Guanajuato

Every October the city of Guanajuato hosts the Festival Cervantino that highlights theater and music and art from all over Mexico. Liliana and I decided to catch the closing concert by Café Ta Cuba. After waiting for over three hours in a line that snaked through the city center, we arrived at the entrance right as the guards were closing the gates. I learned a new word: portazo; definition: what a crowd of angry people shouts in front of a closed door; an attempt to incite enough emotion to break down the door / gate. With images of tear gas and trampled concert-goers in my mind, I was relieved to get away from the crowd and out of the concert zone . . . everything ended peacefully, but I realized that big crowds make me uncomfortable, and I was disappointed by not hearing Café Ta Cuba. The next morning, the streets of Guanajuato were eerily empty as though the crazy concert-goers and the mile-long line had been swept up in the wee hours of the morning along with the crushed cans and taco trays discarded on the cobble stones.