The loneliness of the part-time expat...conversation, anyone?

[DonJuane]

I do understand from those who seek to select Guanajuato for it's previous Spanish-only culture and charm but unfortunately this is a description one finds only from a 10 year old guide book or from a visit back in high-school or the pre-tourist days of the current windfall of tourism that the world is experiencing (what we will again clearly witness as soon as the go-whistle is blown on this minor distraction of a pandemic). Today the more popular GTO gets with the more restaurants, B&Bs and tourist outlets focusing on English speaking tourists and their money, and with speaking English being the only means of a path to success from the perspective of many locals, the more authenticity it will continue to lose day by day.

Still while it's lost a great deal of it's charm from the past, I suppose "see it today" is likely a better strategy than seeing it tomorrow. It remains questionable though if it is wise to "anchor in" from a living or big business investment perspective. If one really is moving here to cash in on the tourist trade, likely Playa del Carmen, downtown Oaxaca or Cabo would be much more lucrative. I mean if you are going to move into a city and set up a business that is geared to drawing in more people to the area who happen to be exactly, or near enough like you, it's hard to see how anyone would believe the demographics of the area won't change and with that a loss of the charm at an equal pace.

No one here has to look much further than this group to see the powerful growing community of entrepreneurship happening here. The tourist trade is just too tempting and they all probably care a lot less if GTO remains a quaint location than if their B&B or restaurant is filled each night. Money talks. That's mainly why it doesn't concern me too badly, the people here who shred me because I have criticized some aspect of their money making enterprises in the past. Anyway everyone always feels better with a good scapegoat. And from my end perhaps the thing that gets to me most is the pretense of those who claim to love the charm or this city yet are busy building some enterprise to increase it's value as a big tourist destination. That hunger for money will always override the ability to present a logical debate and in these halls the rabid reaction seen as a reaction to my and other's comments condemning the commercialization is quite obvious. As they say "it's only business" and therefore is quite logical.

I recall a Mel Brooks movie or some movie from my adolescence where they dumped a box of hundred dollar bills into a cesspool and watched everyone jumping in to retrieve them. This always comes to mind but who am I to complain; it's simply the "American" way and who actually am I to fight the massive incentive for the wonderfulness of "growth and expansion" :-)