Friday, 7 March 2014

We arrived in Guanajuato by bus from Guadalajara at 1:00 p.m. and made our way to the hotel by Taxi. The hotel was near the center of the town so much of the town was within easy walking distance.

Our visit to the town was prompted by a distant relative Athelstan Joseph Alexander Kean, who lived here with his family from 1890-1931. Every time we mentioned Guanajuato, people said it was a great place to visit, and they were correct. It has a definite European feel to it; probably from the many nationalities that formed part of the mining community like my cousin Athelstan, who worked as the chief electrical engineer for the newly formed power company which was electrifying mine operations. At that time, many of the mining and electrical operations were owned by American or Canadian companies. Athelstan worked here until 1931 when the Mexican government started their first process of reorganization under the mandate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

We arranged for a private tour of the town on Saturday morning. This is not normally for us however we wanted to get a complete overview of the town, given its genealogical importance to my family history.

A short walk from our hotel brought us to the Union Gardens in the heart of Guanajuato which comes alive on Friday and Saturday nights with music, dancing and feasting as this is a University town. We wandered around the general area and visited the Iglesia De San Diego church, finally having dinner at one of the hotels which surround the Jardin.