Cristo Rey

This may be my final post from Gto. It is bittersweet to say I have my finals tomorrow and Sunday. I am excited to see my Cherissey and the boys, yet this place was very special. If you ever come to Mexico and want to go to a safe place where tourists from Mexico visit, come here. This past Sunday, we went to the 'belly button' (center) of Mexico to see the Christ the King statue. It stands about 60 feet tall on top of a 30 feet high building with a church underneath.

The monument stands on the highest peak around and you can see it for miles. It was a great panoramic view all around of the nearby mountains and cities. Goodbye Guanajuato, I will definately miss you and visit you again someday.

Inquisition

So, Cherisse and the boys are now in California at Newport, living it up. I am jealous, and they will make it back to AZ before I do. I am getting lonely I guess. Here is my attempt to find some friends in the Matrix and tell you more about Guanajuato. First, here is a church that is about in the very middle of the city. It is enjoyable to look at, and they offer a free loud bell ringing multiple times a day.

Not to make you think that Guanajuato is all about dead people and mummies, but I was taken to this museum of an old inquisition home from a couple hundred years ago. I have made friends with a local young attorney, Daniel (as seen in the bottom picture). He took us to this place and it was interesting to say the least.

So, I guess a long time ago, priests used to publically torture sinners to relieve them of their sins. This was eventually outlawed in Mexico (obviously) and this rich guy had a dungeon in his house and a crazy priest friend whom he let continue to do this in secret. They would take sinners to their estate and torture them, meanwhile taking over the property of the people they recently murdered. So, this estate was hidden for years (it took place in the 1500's and was not found until the 1700's). The new owners kept it a secret in the family for a couple hundred years for fear of the government tagging it to them. So, it wasn't until a new family purchased the property in about 1970's that they cleaned and restored the place for a museum. My friend, Daniel tried to continue the tradition of torturing sinners in the bottom picture here.

Teotihuacan Pyramids

Here is an ancient Aztec replica on the pyramids. The pyramids were a blast. There is so much history here going back to about 25 A.D. There were many 'hawkers' trying to get you to make an "almost free" purchase. What is amazing to me is that there is much about this place that is still a mystery today.

Mummies

Here are the mummies! I like to think they are more like mummified corpses, but they call them mummies. They are mostly female, but a few babies and males are in the mix. The first picture is the hall of mummies. The second picture is the only one that was actually buried in the dirt, thus a little more bone is exposed. I won't lie, it was kind of creepy in this place. My spanish is no bueno, but the story goes something like this: A while back (few hundred years) people died, and they stored them in an underground tomb. There was a sort of death tax that was necessary to be paid before they would bury the dead. Also there is some issue with nobody claiming the bodies (probably they could not pay the tax). So, due to the composition of the soil and rock of the mountains here, the bodies naturally mumified. People started hearing rumors of the mummies and would come from far away to see the site. The people here thought it would be a good idea to charge admission, and now they have the museam. Some are still wearing their clothes, but most are pretty well naked because their clothes deteriorated. Kind of a must see if you ever happen to be in the center of Mexico, but I can say once is enough.