Can we talk about Guanajuato?

[lorenzetti]

Thank you Don Juane and others for responding.

My mother will not be coming to live with us in the city of GTO. She will be going to an assisted living facility close to San Miguel. In my opinion she will get better care there at half the price of the U.S. One GTO board member here has even been gracious enough to go there and check out the facility for me and gives me a good report.

GTO seems to have everything we want in a city. We humbly feel we are exactly the type of people that could handle the move to GTO. My wife and I have travelled extensively all over the world for the past thirty years. We know how to handle uncertainty and can survive without knowing the language. But we are determined to learn Spanish well and have a plan for that. We understand what learning the language will bring to us and to our lives in GTO. We have the time and the means to accomplish some of the important things recommended here in this thread and on this board.

Also we have lived most of the last thirty years near two major universities (in Austin and Bozeman) and we like the energy and opportunity that brings.

As far as the physically of GTO and the climbs. We currently spend half our year at 4000' or higher. We are both fit and active. Places we have experienced for long periods like Bogota, Quito and Lima had similar attributes and challenges.

As far as safety and security...and for perspective not personal aggrandizement, when you have travelled by SUV across borders in West Africa, through FARQ guerrilla controlled territories in Colombia, hilltribe villages in Yemen, Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge and the porous Ethiopian/Somali border...you have been security tested. We feel, with awareness we can handle the security issues GTO might throw at us.

We are also going to rent and not buy the first year or season. Because of an elderly dog and the location of my mother's assisted living facility we will probably not live in centro but rather outside of GTO (Marfil?) where we can rent a single story house, have our car with a secure parking space that we will need to drive to SMA to see my mother several times a week... but most of the time in GTO we will walk, hike, use public transport or taxis.

Thanks again and keep those comments coming.