First stop was the Diego Rivera museum and childhood home. Diego Rivera is a famous mural artist born in Guanajuato, and his birthplace is just down the street from our hotel. They had the ground floor furnished as it was when he was a child, and exhibitions of his artwork from various stages of his life on the two upstairs floors. In spite of being known for his murals, his artwork was exceptional, and also encompassed a wide range of styles, from still-life to cubist to Aztec-inspired. There's also a statue of Diego Rivera outside, and Diego was kind enough to pose for photos with Bryce and Laurel:
Diego Rivera, Bryce and Laurel
Next, we went to the Jardin and returned to this really cool candy store called La Catrina. We bought some traditional Mexican candies there yesterday, but they also sell catrina dolls from Day of the Dead - the long, skinny, well dressed skeleton dolls - and Sue had her eyes on a Frida Kahlo style one, which she wound up buying. I don't remember too much of how it looked, so it will be a surprise for me when we return. The store help made a cardboard "coffin" for it, and cushioned it with all sort of bubble wrap and tissue paper, so hopefully it will make it back OK.
We were considering going to the Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum), but it looked a little gruesome, and we didn't really want to risk permanently frightening our kids. Plus, once we ate lunch, it was getting near time to catch our bus back to San Miguel.
I had rode on the Primera Plus luxury bus line when I returned to San Francisco in September, but the family had not yet experienced the joys of Mexican bus travel, so we arrived at the bus station (Central Camionera) in time to catch the ETN bus line back to San Miguel. ETN is even more deluxe than Primera Plus. Instead of four seats across, they have just three. They have movies and headphones. And they even offer WiFi. (Unfortunately my laptop had no battery left, so I couldn't try it. And they didn't have any power plugs, in spite of my crawling around on the floor for a while in search of one.) Nonetheless, it was a pleasant trip, and much better than my one-and-only Greyhound experience in the USA.
As we returned, it struck me how strange it was coming "home", when home isn't really home. I can't recall ever having the feeling of a trip-within-a-trip. It's a little unsettling, but it's nice to be back in our comfortable San Miguel residence, with a somewhat predictable week ahead of us, reunited with our more extensive collection of clothes and personal possessions. But Guanajuato was a neat place to visit, and we're all glad we made the trip.
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