Mexico 2022 - Guadalajara's Historic Center

 It's been awhile since I was last in Guadalajara. The memory of the beauty and romance of it's historic center had faded during that time. It is a place of centuries old buildings set among plazas and a multitude of fountains, both large and small. My personal favorite, Fuente de los Ninos, roughly translated, as far as I have been able to figure, Fountain of Boys Pissing, pretty much sums it up. 4 boys face each other. One holds a turtle, water spurting out of it's mouth, another a frog, water spouting water from the amphibians mouth as well, one of the boys spits water out of his own mouth and the 4th, well peeing. The innocence of the young boys, one engaged in a basic biological function, always makes me smile. After posting photos of it on Facebook one old friend remarked that it looked like an after party, I could not argue otherwise. 

I sat in the plaza of the Hospicio Cabanas watching a group of small school children, in their green and white uniforms, line up to enter the museum containing the murals of Orozco. It was the 2nd time I viewed the murals. I marveled at the artistry, draftsmanship and raw emotion of the work. Looking up at the painted dome I imagined the artist, like Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, day after day, ascending to the dizzying heights to create the images there. By good fortune I discovered an exhibition of Orozco's sketches and studies for both those murals and others. 

I shopped the exhaustive array of goods at the jewelry district along the plaza outside the Cabanas then had lunch at an outdoor restaurant I had enjoyed on a previous visit. As I ate lunch I people watched, the handsome, heavily muscled young Mexican in a tank top and tight jeans sitting at the table next to me in particular. I strolled past the stalls filled with colorful crafts, and gazed at the majestic cathedral and the historic buildings that surround the square where it stands. I ducked into a church and considered the amount of faith, devotion and money required to construct the elaborate interior of that one, and the thousands across the world, then wandered down the arcaded streets with the population of the city to my hotel.