The Bells! The Bells!

On the face of it, my accommodation in Guanajuato exuded relaxation and tranquility; whitewashed spacious airy chalets on two levels surrounded a courtyard full of tall exotic plants; cages of chirping colourful birds were nailed to the walls.

Next door, attached to the hotel was a church and attached to that was another church. Attached to this second church was a third church. Yes a terrace of three churches. It was my first morning in Guanajuato – a Sunday – I popped into each of these establishments. Mass was being said at the same time in all of them. Now that is what you call competition.

In the early evening, I stood outside my room, looking out over the rooftops onto Guanajuato’s skyline. Of course, it was dominated by churches. Most of them only looked like a minute’s walk away. The implications of having such a dense concentration of ecclesiastical buildings on my doorstep started to sink in. Each of these had a loud bell, which clanged every quarter. This did not bode well for a good night’s sleep. I then realised that this collection of bells were hopelessly unsynchronised. Not one of them appeared to tell the correct time – the church on the extreme left would chime the half past the hour mark, two minutes later, the one on the extreme right would chime the quarter past mark, the one in the middle would a moment later give out the eight o’clock bells and so on. It was like a constant symphony of clanking. I retrieved my earplugs and placed them on the bedside cabinet for later use.

I went out for an evening stroll. My first port of call was an internet café. There I met Emily, who quite clearly from her complexion was not a Mexican. She was as blonde as they come. However, the ease with which, from her accent, I identified her as a USA citizen horrified Emily. She was after all a woman on a mission, the aim of which was to pass herself off to local people as Australian. She had been living in Guanajuato for over a year, teaching Spanish to Spanish speaking Mexican kids (which seemed a bit of a quirky anomaly to me). The Americans, she said, were not well liked in Mexico – a long history of the richer nation exploiting the other. But things had taken a turn for the worse after September 11th and subsequent U.S. led excursions in the Middle and Far East. 

‘I mean do you know anyone who has any respect for George Bush?’ she asked. And then I realised that this wasn’t a rhetorical question, but that she was waiting for a reply.

‘No, not anyone,’ I said.

Relief in the Bar

There is a bar on Juarez Street which does not quite live up to the high–culture image given off by the plazas, churches and opera houses to be found around Guanajuato’s old town. I paused outside this saloon and looked at its wild west style swing doors. However, they were just a bit too high to peer over. What lay on the other side? Would there be a cowboy ambience, or was it just a mock up? A tacky attempt at authenticity?

I pushed my way through and found myself in a crowded room. The bar tender presented me with a bottle of beer, no glass. On a television in one corner, there was a football match from Guadalajara. People stood gazing up at the screen. I stood a few paces away, swigging from my bottle and watching the game.

‘Inglaterra, si?’ asked a youngster, who was brushing passed me.

‘Si.’

He shook my hand vigorously. ’Football very good. Si? Guadalajara Treis, Eagles zero. Very good’

The Eagles pulled a goal back.

‘Americano?’ asked another drinker.

‘Non. Inglaterra.’

‘Ah,’ he gripped my hand. ‘Manchester United. Very good.’

A cheer went up as the Eagles scored again. And then five minutes later, seconds before the final whistle, I gasped as the equalising goal was scored.

I ordered another beer and gazed over at the space that had just been vacated by the crowd of people who had finished ogling the TV. If my jaw had dropped a bit when the  equalising goal went in, I gasped even more as I looked down the bar at the vacated space. There at one end of the counter, just a couple of paces away from the TV, built into the wall was the metallic outline of a latrine for two.

Customers stepped up every few seconds, got their appendage out and filled the trough, in full view of the bar’s occupants – there was no sink for the washing of hands. And then they would step back a pace, pick their drink back up off the bar, grasp a fistful of the complementary pestachio nuts that were on the counter and carry on boozing. 

In theory it was perfectly possible to stand at the urinal, have a pea, pick your beer up off the counter, finish what’s left in the bottle, carry on peeing, grab some more nuts, order another beer, finish off relieving yourself, turn away from the wall and shake a comrade’s hand. Come to think of it, it was quite a convenient set up. The amount drinking time that could be saved if toilets were not so private. And after all, we are all men.

I would not say I was appalled. That would be going too far. Just let’s say that I diplomatically declined the next offer of a handshake. And anyway, what was there possibly to be appalled at in this beautiful town, where everyone appeared to be so happy. To tell the truth though, there was something on the outskirts of Guanajuato that would appall and shock those whose sense of interest was anything less than macabre. It made shaking a urine stained hand look like quite a healthy past time.