Guanajuato Travel 05: An Estudiantina Outside a Church at Night, San Miguel de Allende, and Home

8:53 p.m., Guanajuato. In front of a church facade crowded with stone carving, men in black stood in a row on the wet paving, playing mandolins and guitars and singing. At the far end, a double bass.

In part 4 I went on a tequila tour from Guadalajara and walked the Centro the next morning. This is the last part.

On the afternoon of October 8 I took a bus to Guanajuato and stayed two nights. In between I spent a day in San Miguel de Allende, and on the 10th I went back to Mexico City. The ten days ended around 6 a.m. on the 11th, when I left for Canada. At the very end there's one table with the whole route.

The route in this post

Date	Where	In a line
Oct 8, afternoon	Guadalajara → Guanajuato	Green fields from the bus window
Oct 8, evening	Guanajuato old town	A pink-walled alley, Teatro Juárez, an estudiantina
Oct 9, afternoon	San Miguel de Allende	A yellow church, a green taxi, a guitar at LOS MILAGROS
Oct 9, night	Back in Guanajuato	Lights filling the valley
Oct 10	Guanajuato → Mexico City	Cloudy highlands, Calle Bolívar, a pink taxi
Oct 11, early morning	Mexico City → Canada	Left around 6 a.m.

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October 8: By bus from Guadalajara to Guanajuato

My walk around the Centro lasted until 11:40 a.m. By 1:30 p.m. I was on the bus: a long-distance coach with luggage racks and air vents overhead and curtains on the windows. In my hand, a cup of pink yogurt topped with granola and a plastic spoon.

Outside, it soon turned to fields. Cornfields ran on behind the grass, and tall cumulus clouds stood over low mountains in the distance. The bus companies list the Guadalajara to Guanajuato trip at about four hours.

First evening in Guanajuato: a pink-walled alley and Teatro Juárez

My first scene in Guanajuato is an alley at 6:52 p.m. A small name plaque hangs on the corner of a pink building, and beside it a narrow flight of stone steps climbs along a rough stone wall. Only the far end of the alley had a light. Guanajuato's old town clings to the slopes of a ravine, so there are a lot of stepped alleys like this.

Thirteen minutes later I was outside Teatro Juárez. Bronze lions sit on either side of the steps in front of the columns, and a row of round glass street lamps was lit. The paving was wet, and the lights spread across it. A man with a backpack and someone pushing a bike passed in front.

Construction of the theatre began in 1872 and it opened in 1903. In 1988 the historic town of Guanajuato and its adjacent mines became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the 18th century it was the world's leading silver-mining centre.

Dinner at 8:22 p.m. was a white instant-noodle cup. Rice went into the orange broth, stirred with chopsticks.

8:53 p.m., an estudiantina outside the church

Back to the opening scene. The band in black is an estudiantina: black doublets with round puffed sleeves and black tights, the dress of the old student bands. Behind them the densely carved stone facade of the church was floodlit, and the ground was as wet as before.

Two mandolins, several guitars and, at the end, a man on the double bass. They sang in Spanish. When an estudiantina leads people through the alleys at night, singing as they go, it's called a callejoneada. It's sold as one of Guanajuato's night activities on plenty of booking sites.

At 9:32 p.m. people were gathered on the paving of a dark alley. Some held small clay cups with straws in them. I switched the camera on again at 9:52, and that video runs over seven minutes: a long story told in Spanish under a lamp on a yellow wall.

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October 9: A day trip to San Miguel de Allende

The next day I went from Guanajuato to San Miguel de Allende and back. Most sources put it at around 80 km by road, about an hour and a half by car. My first scene there is from 2:17 p.m.

The street turns at the corner of a red building, number 18. Yellow and red houses line up across the way, and the cobbles were wet. The sky was grey. San Miguel de Allende's historic centre became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, together with the sanctuary of Atotonilco 14 km away.

At 2:47 p.m. I was in front of a yellow church. A bell tower trimmed in red stone rises over the yellow walls, with another dome behind it. The yellow wall around the church was finished with a wavy top.

On the cobbles in front stood a green-and-white taxi with a TAXI light on its roof. The taxis I saw in Mexico City the next day were pink.

A guitar at LOS MILAGROS, and tortilla chips

At 3:28 p.m. I sat down in a restaurant. A paper-lined basket of tortilla chips came out onto a red table, next to a white square bowl of salsa and an amber drink.

On a white wall hung a blue heart with LOS MILAGROS written on it. Under it a man sat at a microphone, playing guitar and singing. His song carries on in the same video as the basket of chips.

San Miguel de Allende from a hilltop

At 5:20 p.m. I was on a hill looking down over the town. Below me were trees, red bougainvillea and a brick wall, and beyond them low houses spread flat all the way out. On the horizon sat flat-topped mountains and a faint glint of water. It's a different shape of town from Guanajuato, where the houses are stacked up the sides of a ravine.

Guanajuato at night again

That night I was back in Guanajuato. At 10:54 p.m. the valley below was full of lights from every house. In the middle, large floodlit buildings glowed yellow, and smaller lights covered the slopes around them right up the hills.

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October 10: Back to Mexico City, the last day

At 9:10 a.m. on October 10 the view from the car was highland under low cloud. Dry grass and shrubs ran on beyond a fence of white posts, with a low mountain and a town in the distance. This was the day I left Guanajuato for Mexico City.

By 12:51 p.m. I was in Mexico City's historic centre. A building with stone-framed windows had TIENDA MIDE lettered on the glass: the shop of MIDE, the economics museum. The museum is in the former Betlemitas convent on Calle Tacuba, between Bolívar and Filomeno Mata. Signs nearby carried street numbers like BOLIVAR Nº 79-B and BOLIVAR 45.

A pink-and-white taxi stood in front, with TAXI on the door and CDMX on the back.

The itinerary's box for the last day says "last look around town, souvenirs". The only photos from that day are from around Calle Bolívar. There's no record of what I bought.

October 11, early morning: to Canada

Around 6 a.m. on October 11 I left Mexico City for Canada, ten days after landing here at about 10:50 p.m. on October 1 and reaching my room at midnight. There are no photos from the day I left.

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Where the ten days went

Last, the whole ten-day route in one table.

Date	Where	What	Part
Oct 1	Incheon → Vancouver → Mexico City	Landed around 10:50 p.m., at the lodging by midnight	Part 1
Oct 2	Teotihuacan	Pre-dawn start, a hot-air balloon	Part 1
Oct 3–4	Mexico City	A night taco stand, Chapultepec Castle	Part 2
Oct 5–6	Puebla · Mexico City	Puebla, Xochimilco at night, Parque México, Guadalupe	Part 3
Oct 7	Guadalajara	A tequila tour	Part 4
Oct 8	Guadalajara → Guanajuato	Bus, Teatro Juárez, an estudiantina	Part 5
Oct 9	San Miguel de Allende	Day trip, the view from a hilltop	Part 5
Oct 10	Guanajuato → Mexico City	Calle Bolívar	Part 5
Oct 11	Mexico City → Canada	Left around 6 a.m.	Part 5

Five days based in Mexico City, then west to Guadalajara, then back east through Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende.

I love tacos, and I went to Mexico to eat them. I'd studied some Spanish before going, too. The Spanish of mine that ended up on video is short stuff like "Hola, buenos días" and "Gracias". I started filming on the morning of October 6 in Parque México, so a good share of the scenes in this part come from that footage.

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Visit info

I was there October 8–11, 2025. I looked up the practical details below while writing this post, and prices and times varied from source to source. Where I'm not sure, I've marked it "check official info".

Place	Location	Fees · hours	When I was there
Teatro Juárez	Guanajuato old town, by the Jardín de la Unión	Check official info for visits and shows	Oct 8, around 7 p.m.
Callejoneada (estudiantina)	Guanajuato old-town alleys	Varies by operator; check official info	Oct 8, 8:53 p.m., seen outside a church
San Miguel de Allende historic centre	About 80 km by road from Guanajuato	Free to walk around	Oct 9, afternoon
MIDE (economics museum)	Tacuba 17, Mexico City	Check official info	Oct 10, midday, walked past

Route: Guadalajara to Guanajuato by bus, two nights in Guanajuato with a day trip to San Miguel de Allende. Back to Mexico City on the 10th, then away early on the 11th.

📍 Teatro Juárez · Guanajuato

• 🏛️ Facts: construction began in 1872 and it opened in 1903. It stands by the Jardín de la Unión.
• 🌙 When I saw it: around 7 p.m., with the lamps lit around the lions on the front steps.
• 🎟️ Visits and shows: whether you can tour inside, admission and opening hours: check official info before visiting.
• 🗺️ Map: View on Google Maps

📍 Callejoneada · Guanajuato old town

• 🎻 What: a night walk in which an estudiantina leads people through the alleys, singing. Booking sites mostly list 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes.
• 💳 Price and what's included: prices and whether a drink is included varied by site. Check official info before booking.
• 🗺️ Map: Jardín de la Unión

📍 San Miguel de Allende · Guanajuato state

• 🏛️ Facts: inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, together with the Sanctuary of Jesús Nazareno de Atotonilco.
• 🚌 Getting there: about 80 km by road from Guanajuato. Some sources give the bus at around 1 hour 20 minutes. Check timetables before you go.
• 🔭 View: the best-known lookout over town is El Mirador on Salida Real a Querétaro. There's no record of whether that's exactly where I stood at 5:20 p.m.
• 🗺️ Map: San Miguel de Allende · El Mirador

📍 MIDE · Calle Bolívar · Mexico City, Centro Histórico

• 🏛️ Facts: MIDE, the economics museum, is in the former Betlemitas convent at Tacuba 17, close to Calle Bolívar.
• 🎟️ Admission and opening hours: they varied by source. Check official info before visiting.
• 🗺️ Map: View on Google Maps

How to get lost a little less

• 🚌 Guadalajara to Guanajuato is half a day by bus. Spend the morning in Guadalajara, take an afternoon bus and you can still walk Guanajuato's old town in the evening.
• 🌙 Walk Guanajuato at night. The lamps at Teatro Juárez and the estudiantina outside the church were both after 7 p.m.
• 👟 Lots of stone paving and stone steps. They get slippery when wet after rain. Wear shoes with grippy soles.
• 🚕 San Miguel de Allende works as a day trip from Guanajuato. I walked the town in the afternoon, looked down on it from a hill, and was back by night.
• ✈️ If your flight leaves at dawn, be back in Mexico City the day before. I returned on the 10th and left around 6 a.m. on the 11th.

Jayden's verdict

I love tacos, so this was a trip to Mexico to eat tacos.

• Highlight: Guanajuato at night: the lamps outside Teatro Juárez and the estudiantina outside the church. And the next day, San Miguel de Allende from a hilltop.
• Tip: give Guanajuato two days and you can fit in San Miguel de Allende too. If you fly out at dawn, spend the last day in Mexico City.

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That's the end of ten days in Mexico for tacos. The whole trip is in the five parts below.

Mexico for Tacos: 10 Days

1. Mexico City arrival and a Teotihuacan balloon
2. Mexico City: night tacos and Chapultepec Castle
3. Puebla, Xochimilco at night and Guadalupe
4. Guadalajara and a tequila tour
5. Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, and home (you are here)