Abram and I left Mexico City on March 12; he took a bus to Guadalajara and I took one to San Miguel de Allende. I'd wanted to visit it for a long time and this was the perfect opportunity because a friend from Petaluma is currently living there. It's so great to have a local resident show you around! Karen put together an itinerary for my three days that included walking the picturesque streets, live music, theater, a former textile mill now galleries, the mercado, some good restaurants, a glimpse of the neighborhood she lives in, her adorable apartment, and more! Of course a sunset view from a rooftop:
Traveling to San Miguel from Mexico City on the bus was a breeze. The clean modern bus station in CDMX looks like a small airport. A very comfortable two decker bus with right-on-time departure. The bus was completely full with a wide variety of people and a wide variety of things they were bringing, including one man who had four new car tires that went into the luggage area. Video screens, free earbuds. Clean bathroom. Easy 4-hour ride.
One great thing about taking the bus or train is seeing the outskirts of cities. We drove under the public transit cable cars that I mentioned in my previous blog and saw them going up to the hilly neighborhoods. The longest line is 7 miles long!
Upon arrival in SMA I checked into the lovely hotel that Karen recommended, La Casa de la Noche, a former bordello. Every room is different and they're all named: mine was Chiquita and was a darling small room with French doors looking out over a fountain. The hotel was perfectly located just four blocks from the "Jardin", the central park and gathering place in SMA, in front of the remarkable pink church. My hotel:
The church!
The main church, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, is the best-known building in SMA. The current incarnation is its third, after the first two constructions from the 1500's and 1700's partially collapsed. The color is different every day, with every change of sun and clouds, and is spectacular when illuminated at night.
The towers were designed by a self-taught indigenous stonemason named Zeferino Gutiérrez, who was inspired by a postcard of a Belgian church. Apparently, Gutiérrez had never seen a cathedral in person, so he just winged it; legend says he scratched his design in the sand with a stick. He also had the brilliant idea to use pink stone from a nearby quarry - the result is a fantasy come true!
The central neighborhoods of San Miguel, clustered around the Jardin, are almost ridiculously beautiful. Every massive wooden doorway. Every lucious interior courtyard. Every rooftop terrace with a view. The cobblestone streets and raised skinny sidewalks. The paver tiles. The ceramic tiles. The fountains. The boutiques and galleries. You get my drift. A few photos from wandering the streets of San Miguel:
A few shots from the historic museum, including kids on a school field trip:
San Miguel de Allende was the first Spanish settlement in the state of Guanajuato, founded in 1542 by the Franciscan monk Juan de San Miguel. The “de Allende" was added in 1826 to honor a native son, Ignacio Allende, a hero of the revolution against Spain.
Silver was discovered nearby in the mid-1600’s; roads were built to travel to and from mines, money was made by catering to miner and traveler needs. By the mid-1800’s SMA had a population of 30,000, larger than Boston (16,000) and New York (25,000). Textile production had become very important. The influenza epidemic in the early 1900’s almost wiped it out but it was saved by artists! Paraphrased from Wikipedia: “American artist and writer Stirling Dickinson arrived in 1937 and should be credited with creating the first wave of advertising abroad about San Miguel's virtues. Dickinson met Peruvian intellectual, author and painter Felipe Cossio del Pomar, who had the idea of establishing an art colony in the heart of Mexico. The first art school was established in 1938 in an old convent. The school was called Escuela de Bellas Artes and continues to exist today, known locally as Bellas Artes or Centro Cultural El Nigromante. In the 1940s, Dickinson also assisted Cossio del Pomar and Enrique Fernández Martinez, the former governor of the state of Guanajuato, to establish what became the Instituto Allende. Despite their rural location, both schools found success after WWII with US veterans studying under the G.I. Bill. Enrollment at the schools rose and this began the town's cultural reputation. This attracted more artists and writers, which spurred the opening of hotels, shops and restaurants to cater to the new visitors and residents. Many of the American veterans who came to study in San Miguel returned later to retire, some also stayed, marrying and raising families. The town's cultural, foreign and cosmopolitan nature has continued since that time.”
On my final night we went to a play at the local theater inside “La Biblioteca”, which is much more than a library - it's a community center with a cafe and small theater, too. The play was part of a festival of solo shows - thanks to Karen for scoring me a ticket to the sold-out performance!
We saw a very poignant piece about one man's journey through life - it had its world premiere two years ago in the same theater. And because SMA is that kind of town I ran into Eli - the author/actor - and his husband Joseph at the late night taco cart on my way home after dinner, and had a chance to chat with them about the play. Lovely men. I can see why San Miguel has the reputation it does and why so many people have come to live there. Beautiful weather, fresh clear air, a truly international vibe, and so picturesque!
On March 15 I took the bus to Guadalajara to meet Abram. He'd booked us into the historic Hotel de Mendoza, in the Centro Histórico, just around the corner from the gorgeous Teatro Degollado and a couple of blocks from the central plaza and the cathedral. Many years ago when I was a travel agent in downtown San Francisco one of my favorite co-workers, Anita Mendoza, took mini-vacations to Guadalajara several times a year. She just loved it! All these years whenever I've thought of Guadalajara I've thought of her, so we've renamed the hotel "Hotel de Anita Mendoza".
Musicians after a symphony matinee at the Teatro:
Guadalajara proper has a population of about a million and a half people, with over five million in the larger metropolitan area. It’s considered by many people to be the cultural center of Mexico: mariachi music originated here as did tequila. The town of Tequila is just a few miles away and the countryside around the city is planted with blue agave. Guadalajara is going to be one of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup, which will generate a lot of buzz!
During our few days at the Anita Mendoza Hotel in Centro, Abram checked out the mercado, I went to a couple of museums, we people-watched in the plaza, and saw the light show on the Cathedral. Here are a few pics, including the historical museum and national ceramics museum, and the light show:
I love this award-winning local mariachi band with an unusual mix of gender, race and age:
In Guadalajara they say if you can only visit one museum or cultural site let it be the Hospicio Cabañas. Formerly a hospital and an orphanage, it’s known for the dozens of amazing murals by José Clemente Orozco, a 20th Century Mexican muralist. From a reporter for Here magazine: "I crane my neck up at the ceiling to get a good look at José Clemente Orozco’s 1939 ‘Man of Fire’ — one of the muralist’s most famous works — which depicts a man enveloped in flames, ascending above a group of dark gray figures. Depending on where you stand beneath the painting, it can look either like the man on fire is extinguishing the figures beneath, or offering them the chance to ascend alongside him. 'You can either be engulfed in flame or reborn from it,' says Liliana, my tour guide. This, she says, is her favorite painting in Guadalajara." Orozco is considered one of the “big three” Mexican muralists, the other two being Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The building was just a short walk from our hotel.
A couple miles west of Centro is the
University of Guadalajara and the cool Santa Tere neighborhood with its mercado, another gorgeous cathedral and several classic pulquerias:
The University has a terrific museum
and small chapel with more Orozco murals. I discovered well-known Mexican artist Rafael Cauduro here; they had a large retrospective of his work over 50 years. He worked in many mediums and styles and is well-known worldwide. Very compelling work!
Title: “Skull Rack, Masks and an Angel” - some close-ups from it below.
Very different below … his work changed so much over the decades - check him out! https://www.udg.mx/es/noticia/la-huella-inconfundible-de-rafael-cauduro-en-el-musa
The metropolitan area of Guadalajara consists of four urban districts – Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, and Zapopan. On a Sunday afternoon we took the subway out to Zapopan; it was a lovely day - a beautiful basilica, a cool museum, and a sweet proposal of marriage out in the middle of the plaza. (She said yes.)
It's the most-visited sanctuary in Western Mexico. Since it was Sunday it was full of worshippers, and there were signs reminding people that it's a house of God so don't be thoughtless with your cameras!
The Museo de Arte de Zapopan is a couple of blocks away. They had some really interesting local art on the ground floor and a mindblowing temporary exhibition of shoes and boots upstairs. A small sampling, downstairs…
And upstairs…
We chose an Airbnb in the Colonia Americana neighborhood a few miles west of Centro, and moved out there on March 20 for 3 weeks. It had a pool which was very welcome since the weather is heating up now that spring has officially sprung.
It also had a large well-equipped gym so I resurrected some excellent workout playlists and enjoyed them while pedaling or rowing.
Easter and its related events are a very big deal in Mexico, culminating in Semana Santa, the week leading up to Easter, and Semana de Pascua, the week following Easter. There are ceremonies, processions, rituals, and in central and southern Mexico, the Burning of Judas, where effigies of Judas, the devil, and sometimes political figures are burned or blown up with fireworks to symbolize the triumph of good over evil. There was a big brouhaha in 2016 when Trump joined the ranks of the burnt and exploded politicians, after his charming remarks about Mexicans being murderers and rapists. A photo from this year taken my friend Karen in San Miguel de Allende:
A few days later I took the long bus ride out to Tonalá mostly to see the Museo de los Tastoanes. It turned out to be one of the two days a week that a huge outdoor flea market covers at least 20 blocks around the center plaza. All the streets were blocked off to traffic and the stalls were covered with so many pop-up shades it felt like street-level caves. So many people!
The museum was outstanding! The Dance of the Tastoanes has to do with native indigenous peoples who violently rejected the Spanish invaders. Every July 25 it’s re-enacted in Tonalá - there are lots of great videos on YouTube. Below are just a few of the masks in the museum. They’re made of leather, clay, horse and cow tails, and a variety of animal teeth. There are also some shots of art around town.
The fourth municipality, Tlaquepaque, is so picturesque and lively I went out there twice. Plus there was an excellent seafood restaurant with a dish I’d never had before which I needed to have again - atún tropical. Seared rare tuna served on a slice of grilled pineapple with sweet and spicy pineapple-jalapeño salsa on top. Cold sliced jicama and celery on the side. Yum! I intend to make it at home. Here are a few pictures of the streets:
Abram and I took a day trip to the towns of Tequila and Amatitán - the birthplace of tequila - about an hour drive northwest of Guadalajara. Our first stop was Tres Mujeres, a small organic distillery that uses artisanal methods to produce its excellent tequila.
We tasted a silver and a reposado, and also sampled some “rompope”, eggnog made with tequila, and their delicious chocolate-tequila liqueur. The melange of fabulous Mexican chocolate and excellent tequila was a winner!
The lava from the now-extinct volcano helped create the correct soil conditions for blue agave to grow. A year-round river (Tequila) and an underground spring (Amatitán) provide the necessary water. We learned that the original name of tequila was vino mezcal - any drink made from the 160 types of agave is basically mezcal, but tequila is made only from blue agave and only in 5 Mexican states. We tasted rare pink and black tequilas, and later in the day at a huge cantina we had the opportunity to drink a cantarito, a tall drink made with orange, grapefruit, and lime juice, Sprite, and salt. The Tres Mujeres distillery uses white oak wine barrels from the US, Canada and France; we spotted a few from home!
Tequila is distilled and aged like whiskey, using a mash made from lightly roasted cores of the blue agave; they’re called piñas because they resemble pineapples. The pink tequila resulted from a happy accident, sending tequila to Spain in red wine barrels turned it pink. It doesn’t really change the flavor but it’s really beautiful. Black tequila is aged even longer than extra-añejo, which is usually the darkest one. It was delicious!
It was the day of the eclipse - the Guadalajara area had 91% - and we came up out of the barrel cave into dim silvery light and the air temperature dropped by at least 15 degrees!
We then drove to the very small town
Amatitán which is considered the true birthplace of tequila, based on the remains of a taberna/distillery in nearby El Tecuane Canyon from the late 1700’s. It used both Pre-Hispanic and Hispanic brewing techniques and cleverly took full advantage of gravity and a nearby spring to carry out its distilling. We went first into a little bar in town…
… and then walked a few blocks to the Ruinas Chimulco where we went into a cave and saw the source of one of the underground springs. It used to be a hacienda; there’s a nice pool where our tour guide serenaded us. He said he’s from the town where mariachi music was born and everyone from there sings!
In the center of town near a public fountain was a plaque explaining that the water system is a “qanat” - qanats were invented in Persia thousands of years ago; the technology proved so successful that it spread across the world to Arabia, to China, to the Roman Empire and via Spain to the Americas. Going inside the cave in the Ruinas was a bit creepy - bats and dripping water - but cool.
On the way back to Guadalajara we stopped at Cantaritos El Güero, a huge roadside cantina with live music and “cantaritos”, mentioned before , made with citrus juices and Sprite. The drinks come in sizes ranging from 1/2 liter with 2 shots of tequila all the way up to a giant container of (I think) 8 liters of mix and 2 bottles of tequila… that’s a party! We arrived around 4:30 and by the time we left it was getting busy - groups of friends and families, some birthday parties.
One food that Guadalajara city is famous for is the “torta ahogada” - the drowned sandwich. Legend says that in the early 1900’s a street vendor had just finished making a torta for a customer, a french-style roll filled with marinated pork, cheese, grilled onion and iceberg lettuce, and accidentally dropped it into a pot of red salsa. He fished it out and the customer ate it anyway, leaning over his plate, eating the dripping sandwich… and loved it! A new sandwich was born! Now it’s a Guadalajara standard, generally using two salsas - a pico de gallo style inside the sandwich and a red sauce to drown it. Modern chefs have created innumerable riffs on the original, but the original remains the most popular, with friendly rivalries relating to the roll - crusty or soft - and the salsas. And yes you do eat them with your hands.
Even though we have enjoyed all the good things Mexico has to offer, we are occasionally reminded of the less-good realities. Water rationing. Poverty. And being in the state of Jalisco, the damn cartels. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel - Cartel Jalisco Nueva -Generación (CJNG) - was in the news relating to scams they’re running on people who own condos or timeshares in Mexico. They’ve added a wide variety of criminal enterprises to their drug running, expanded their recruitment efforts, and basically no cartel employees leave the cartel alive. It’s a big issue in the upcoming presidential election and a tragic and terrible part of Mexico.
On April 10 we got up very early and took a 7:30 flight to Oaxaca. We have 10 days to explore the city and the beaches before we head to the Yucatán. Adios to tequila and hola to mezcal.
Today April 12 is exactly a year since we left Petaluma! The next blog - the penultimate blog of this 13-month adventure - will cover Oaxaca and Mérida. ¡Salud!
I want to see San Miguel!!! Love all your photo's and descriptions..RU homesick yet??? Linda St.
Love everything. Hello from Nancy Long!
Love all the photos and hello to Karen!
You had convinced me to move to Guadalajara (until I read the last paragraph).
I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!