This is our third Easter away from Bristol. In 2015, we spent it in the quiet town of Debrecen, Hungary. Last year we celebrated with some friends in China, where Easter isn’t celebrated. This year, we’re in the beautiful town of Guanajuato, Mexico. The town is super busy due to the holidays but it has an exciting atmosphere.
Exploring Guanajuato
Guanajuato is in a ravine. The town is down in the bottom of the ravine and many tunnels link the city. We’re staying on one of the many hills on the edge of the city. This means it’s lovely and quiet and we get a spectacular view. However, it also means that walking home involves a fairly steep walk – it’s good exercise, we tell ourselves.
As a UNESCO city, the word that perfectly sums up Guanajuato is picturesque. Old, colourful houses line the hills of the ravine and there are three stunning churches within about a two-minute walk of each other. Due to the shape of the city, on our walk home we can hear perfectly the sound of one of the churches. They evidently have speakers outside the church which means the sound echoes crisply up the hill.
We’ve explored a lot of the town by drinking in traditional cantinas, eating delicious food (including chocolate, it is Easter after all), walking around the cobbled streets, and sitting in the many beautiful churches. There is still more to see and explore but luckily we still have another week here.
Celebrating Easter in Mexico
We arrived last Sunday, Palm Sunday, and the town was busy and full of atmosphere. We saw a huge Palm Sunday parade which lasted for about 15 minutes and involved role-play, music, and a procession of people walking with palms. If this was Plam Sunday, I wondered what Easter Sunday had in store.
You won’t find mass consumption of chocolate eggs in Mexico for Easter but there are a lot of festivities and time spent with family. Today (Easter Sunday), we took a stroll around the town and the churches were overspilling with people for Easter services. The town itself was much quieter than it has been, presumably people are at home with family. Remarkably, however, many restaurants, cafes, and shops were open as normal. As for Mitch and I, we enjoyed lunch in the city and a walk around but are now having a chilled afternoon at our Airbnb apartment, with Netflix at the ready.
How Did Lent go?
You may recall that for Lent I decided to commit to practising my Spanish every day. So how did it go?
Not well. For the first couple of weeks I was very active. I would read the Spanish book every day. After that, it got a little worse. I would skip a few days but make up for it and do a solid half an hour studying. However, after that, I got even worse. It turns out that doing things for Lent is more difficult than giving things up. I’ve still been speaking Spanish and in restaurants and asking where things are but I haven’t learnt as much as I should. I can understand things better than I can speak. It’s not good enough though. I want to do something to make up for my lack of dedication so I’ve decided to donate some money to charity (not sure which one yet) because Easter is about giving. Charity recommendations are welcome in the comments.
