one video, Hels, Lucy, Jon, Ash, Şebnem, Ali and I wander the city, take a boat up the Bosphorus, and lounge on the hillside at Anadolu Kavağı; in the other, minus Ash and Şebnem, we visit the English Centre, drink tea with dear Sebihan, and I’m caught off-guard by a sentimental tear as the others coo ‘doh!’. It’s marvellous. Grainy, but pure gold.

In the World Cup, Ghana park the bus and hold England to a joyless 0–0 draw. England are devoid of any creativity to find a way through the Ghanian defence. Last week’s high spirits are quietly re-corked.

We can’t sit on the sofa forever, although we’re making a decent fist of it. I head down to town, following my nose, joining the dots of half-known streets into a bigger picture. The tramp back, up 300 steps, burns off some of the calories I’ve accumulated on the sofa watching football.

Shortly before sunset a stiff breeze whips up and the electricity becomes unstable. (I’m assuming causation, not association.) The lights stay on while I cook, but we eat bowls of my spicy eggplant stew by phone torch. Every time I think we’re back to normal, the lights go again. On. Off. On. Off. Around ten, the wind dies down, the lights return. This time they stay on. Definitely causation.

Wednesday 24 June

Back in the UK, a second June heatwave has settled across the south of England. Gosport tops the toast charts: 36 degrees. Ugh. When I speak with Mum, she’s nestled in her north-facing bedroom in the shade.

In Guanajuato, it’s glorious. Despite this, we camp indoors all day watching Bosnia reach the knockouts for the first time, while Scotland dig their own grave, going down 3–0 to Brazil — more or less guaranteeing elimination as they slide down the third-place table.

The moment the Scotland match winds up, we scamper down to the Jardín de la Unión to nab seats for Mexico’s final group game against Czechia. My concerns that every downtown bar and restaurant will already be full are misplaced: the Jardín itself is buzzing, but customers are thinly spread across its many restaurant tables.

We settle at the same table in the same al fresco restaurant as last Saturday and wait for it to fill. It never does. A few customers trickle in, but the match starts in front of a disappointingly half-full venue. The real action is further down, where we watched Scotland score their only goal in 270 minutes of football (and that the result of a double deflection). Down there, the local crowd is in full cry and mariachi musicians pipe up every time Mexico go close — which is often. Meanwhile, our place seems to be the haunt of mild-mannered tourists like us.

Never mind.

Mexico cruise to a comfortable 3–0 win, sending the woeful Czechs home. Three hundred steps later, we’re also home.

Thursday 25 June

Diego Rivera’s house museum finally gets us off the sofa. The house itself is underwhelming: a bed here, a table there. It could be anyone’s home. Then again, it was only his birthplace. Perhaps it’s wrong to expect too much.

The house also holds around a hundred Diego Rivera artworks, including a beautiful set of watercolours illustrating Aztec creation myths. Unfortunately, there’s a strict no photos policy for all things Diego Rivera, and it’s rigorously enforced — as I discover in one room lacking the ubiquitous ‘No fotos’ labels.

Several rooms display work by other Mexican artists, mostly stylised landscapes. It’s worth the sofa break. We even find time to stop for an iced coffee in the nearby university bookshop:

The final round of group games is exposing the cracks in a 48-team format: some teams are conspicuously happy to settle for a draw that guarantees passage to the knockouts. Tonight’s 0–0 draw between Australia and Paraguay is by some distance the worst match of the competition so far — and that’s quite an indictment after struggling through England vs Ghana.

Two more weeks in Mexico. We’re both very happy here in Guanajuato — it’s comfortably my favourite of the four bases we’ve had in Mexico. The only thing I can’t wait to leave behind is the Mexican food. We’ll be flying to Ottawa in a fortnight. I’m already searching for Indian restaurants on Google Maps. Enough of tacos and enchiladas! I could murder a chicken tikka or a baingan masala.