Can we talk about Guanajuato?

[jesm]

Enough already! Yes, we have hills. Lots of them. Some steep, some very steep. One is even aptly named El Infierno (the hell). They give us our amazing views and the geology and topography provide the precious ores that first caused this place to ever exist.
But the fear of physical exhaustion or bodily harm are phantoms. You walk as much as you want, in whatever direction or inclination that suits you. There are treats to be enjoyed no matter where you choose to head, up, down, a little of both.
We are up on the Panorámica above La Presa de La Olla, a height difference of 180 feet from lake level if my altimeter is correct. We walk down, we walk up. Some days we do, some we don’t.
Please bear in mind the saving grace for all of this is that taxis are plentiful and the ride up to one’s home when desired is 50 pesos or about $2.60 US. Pretty cheap and simple solution to what some see as a challenge too tough to take.
I think we should be more like San Francisco and embrace our beautiful hills and even write songs of praise for having such beauty and diversity.

[DonJuane]

Enough of WHAT already? I was responding to an invitation out for a drink. Basically I'd make this recommendation to anyone and feel comfortable to do so to their face and that is, if an opinion of someone other than your own offends you that much, I'd highly recommend that you seek another form of entertainment. I and everyone else have as much right to our own opinions as anyone else, and so does everyone else here.

If you have an idea to present, try presenting the idea without saying others opinions don't count. It makes for a greater debate when leaving out the name calling and degrading part. Enough of saying enough of already!

Cheers :-)

[DonJuane]

If you sell all your stuff and move here, perhaps planning on getting a job here and you don't even consider any of the things I pointed out, then perhaps the consensus is that any repercussions will be your own tough luck. I point out some of the issues that people don't think about and people can either take this into consideration or they can completely ignore it. At least the thoughts have been presented for consideration. If people are thinking of moving here, I am certain they have already realized the reasons they want to move here; perhaps something I say can allow them to make a more informed decision - or not.

My best friend of 25 years who lived through WW2, fleeing from communist Hungary, to Argentina, to Europe once told me that the real reason most people move is to escape themselves, while most unfortunately they soon discover that no matter where they go, there they are. I always accepted this not as a contrary opinion to my own wanderlust but something worthy of thought and consideration. In fact it is so meaningful that as I travel about it's the one thing that I always most recall from the time of his and my friendship.

Additionally the subject I present has been considered by many, considering it was enough for normally happy-song Buffet's "Banana Republics" and others such as Jerry Jeff Walker's "Gringo in Belize". There's a lot of people out there with dreams and not all of them turn out as expected. If someone stifles that dream due to a point missed and learned before a fateful leap, perhaps the person with that dream can move on to a better one.

[DonJuane]

If you are one like me who shares others broken dreams with equal parts of empathy and humor, and you are a fan of Jimmy Buffett then you might enjoy another little known work by Buffet and that is his first musical "Don't Stop the Carnival". It's something that goes along these lines of heartache and humor.

More about where it came from here .....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_St...al_(novel)

Basically the album tells the story in song and while it's nothing like you've heard from Buffett before, it grows on you after a couple of spins.

[pianoheat]

I think Don Juane is leading you astray he seems like lack for better words a prick to put it mildly You will love Guanajuato it's easy , friendly and cheap once you find your way.When you arrive seek out anyone but Don juane There's lots of us here

[DonJuane]

Piano - I am out of town right now but let's take up this conservation face to face when I return.

If you want to advertise Guanajuato for something it's not, walk over and ask Guanajuato's most famous author how that worked out for him with San Miguel. Paradise is in the eyes of the beholder. If you don't like someone when they call out the dog excrement on the sidewalk, or telling someone to check out a place before believing they are in utopia, advising that someone saying "I just love Guanajuato and I'm selling my house and moving there next week" then maybe you need to evaluate your own level of intelligence or character before you pass judgement on someone else.

Otherwise I'd like to ask the moderator to delete both your comment and this one, as well as request that you be permanently banned from this group in return for your abuse of this forum for personal and character attacks. There is no room here for such simple-minded-ness. Grow up. If you can't debate the merits and physiological aspects of an idea or a concept without resorting to gradeschool playground-like name-calling, then your opinion is of little value to anyone.

Most people who want to start a fight when someone makes a critique they don't like of a city in Mexico, the drive for that is because there's money in the game. I'm assuming this is what's driving you?

[DonJuane]

But thinking on the positive side of this diatribe - it does illustrate another point and precaution with moving to GTO or Mexico in general. I didn't elaborate on it previously because dormant before, this recent exchange did a good job in bringing it to mind. The problem occurs in subscribing to the "International Living Mindset" of thinking, where they try to convince you it will be easy to retire and move to Mexico prior to your social security kicking in. It is not. The way most of the "International Living" set is geared is it is a giant pyramid of seminars and workshops trying to guide people on how to move out of the US where they will encounter a utopia of ultra low prices along with their wonderful new lifestyle. And the hook is, that they do this by luring you into a giant scheme of overpriced seminars, real estate broker tours and gatherings, all mind you, mainly to collect money for their supported members who happily scoop up your money while they succeed in "successfully retiring early" whether to some lonely high rise in Ecuador or overpriced golf course in Panama or Costa Rica, or least likely a location where they don't have any hooks, Guanajuato. In the mean time, it's just an elaborate game, the same one you used to see in the back of the comic books as a kid, where you sent in your money to learn how to make money stuffing envelopes. Here you made the money by collecting money from other kids who also wanted to make money by stuffing envelopes.

Still that leaves the people who have been drawn in with high hopes, perhaps with ideas of offering some service or instruction on the side (and often exposing themselves to not realizing the tax and registration requirements of such activity) out in the cold, where they continue to dream of how they are going to supplement their income. These thoughts can even begin to dominate all aspects of their new environment. Shortly afterward they may start to become a social pest while scheming to make money - the effect of this is often defined as the "Amway syndrome".

The people who fit this category are easily identified, perhaps always trying to sell something or trying to figure out how to capitalize on every aspect of their experience here. Then once they realize that the people able to afford their services and facilities are in short number because they actually have no money to share themselves, this often leads the person who came here with hopes of selling and somehow making a living, now desperately looking for new clients just to survive. They then may soon realize that the only way their formula will work for survival in this land of limited clients is to increase the numbers in their favor, thus they become an agent for selling their own idea of utopia to others. The downside of this is, as has been proved in San Miguel de Allende, is that the onset of high-income new inhabitants has an effect of massive gentrification, which brings on the competition to a point that the formula for selling has not been enhanced but diminished for the person with "high hopes" while in the process the cost of living is raised to an unfordable amount, leaving not only the person with the original "high hopes" more distraught than before, it also leaves the rest of the original people stuck here with their own ideals of non-commercial investments left with their own standard of living diminished as well.

The result of all this can then be the original person of "high hopes" begins lashing out at his fellow community members while not realizing that having his own interests at heart was the objective all along.

[jesm]

Have we gone just a bit off the purpose of the original poster? He was hoping for a conversation with residents about their life in Guanajuato.
We enjoyed a fact filled twenty minute phone call soon after his message.
Song lyrics were not requested.

[pianoheat]

Don
I would like to apologize for calling you a prick I must of had an extra tequila because I don't usually resort to name calling with someone I happen to disagree with. I agree that Guanajuato is not a place to settle down if you don't have income or cash. But there are some exceptions depending on the creativity and intelligence and entrepreneurial gifts a person has. I know a person who started a company selling Rotary demolishing hammers and did well selling to maestros and architects and country wide on Mercado libre. I know others who are professional musicians who play in the symphony and teach privately and at the University and do well here even though probably paid less then in their home country they prefer the lifestyle here. I personally did well having my ceramic works made in large numbers in Tonala Jalisco and shipped and sold in the USA. I didn't realize until later I could have easily done that here. I have countless other examples. To tell you the truth I can't gage the motivations of your posts. It feels a little bit like your just saying stuff to discourage people from coming here. For me it's the best and last move I will make in my life.

[DonJuane]

Apology accepted.

Regarding song lyrics .... before lyrics turned into chants, indecipherable mumbling and grade school rhymes, our song lyrics were the only poetry of our time. Apparently the lighthearted dreams of many a Gringo and perhaps the financial ruin that accompanies them were enough to cause two very talented song writers to feel them worthy of making a commercial stab with a song about it, so to me that has value. If not, I don't believe anyone made it mandatory reading.

And again those people who normally want to attack me for trying to ask people to take a good look before selling out and moving to another country where things are quite different, suggesting that they think carefully about it, well like I may have said or forgotten to, most of them are either patriotic to their new choice of a home and think this talk is insulting them personality, they have a drinking problem and when I say that many a Gringo falls into drinking circles while at a loss to really embrace his new home (what person who drinks too much ever says, hey, thanks for the advise?), or they have something to sell and the more people they can get to buy their products, the happier they are. Otherwise most people say, humm, interesting - here's what I think about it.

Of course nothing would really be fun these days without a lot of reality TV scripting thrown in - so why not? LOL

Cheers and I hope everyone finds what they are looking for here (or so be it) don't find what they aren't. :-)

"The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68,
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh, he said you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies"

Joni Mitchell - "The Last Time I Saw Richard" from the album "Blue"