Remind me of our time together...El Cervantino Part I

This was our view from atop of El Templo Del Sol in Teotihuacan. We quietly sat there, simply overwhelmed by the surrounding beauty we were in. Soon enough after our arrival to the top, the skies decided to bless us with a light rain to reward us, for a day of long travel in the humidity. It was both a breathtaking and spiritual moment for Daniel and I.

It was October 2002 and we were backpacking through Central Mexico on our way to El Cervantino in Guanajuato. El Cervantino was established in 1972, and Daniel and I had decided it would be really cool to attend the 30th anniversary of the festival. (El Festival Internacional Cervantino es el festival cultural de carácter internacional más importante de México y de América Latina; tiene como propósito propiciar el diálogo de las diversas culturas del mundo, permitir el conocimiento de los procesos de la creación artística contemporánea, contribuir a la formación, actualización y perfeccionamiento de los artistas y públicos mexicanos, coadyuvar a la internacionalización de la producción artística nacional y ser detonador del desarrollo turístico de Guanajuato y México.)

We began our journey in Tijuana, there we boarded a plane with our hiking bags and headed to El Distrito Federal (Mexico City). Our plan was to backpack from El D.F. to El Cervantino in Guanajuato and back, we were going to attempt to see as much as we possibly could in our two weeks in Mexico.

Daniel had his hiking bag, and he borrowed his brother Victor's hiking bag "the bullet" for me, that seemed okay with me. In hindsight, I should have given that more thought. There is a bit of a size differential between Victor and I, so obviously "the bullet" was not a friend of mine during our journey. Nevertheless, we followed our plan and made stops in Teotihuacan, Tula, San Juan Del Rio, Queretaro, Leon, Guanajuato, and San Miguel De Allende. We also cruised into other small villages and cities on our way through, but we had to keep moving in order to get to and from our destination in a timely manner.

When we finally arrived at El Cervantino, we found a hole in the wall above a small tienda where we could stay at for super cheap. Here is why it was cheap, the room had a mechanical witch on a broom on our balcony that swiveled side to side and screamed all night. Oh, and Daniel swore he had bed bugs in his bed. My bed was cool, but I must admit, it was a shithole.

After we got settled in, we headed out to the city and soon realized Guanajuato was inundated with people, most of them drunk, we were somewhat disappointed. We had heard all these awesome things about how artistic and classy the festival was going to be, and when we got there we found just a huge unorganized pediza!

We only hung out there for a bit and then headed out, we figured our time would be better spent in another city. Before we left, we visited Diego Rivera's house and ate some awesome mulitas at the market. Daniel blamed the chorro that ensued on the mulitas, but I refuse to believe that. I think the cervezas of the night before had more to do with it.

To be continued...