The Tunnel Witches Of Guanajuato
By Michael McLaughlin
June 2008 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 24, Number 10

     If you want to go to a magical city in Mexico, you must go to Guanajuato. It’s about a four hour drive from Lake Chapala. Let me tell you of this fascinating city. The streets look designed for an episode of The Twilight Zone. There is no known true map of the city because the streets twist and curve into alleys, bend apart into stairways, bisect each other at obtuse angles, disappear and reappear in M.C. Escher optical illusions and open to deserted small plazas with the eerie stillness of water fountains and no people. Some streets narrow into alleys of death where it’s either you or the on-coming car and in Mexico the car wins. If all this is not enough, the strangest part of Guanajuato is under the city. There are tunnels the industrious Mexicans have turned into subterranean roadways.
     Two years ago I was in Guanajauto to attend the International Cervantes Festival, the largest festival of its kind in Latin America. I was sitting on the Jardin Union (Garden Plaza) on a bright and clear morning having breakfast at one of the sidewalk cafes when a young woman, a student at the university, asked to sit down at my table. Her name was Lucinda. The gentleman that I am, I said yes.
     Then this beautiful creature with perfumed shiny black hair, sparkling brown seductive eyes, skin the color of shimmering mocha and full red lips joined me for coffee. I was a little suspicious but I knew Mexican women were traditional and not prone to wild anythings—then she started smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. I was over twice her age and I wondered why she was talking to me. But, then again, younger Mexican women do not have a problem being with older men.
     Her eyes twinkled and she asked if I have been to Guanajuato before? No, I had been all over Mexico, but not Guanajuato. She asked if I had been in the tunnels under the city. They had mummies on display somewhere and I thought she might be hustling me for a ticket on some macabre tour.  Do you want to see the dark tunnels with me, she asked? My mind raced. Trick question? She said we could drive down there. In what, I ask? She laughed and said a car. I do have a car? Of course, and it was a convertible with the top down. 
     As we walked to my car, she mentioned she was a witch. I just smiled, not really finding danger in her words. There really is a magical realism to Mexican thought and behavior. It would not be the first time a Mexican told me of an X-factorin their life. I was more worried she was going to lead me down into a deserted tunnel where banditos were going to tie me up, rob me and leave me for dead. Another part of me wished she was going to take me down into some dark tunnel and (remember those full red lips?) as long as it didn’t cost me money, give me an incurable disease or take my soul.
     We got into my car and drove down the street and she said go that way and suddenly we took a left turn and plunged down into this dusty road under the city like “Mister Toad’s Wild Ride.” The light was a strange and grotesque pale orange. She reached down and turned on the radio full blast and Mexican pop music blared and echoed in the tunnel. Her long black hair swirled in the wind like a Medusa and she was smoking again; the smoke whirled up and around her head. She laughed hysterically, waved her hands, and sung at the top of her lungs.
     Then we saw other girls walking in the darkened tunnel and Lucinda said they were her witch friends and before I knew it three more witches piled into my small car. Quickly they all began singing and laughing. Magically a tequila bottle appeared and some more rolled cigarettes and abruptly I’m in a movie titled: Witches Gone Wild and the Gringo Boy—visions of me naked and staked to the ground in some pentagon with candles all around as they cut my heart out with a black obsidian knife, chanting verses from The Book of Shadows. I was about to be swallowed up by the madness around me.
     My hands gripped the wheel and the wild women jumped around and rocked the car from side to side. Frantically I looked for road signs that would lead this oblivion express up and out of the tunnel. Lucinda pointed and I sped up to the city street again and into the bright sweet sunshine. I was happy, the worse was over and the witches had quieted.
     Suddenly Lucinda yanked the wheel and we careened down again into another tunnel, this time we nearly hit a car coming up. When I asked her which direction this street went, she said this was Mexico and there were no right-of-way. All the witches yelled, faster! I shouted what if we hit a car and are killed? We are protected, Lucinda yelled. Protected by what I yelled back? You are riding with witches and if killed we will become mummies together in eternity! No thanks. The other witches gave out yelps and went into Saint Vitus tremors.
     Suddenly we hit a stretch of tunnel with no lights and I struggled to find the headlight switch knowing if we hit a huge truck (What else?) we would be mummies in another two-hundred years. When I drove back in the light again, the women were topless, screaming and waving their arms in the air.
     Unfortunately I couldn’t look as I was too worried watching for oncoming instant death. Every time I swerved away from a car going the opposite direction, the women rose up in their seats (Wearing seat belts? Are you kidding!) and yelled, “Ole!”  We zigzagged in and out, up and down, to and fro, swerving from cars, “Ole!” trucks, “Ole!” and death wish motorcycles, “Ole!” I thought, hoped, this was insane foreplay for a sex orgy at the end of the ride with these women. This madness had to have a reason.
     Finally we surfaced once again and the girls were dressed, quiet and we were now back to where we started. In a forced composed voice, I asked if the witches wanted to go for Cokes. Eight, eternally still, blood-shot eyes stared back right through my soul. Will I see you again, I asked Lucinda, hoping there was some payoff from this Ride of the Damned. She gave a little laugh and said I would see her in my dreams.
     For the rest of the day, I stayed in my room trembling and wondering if it was all a dream or had I really rode with the tunnel witches of Guanajuato. Ole!