From Casa Bertha we walk down nearly one hundred steps, along narrow alleyways called callejones, and scary streets with buses rattling past, then across a bridge to Café Tel. ‘It has the best coffee in town’, Jorge has told us. It is our first morning in Guanajuato. We sit at a window table, one of five small tables around the periphery of the room and drink pretty good coffee.
After breakfast we try to follow the pictorial map that Juan had given us. Jorge and Juan are our very friendly hosts at Casa Bertha. Only major roads are shown on our map, and the angles between roads bear little relationship to the intersection of streets. Despite this, with a combination of Ange’s intuitive direction finding and my obsessive reading of street names on map and street walls we find our way around town. We visit three Spanish schools and choose Escuela Mexicana. It is painted yellow and green and blue as many buildings are. It has wifi but best of all it has a very flexible program.
Our room at Casa Bertha is at the very top of a tall building high on the side of the gorge that is the site for Guanajuato city. It is like an eagles eerie. Later I sit on the terrace outside our room drying my hair. It dries quickly in the hot sun. The opposite hillside is covered in brightly coloured houses. It seems that no two houses are coloured the same: pink, yellow, light blue, dark blue, teal green, lime green, orange, purple and mauve. The list is endless. Here is the view of these houses from the terrace at Casa Bertha.
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They welcome the dawn every day with a lot more enthusiasm than we feel as we struggle still with jet lag. Many of these rooftop gardens also have dogs that spend all their lives on the roof but act more as guard dogs than as pets. Other’s have easy chairs for enjoying the sun.
On Saturrday (the 20th June) we move to Casa Pita. Pita, our new landlady, has an apartment at a price we can’t ignore. We say a very sad farewell to Juan and Jorge that morning - kisses on both cheeks. They have corrected our Spanish, cleaned our room, acted as personal guide to Gto, and supplied us with water and toilet paper - things we find are extras at our new home. Pita in turn teaches us the three Bs: bueno, bonita and barrato - good, beautiful and cheap. Our apartment is that but cute too. Here I am studying in the living room below the loft that holds our bed.
After breakfast we try to follow the pictorial map that Juan had given us. Jorge and Juan are our very friendly hosts at Casa Bertha. Only major roads are shown on our map, and the angles between roads bear little relationship to the intersection of streets. Despite this, with a combination of Ange’s intuitive direction finding and my obsessive reading of street names on map and street walls we find our way around town. We visit three Spanish schools and choose Escuela Mexicana. It is painted yellow and green and blue as many buildings are. It has wifi but best of all it has a very flexible program.
Our room at Casa Bertha is at the very top of a tall building high on the side of the gorge that is the site for Guanajuato city. It is like an eagles eerie. Later I sit on the terrace outside our room drying my hair. It dries quickly in the hot sun. The opposite hillside is covered in brightly coloured houses. It seems that no two houses are coloured the same: pink, yellow, light blue, dark blue, teal green, lime green, orange, purple and mauve. The list is endless. Here is the view of these houses from the terrace at Casa Bertha.
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The tops of the buildings serve as gardens and "backyards" of residents here. To my right is a rooftop with tiny cages containing chooks and ROOSTERS.>
They welcome the dawn every day with a lot more enthusiasm than we feel as we struggle still with jet lag. Many of these rooftop gardens also have dogs that spend all their lives on the roof but act more as guard dogs than as pets. Other’s have easy chairs for enjoying the sun.
On Saturrday (the 20th June) we move to Casa Pita. Pita, our new landlady, has an apartment at a price we can’t ignore. We say a very sad farewell to Juan and Jorge that morning - kisses on both cheeks. They have corrected our Spanish, cleaned our room, acted as personal guide to Gto, and supplied us with water and toilet paper - things we find are extras at our new home. Pita in turn teaches us the three Bs: bueno, bonita and barrato - good, beautiful and cheap. Our apartment is that but cute too. Here I am studying in the living room below the loft that holds our bed.
On the following Sunday night we have two wins. After a bad paella and bad wine accompanied by very bad minstrels wanting money, our spirits are beginning to flag. On the way home we pass a street stall with delicious smells issuing forth. We stand by and watch many people enjoying the food. Finally a Dutch man calls out to us, ‘Try them. They are delicious.’ After chatting to him we sample two quesadillas - a flat pancake warmed on the hotplate filled with melted cheese and chopped up freshly barbequed steak. We add a very spicy red sauce, chopped tomato and onion, a coriander sauce, onions, cooked or raw, and a squeeze of lime juice. It is the best food we have had in Mexico.
On our way home we hear some guitar music and singing coming from café Calipso, close to our square, Plaza del Baratillo. We go in, sip good wine and listen to the music while looking at the artwork on the walls. On the wall is a sign that says ‘Café, Arte, Musica’. By the time we leave at about 9.30 the place is almost full.
Our first week of classes go as most classes do with some wins and some loses. The first two hours each morning is spent with Sandra, a vivacious, kind and funny teacher, who takes us through the basics of the Spanish language and the sort of phrases we need to get about. Then we have two hours of grammar.
On Thursday afternoon Sandra takes us too her favourite restaurant, Tamales Purepechas, on the outskirts of Gto, which she says is really the only authentic Mexican food in this city. We have chicken tamales - a sort of couscous like paste with boiled chicken wrapped in corn leaves and steamed; rather bland. A soup called pozole with corn seeds apparently soaked in lye to make them puffed up. It is very tasty and, like Vietnamese pho, you add fresh ingredients like lettuce, onions, radishes and top it with a spicy red sauce. That is good. We also have corundas, a bit like tamales but wrapped in chard, a green leafy vegetable and served with a yoghurt like sauce. Mmm - I still like our street stall quesadillas best.
