G-L-O-R-I-A!

Is the Virgin of Guadalupe the same as the Virgin Mary? It depends who you ask. Mexican Catholic hagiography is, in any event, a cloudburst of fiestas. Here in Guanajuato the water runs down the cajellones towards el centro. Suds slipstream through the cobblestones after a good scrubbing on some bodega’s grungy patio at the end of the day.

The people defy gravity going up. Today they ascend the Calzada de Guadalupe offering their baskets of tangerines, eggs, carrots, radishes, and baby Manzano bananas to the Virgin. They find her ensconced in an altar of flowers in the peach-painted church at the crown of the road. The women wear white blouses embroidered with flowers and long skirts arrayed with rich pigments. The little boys dress like Juan Diego, the neatly pressed peasant garb and straw sombrero and a painted-on mustache. Babies with bandanas resemble cute pirates, little laughing Zorros.

Wicho and Cris make a burlesque of our trek up the Calzada, lighting little cuetes with their sulfur afterstink and exploding confetti-filled ice cream cone bombs on the sweaty head of this silly guero. I buy a bag of steamed garbanzo beans with chili and lime, partly just to amuse this unrivaled duo from el campo. Watch the guero struggle to free the bean from the pod and nearly spit the macerated green mush onto his shoe. Òrale!

The familiar sewer whiff, a ten foot passage, and the intestinal smell of carnitas frying in their own fat.

Me: Do you really believe in the story of Guadalupe with the flowers?
Wicho: [undecided, looks at Cris] Tú?
Cris: No mucho.

By ten o’clock the Calzada is emptying, one can enter the church without so much as brushing shoulders with another. I look closely at Juan Diego’s face and he looks like Jesus. A handsome man dumbstruck by a shimmering woman in green robes. A cherub holds her aloft. Next to me a woman prays, and next to her a boy eats three hotdogs. The loud band outside is doing ‘Gloria’ for the boys and girls with spackled black hair.

I descend via the Russian Baths.