We left Maryland at 3:30 am with the temperature at 16 F and arrived 11 hours later in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, temperature 70 F, ahhhh. We flew in to the airport of Leon, a nice small airport, easy to get through. A driver we had arranged for ahead of time, Reyes Ortiz, was there to take us to San Miguel. He kept up a lively conversation in English and Spanish about the area despite our exhaustion. The airport is located at almost the geographical center of Mexico as attested to by a large monument of Jesus on top of a mountain.
The drive to San Miguel passes through a dry landscape very reminiscent of New Mexico. There are lots of big cactus, small oak trees and scrubby desert shrubs. In several places there were small fires due to someone having thrown a cigarette butt out the window.
We found the house we are renting on AirBnB (and it is currently for sale if anyone is intrigued by the photos!). It has an enclosed outdoor 1st floor sitting area with a little shaded garden. On the first floor is a small living room with a gas fireplace and galley kitchen. On the second floor are 2 bedroom suites and then there is a lovely roof terrace! I'd be sitting on the roof terrace now except the wifi doesn't extend that far!
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| Bird watching from the terrace - flicker in the palm tree |
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| The rooftop terrace |
We explored the historic center of San Miguel a little in the afternoon, watched the sun set from the roof, then found a place near the plaza for dinner. We ate at El Pueblo Viejo mainly because it was convenient and we were really hungry by then. As an appetizer we got little crispy tortilla rounds topped with a slice of fried plantain and a dollop of chicken mole, delicious! For dinner we split an order of tacos that had a mixture of beef, chorizo and chicharron (pork rinds). That was topped off with a refreshing Victoria cerveza.
After dinner the plaza was busy with entertainment. There was a church service in the cathedral, a group dressed as plains Indians dancing to some giant drums in front of the church, and on another side of the plaza a group dressed in sparkly elephant costumes with some other old man costumes thrown in for good measure dancing to cumbia and other Mexican pop music.
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| A small plaza in front of one of the many, many churches in town. Note the poinsettias in the foreground and the bird topiary in the background. |
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| The dancing elephant group |
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| The Plains Indian group (although one did have a skull as a headdress) |
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| The Cathedral |
2 comments:
The rooftop terrace!!! Can you sleep out there?
Loving the stories. Keep having fun!
We have napped out there on the lounge chairs. It's only been in the low 40s at night though so a little chilly for sleeping outdoors!
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