Monday's Tourism

Monday was started off right.  We all had a bite to eat and then got on our way climbing a hill outside their apartment.  It led to the top of Guanajuato with a great view.  Due to the cloudy skies (and the fact that Guanajuato is just better in person than in pictures), you can't see the crazy beauty of this city.  But you can see how high we climbed.
Donna and Alina showed me the main tourist sites from above, and we looked for their apartment, but it was hidden from the turns we had made.

This was what we climbed to see.  He's called El Pípila and is the symbol of this mining town.  Alina and Donna had been up here too many times to count.  There's a little train that will take you up for who knows what price (very affordable I'm sure given we're still in Mexico), but Donna is a personal trainer.  There are never any paid rides when she's around!  I was okay with that.  Makes the ice creams easier to digest (pun intended) later in the day.  This was the first time, however, that either of them had seen the box at the top of the statue.  We climbed up in it (for 3 pesos for adults and nothing for Alina).  It's pretty much a plastic box.  It was claustrophobic, so we jetted back down.
From there we went to an ex-hacienda of a mining family.  The owners of the mine.
There were lots of great rooms.  It's just like the Castle in Chapultepec in Mexico City and like Versailles in Paris.  There are lots of cool things and a lot of history, but it ends up being too many pictures of beds and bathrooms. 
There was also no shortage of gardens in this place.  It had a great tranquil feel.  It was a tourist site, but we didn't run across another tourist (that dang swine flu!).
From there, we took the city bus back to downtown walked through town.  Donna showed me a few more things and how to get back to the house.  She also showed me where to catch a bus to go to the mines.  They had gone and while it wasn't too much to write home about, it was worth the 25 pesos or whatever, since it was in fact a tourist stop in the city.
On my ride up to the mines, there was a church close to the mines.  The church was much more obvious.  So after I saw what there was to see there, I walked toward the sign that said mines.  Ha!  I walked from the church in the above picture where I took the picture.  Thank goodness it wasn't midday Culiacán heat because I might not have made it back!  I got to the end of the dead end road and there was what looked like a school and several touristy type shops selling postcards, t-shirts, and rocks labeled as gems.

I asked a kind lady how to get the the mine and she said I'd be better off riding the bus back toward town and getting off when I saw the sign.  I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was talking about.

I made it back up to the church, paid 3 pesos for their bathroom and treated myself to a coca light.  Donna had told me earlier in the day that there was a kickboxing class at her gym at 6 that night if I wanted to go.  I was eager until I had climbed all over creation looking for this mine!  I decided then that kickboxing was out.  (So I also decided then to pass on the ice cream!)

I finally found the place.  I took the tour.  It wasn't worth the pesos, but again, it was one of the sites, so I'm glad I did it.  Only major problem was I was tagging along with a high school group.  First years.  As if I hadn't been dying to escape the "school scene" in Mexico.  The noise, disrespect, etc.  I was screaming inside my head!  That might have taken away from teh value of my tour.

I took a deep breath and headed back to town.