| | |  Travel & Outdoors 
Mexico’s Freedom Trail - Part 3
 Jonathan Kandell - travel.nytimes.com
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August 28, 2010
| | In addition to about 60,000 inhabitants, San Miguel draws some 10,000 American, Canadian and European residents who spend several months a year or enjoy full-time retirement there. (Ann Summa/New York Times) | |
In the hot afternoon I followed the lead of the townspeople, who walked on the shaded side of the cobblestone streets, avoiding the brilliant sun that illuminated the intense blues, purples, golds, greens and reds of the low-slung tile-roof houses and boutique hotels.
By sunset, much of the town seemed to congregate around El Jardín, the small, leafy main square, anchored on its south by La Parroquia, the pink Gothic-style parish church that is San Miguel’s most famous landmark. Young students hunched over laptops, tourists relaxed on benches and Mexican farmers with straw sombreros and silver-studded belts tried to make themselves heard above the riotous din of a thousand songbirds.
Thanks to the deeper-pocketed foreigners, San Miguel abounds with delectable restaurants and crowded bars. I headed for the rooftop bar of Mama Mia, just a few feet west of the square, for an early evening tequila and sweeping views of La Parroquia’s spires and the gold-and-blue dome of the Templo de las Monjas (the Church of the Nuns) three blocks west.
The next morning, ready to resume my bicentennial tour, I headed to the home of Hidalgo’s co-conspirator-turned-rival, Ignacio de Allende. An officer in the royal army, Allende was a member of the elite Basque society of San Miguel, where his family was involved in mining, agriculture, commerce, politics and religious laymen’s fraternities. He shared with Hidalgo an increasing dislike of incompetent, corrupt Spanish rule, and the two often met, clandestinely, in various Guanajuato communities in the months before the independence uprising.
With Hidalgo’s initial support, Allende was named commander of the anti-Spanish forces. He proposed a militia led by Creoles — Spaniards born in the colony — like himself. But when the Spaniards learned of the independence conspiracy, Hidalgo decided to act first. Snatching military leadership from Allende, Hidalgo and his ragtag hordes quickly took charge of the rebellion. A note on the wall of the Allende house museum leaves little doubt about whom the local caretakers side with nowadays: "Allende became the main instigator of the 1810 insurrection."
The graceful two-story Allende house, off the southwestern corner of El Jardín, was built in 1764 of limestone and brick with wrought-iron railings. The upper floor is occupied by reception halls, bedchambers and a private chapel. The formal drawing room, decorated with metal chandeliers and religious paintings of the era (though not part of the original household), was the likely meeting place of Allende and his conspirators.
The bitter rivalry between Allende and Hidalgo would reach a nadir in the town of Guanajuato, a 90-minute bus ride away and my final destination.
I have always found Guanajuato, now with a population of 71,000, to be the most mysterious of Mexico’s colonial cities. Traffic is diverted through tunnels whose stone ramparts look medieval, while back at street level, stone footbridges and balconies create a European Renaissance aura.
Steep, narrow, curving lanes lead to hidden squares with market stalls, oversize churches, quiet inns and unexpected museums — like the three-story house with a salmon-red facade at Positos No. 47, where the painter Diego Rivera was born in 1886. (I am partial to this museum because Rivera was our neighbor in Mexico City and had me sit as a child for a portrait shortly before he died in 1957.) Among the exhibits at the museum are Rivera portraits of his second wife, Frida Kahlo, and of his longtime friend and collector Dolores Olmedo.
Guanajuato has long nurtured its cultural life, and its Festival Internacional Cervantino is one of Latin America’s leading arts jubilees. At this year’s festival (Oct. 13 to Nov. 7), performances by the American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, a Taiwan contemporary dance group, the Scottish soprano Susan Hamilton and a Mexican folkloric ballet group are among the dozens of scheduled programs.
I dropped by the festival’s main location, Teatro Juárez, one of Mexico’s most beautiful theaters. With a portico of Doric columns and an Art Nouveau foyer, it was meant to evoke the splendor of colonial Guanajuato when it was inaugurated in 1903. Located on a tree-shaded pocket square, it anchors a pedestrian enclave ideal for an outdoor coffee and a respite from Guanajuato’s breath-snatching uphill walks.
I took a 15-minute taxi ride up to Guanajuato’s other great architectural gem, the spectacular San Cayetano Church, built between 1765 and 1788 by the owner of the nearby La Valenciana silver mine. The church’s exterior glows pink from the famed cantera rosa stone of Guanajuato. Inside, gold leaf covers richly carved swirls of wood.
On my descent back into town, I lunched at Las Mercedes. The sopa negra de huitlacoche (corn smut soup) and chamorro de cerdo (pig’s shank in a black bean stew) confirmed the restaurant’s reputation for imaginative contemporary riffs on traditional central Mexican dishes. From the wide window next to my table, there is a panoramic view of the city as it cascades down the mountain sides into a canyon.
It was the same view glimpsed by Hidalgo and his unruly army, now probably 20,000 strong, as they approached Guanajuato on Sept. 28, 1810. The city was difficult to defend and had only a small militia garrison. Rather than flee, the colonial elite chose to cloister itself in the hulking, fortresslike public granary, the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, gambling that the rebels could be kept at bay until reinforcements arrived. Instead, a miner, nicknamed El Pípila, carrying a flagstone on his back as a shield, set fire to the Alhóndiga’s huge wood doors, and the mob surged in.
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