My buddy Rusty just got back from spending the summer flying in Alaska. After his 30 hour flight, I picked him up at the airport in Celaya and on the way home he mentioned that he wanted to go do some flying in the next few days. Since Celaya doesn't have fuel, We decided that we should fly to Guanajuato, see the town and the cubilete and fill up the tanks. We pre-flighted the plane and headed out on a beautiful partly-cloudy morning. Here in central Mexico we're getting to the end of the rainy season. The rainfall in our semi-arid climate is concentrated to the summer months and this year we've had a little more than usual. The desert is blooming with flowers. The agricultural fields of milo, corn and lettuce are all producing well. Guanajuato means "the hilly place of frogs" in the native tongue, but was really put on the map in the 1500's when the spanish found abundant silver in the area. By the 1700's the mines were so productive that about a third of the worlds silver was being extracted here and it was mexico's richest city. Today it is the state capital and government seat for some 370 nearby rural towns. The cerro de cubilete, or the christ on the hill, is an international icon. The statue was completed in 1944 and bears the hallmarks of the Art Deco movement. It is one of the most significant religious memorials in the country and sits at the geographical center of Mexico. There had been a smaller statue there before which was destroyed during the latter stages of the Mexican Revolution by the anti-religious president at the time. The Cristo Rey was constructed in honor of the struggle of the Cristeros, those who opposed that regime. While we don't know what it was, we are sure there must have been a religious event in progress while we were flying over. We roughly calculated that there were some 200+ tour buses parked along the road to the top. With our sightseeing done, we headed over to Bajio international for fuel. As always, it was a busy place with commercial and private traffic from our little cherokee up to mid-sized cargo and passenger jets. We did the standard dance of visiting 5 different offices to do flight planning, order fuel and BS with people we know. Often it takes a while to get fuel, but it was quick today and the operation modern and efficient (with the exception of the fuel hose that looked like it had been cut and repaired a hundred times). We flew a direct route back to Celaya over a different set of mountains and fields. The winds were such that we approached over the country club at west end of the runway. Finally, back on the ground, we had a chat with the pilot of a twin engine going to the beach for the weekend, got the last of Rusty's alaska gear out of the plane, put the owl back on the prop and headed back home.

• published: 18 Oct 2013
• views: 102