The ghoulish and the grand

As I wrote yesterday we are now in the beautiful town of Guanajuato, a former mining town that has lost none of its grandeur, oozing charm out of every cobbled street and colourful square. It´s packed with museums, but being a Monday, most were shut except for the ¨Museo de las Momias¨ (Museum of the Mummies) where this guy has a home.
It is definitely the most ghoulish museum I have ever been to. Unlike the ancient Egyptian mummies we saw in Cairo, these mummies are relatively new (or fresh), some are less than 100 years old and are displayed with facial hair, genitals dangling and still wearing the clothes they were buried in. Nearly all were mummified naturally in crypts. Among the more than 100 mummies were young children and one of a mother and her foetus, very disturbing.
Aside from looking at leathery mummified faces (most appeared, like the guy above, to be screaming with mouths open) we explored the town this morning after enjoying a delicious traditional breakfast of Eggs Rancheros with beans. We ate in a cafe packed with old radios and wirelesses and other bits of nostalgia, paintings and postcards. Mexicans know an awful lot about colour, art, composition and style. The picture on the right is of the main basilica with the manicured gardens in front. There is colour everywhere in Guanajuato. Hardly anything is painted white.
The main square, which is actually triangular in shape, is lovely beyond words, covered with a matching triangular hedge made out of trees and dominated by another Baroque church and grand theatre fronted with roman columns and black figures above.
You can see the triangular hedge in this panoramic view of Guanajuato as well as the main cathedral and the university, which is the big whiteish building behind with all the windows.