Go Take a Hike

One of the advantages of Guanajuato's location is that you are literally minutes from a hike in the mountains. In fact we are so close to trails that our first time, we set out on foot from our house to explore. There are some great places, but the trails are not very well marked. Like, not marked at all, which may have impacted our first hiking experience. Now it's not like our first trip went horribly wrong, Emily didn't have to call the coast guard, or anything like that (like in Puerto Rico!). However, we did get a little separated, and got to see a couple different "trails", Reid, Rico and I explored one area, Kent, Damonte and Maurice explored another area, and Emily practiced trying to find us.

After our first adventure in hiking, Emily suggested we contact Mari, a hiking guide recommended to us when we first got to town. And after a couple of hikes with her, we can tell you it is a world of difference. She grew up here and has been running these mountains for a long time. The things she has already shown us have been spectacular. Take a look at some of the scenes we have experienced:

An Early Morning Start

Guanajuato is known for its silver mines, and Spain originally colonized it for its silver. It is still mined today, but we got to see some of the mines abandoned long ago.

A Mine Entrance

Maurice, stopping to enjoy the view.

The next mine Mari showed us was soo cool. The early morning temperatures were probably in the 50s, but the air coming out of the entry must have been in the 80s, and extremely humid. It was so different the the normal air (dry as can be!). You can even see ferns growing in the rocks. It was really a neat thing, that we could have never found on our own, or even with directions (which would have been something like... go out until you find a church in the middle of nowhere,  go past the pack of mean dogs, up the mountain and then in a little valley, ta da!! )

Mari shows us another old mine

Sunrise in the Mountains

And as kept going up and up through this desert mountain landscape, great views in every direction, we were stunned by what we found at the top of the trail:

Rico takes in the view of Presa de Mata