Under Guanajuato

Biding my time at the airport. No one’s even here so I can check-in.

I neglected to explain what I was doing in Guanajuato’s tunnels back when I was dazed and confused. For background, Guanajuato was founded in a river valley, and sometimes during the summer monsoon season, there was so much runoff that the town itself would flood.

Actually, my sister has a great description of how this developer:

"The wealth [from the silver mines] resulted in lots of mansions and other growth in Guanajuato and
the river ended up carrying a lot of sewage. So the river was diverted into tunnels and the city continued to build on top. But then a
combination of a 100-year flood that submerged the town’s main plaza,
presumably in sewage, and other issues caused the city to decide to
divert the whole river away from town. This left the old tunnels empty
and dry. They were turned over to vehicle traffic and the central area
of town was reserved for pedestrians.  The town has continued to build
more tunnels to keep traffic out of town as the town has continued to
grow.  Once a year in June they still open the dam above town and flood
the tunnels – to clean out the tunnels or to empty the dam before the
rainy season, I don’t know."

Anyway, I spotted a postcard of the tunnels with one shot of a turn with a bunch of arches–very nice picture and pattern (photo hint: look at postcards when you arrive in a new place for ideas). I thought I found those arches the first time, but in the taxi back from Valenciana, I saw the real thing on Calle Hidalgo. Popped out, took some pics.

Tunnels_bw1_640x480

Comments are closed.