18th-19th/12/09 San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato

18th-
Our journey began at 10:30 am where we all piled in the car for a 3 hour journey to San Miguel de Allende. Tiff drove for 1 hour on the freeway until reaching a restaurant mid way in the journey. The restaurant is renowned for its Barbacoa which is lamb cooked in cactus leaves for hours....yummmmmmm
The meat was incredibly tender and once again eaten in tacos with onion, coriander, lime and salsa.

After more driving we reached San Miguel and our house for the next few days the Villa Xilmco in the mountains above the city. The view was amazing and the furniture so intricate and mexican.

(The House)

(The View!!!!!)

After exploring our house we piled back into the car and headed down to the main square of the cobblestoned town. It was like a little Italian village with balconys over small winding stone streets. All of these mexican towns have a central square with a gazebo for a band and is used as the main socializing area of the town.

(Centre of the Town)

To kill some time after looking in millions of shops we went for some drinks in an awesome little bar which overlooked the city. It was called Azultec and the drinks were amazing as well as the view. We were invited to a techno party by the rather handsome young waiter but had to decline as it was a few days after we were leaving.....shame.

We then had a lovely dinner with some of Javier's French Canadian friends which was amazing food and even better atmosphere. A small band consisting of a  percsussionist, bass guitar, violinist and acoustic guitar played fast music of various origins and kept us all entertained.

We proceeded from red wine at the restaurant to free tequila shots and scarves/beanies at a rooftop bar called bessito, it was amazing with a river through the bar, a waterfall from the top level to the street and a glass walkway with cactii underneath, scary to walk on, but cool.

We then explored a few other clubs with no luck and called it a night!! we returned home at 2am.

(Meerkats in Mexico!!)

19th- We had breakfast and had a quick visit to the house of our new Canadian friends before heading to Guanajuato.
It is required that on enetering Guanajuato that all tourists must pay for a tour guide to decipher the city which is a labyrinth of tunnels. The first place we visited was a old silver mine. The mine still operates today and winds kilometers underground. It was previously operated by slaves which had an average lifespan of 6 years after beggining work, climbing tiny ladders up to the surface with 80kg or rock on their backs led to many deaths. 300 kg of this rock would gain 1 gram of silver.

(the tiny ladder.....)

Our next destination was an old torture museum. Run by a priest in the 1500's the centre was a punishment for aztecs which did not wish to convert their religion to christianity. The most shocking part of the tour is that the heads and bodies in the torture devices were 100% real and mummified with their torturous expressions. luckily this practice only went on for 3 years and killed 150 people. The walls are made 4 meters thick so that no one could hear the screams and crys from outside the building.

The next destination was a museum of mummies. The soil of Guanajuato is renowned for its preservation of bodies. After 100's of years a busy cemetery had to be excavated to make room for new burials. Hundreds of these bodies were found still preserved with clothes and hair remaining. It was interesting to read the individual stories of these people 100's of years after they had died.

We had lunch in the central square after exploring the underground road system which is amazing and built with coblestones and then headed off for a four hour trip home.

A huge night planned with friends and a reservation at a very exclusive club filled the evening back in Mexico City.
We were once again picked up in the chouvered car and driven to this club. Luckily we were on the list!! as the line was a block long. So we walked straight in to our reserved table.
The menu had a ridiculous amount of inflation due to the status of the people who frequent it. The cheapest bottle of tequila was bought at a tiny price of 150$ US (ridiculous) but much fun was had dancing and singing to both american and mexican music. Something that we think Australian clubs should work on is that wiaters bash their way through the dancers on the d-floor to take drink orders so no one has to wait in line at the bar!!! unfortunatley we could not afford any more hahah

We returned home at 3:30am, good effort!