Smitten with San Miguel— a visual, culinary and cultural love affair
Hit the travel button
“You’ll be glad you did this” — replied Barbara in her email to me. Barbara Poole, an expat from the San Francisco bay area, runs an eclectic B&B in San Miguel de Allende. I had reached out to her for flight recommendations after booking a 4-day 3-night stay at her B&B. I love travel except the air travel part, particularly if I have to break them over multiple legs. Trouble was the only direct flight from SF bay area to San Miguel was a twice-weekly flight by Volaris — a Mexican budget carrier. 3 days seemed a tad short and a full 7 days too long. At the end I took the 7-day return flight on Barbara’s recommendation and boy, she was right on the money.
The decision to travel to San Miguel was a last minute one. I have been experiencing burnout at work. After 20+ years of non-stop working, it was getting to me. And so after a bit of thinking and brainstorming with a dear friend, I took the plunge and got a leave of absence for a couple of months. Things moved so quickly that I didn’t have the time to plan. San Miguel (SMA) has been on my bucket list of places to visit. Photos of colorful churches, houses, and cobbled streets looked inviting. I knew from my reading that, SMA is a favorite for expats and retirees for its year-round salubrious climate, friendly locals and a bustling art/culture scene.
While July was not the most preferred time to visit, it kind of worked in my favor as I wanted to avoid the high season anyways. Now it was time to find a place to live and figuring out how to get there. After a little research, I settled down on Casa de la Noche (CDLN) an eclectic B&B that seemed to have a lot of good reviews and with an interesting history of its own. There are two airports close to SMA — Leon (BJX) and Queretaro (QRO). Volaris flies twice weekly from San Jose to BJX which just worked very well since San Jose is the closest airport from my home. SMA is about one and a half hours drive from BJX. I booked up my flights and hotel pronto and shortly thereafter, we were on our flight to SMA.
Volaris is a no-frills flight but the convenience of a direct service is hard to beat. The 4 hours flight was easy as I had a pending list of movies and series to catch up. I had arranged a shuttle service (Bajio go) on recommendation from the hotel. Based on recommendations from travel forums, I picked up some pesos (local currency) at the airport ATM before heading out.ATM’s are only available in the main downtown area (centro) in town so getting a few pesos at the airport is recommended. We were warmly welcomed by the waiting shuttle driver. We were impressed by the quality of the vehicle and the Bajio go service. By the time we reached SMA it was well over midnight. CDLN has a 24 hour staffed front desk and Ricardo who was on duty showed us our room and got us situated. CDLN was a former bordello that has been beautifully restored and set up as a B&B, with each room named after the women who worked there. We were in the “Madame” suite, the oldest in the property.
Urban Muralism
Next morning, after a delicious breakfast outside in the beautiful open-air courtyard with fountains and trees and vines, we met Barbara, the owner. Barbara is warm and charismatic and she related a bit of her story on how she ended up in SMA from California, bought the property, settled down and turned the place into a beautiful place for people to enjoy. Barbara is an artist herself and the tastefully appointed rooms and the beautifully decorated spaces will appeal to the ones artistically inclined. She also talked about the history of the place and her attempts at honoring the women who worked there. Each room carries a small folder with the photograph of the woman that used to serve there and on a wall in the foyer, there is a photograph of several women. We felt at home immediately with the warmth we received from Barbara and her staff and their efforts to make our stay joyous and comfortable. Barbara herself is there in the property almost throughout the day, attending to the needs of the property but taking the time to chat with the guests and making sure that everyone is taken care of well. The staff is extremely helpful and goes out of their way to ensure that guests have a good time. The staff handed us a copy of “Attencion” a bi-lingual (English and Spanish) weekly newspaper published by the local library (La Biblioteca) which carries a list of all important events in the week including information about walking tours, and classes on cooking, music, language etc. Barbara gave us a quick orientation of the important attractions and the tours and sights that we should consider during our stay. She has been in the town for more than seventeen years and virtually knows everyone in town that are connected to tourism. And for that matter, San Miguel is a small town. She particularly recommended a tour of the countryside with a community of rug hookers led by a woman named Charlotte Bell. Barbara called Charlotte and got us on a tour that was scheduled for the following week.
We found that a walking tour on San Miguel’s street art, was scheduled for the day, and about to start within the hour. Barbara highly recommended the tour and as was expected knew the person leading the tour. Barbara offered to walk us down herself given this was our first day and the time was short. We hurried out with Barbara trundling through narrow cobbled street alleys with houses packed close to each other and ended up at Via Organica, the starting point of the tour. Via Organica is an organic restaurant, store and educational organization. Barbara introduced us to the tour leader Colleen Sorenson who runs a non-profit art organization called “Muros En Blanco”. Turned out our family was the only one in the tour and so this turned to be a private tour. Colleen is a tall and energetic woman highly passionate about street art and this specific project. We had to literally run to keep pace with her. I had zero exposure to street art and the subculture so this was a tour worth taking. Colleen provided a background on the street art movement in San Miguel and her role to kindle the movement. She was the key figure behind the art movement which she termed as “urban muralism”. She arrived in town around 2011 after working with young artists in public street art projects in San Antonio, Texas. The Guadalupe neighborhood, the designated street art district in San Miguel, was beset with graffiti and tagging. In fact, any form of street art was strictly prohibited by the government and a wall color code was strictly enforced by the city in keeping with the Spanish colonial heritage. She mentioned that in the early days, a couple of youngsters were jailed after they were found to have drawn a mural on one of the larger walls in the neighborhood.
Colleen tracked down the young kids and took them under her wings and started advocating with the government to enable the art to thrive and channel the creative energy of street artists in a positive way instead of vandalism, tagging, and graffiti. The city eventually relented and Collen’s non-profit organization “Muros En Blanco” (“Blank Walls”) was born. In 2012, Collen and her fellow artists led a city-wide movement to paint several walls and invited other artists from all over Mexico to participate. The response was resounding and Collen fondly recalls that as a watershed moment in the city’s street murals history. The movement has picked up momentum and gotten more organized. Artists from around the world stop by to paint walls and express their art and there is a waiting list for people that want to get their walls painted. Colleen and her organization monitors and maintain the upkeep of the paintings often replacing them with newer ones. It was fascinating to hear her talk passionately about street art and the culture surrounding it, the medium and techniques and the movement itself. There was so much information, and so much rich culture, that I promised myself that I will repeat this tour if I return to San Miguel
After a bit of rest and relaxation, we took Calle Hidalgo, the main thoroughfare into downtown, and arrived at Centro — the center of the town, after a short ten-minute walk. Walking up and down the narrow cobbled street with colorful buildings and eclectic small tiendas (small shops) was fascinating.
Pink Church, Natural ice-cream & Cheese gringas
At Centro, we were welcomed by the sight of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel — the iconic 17th-century church famous for its pink spires. The most recognizable landmark in the city was enhanced by an indigenous self-taught, stonemason named Gutierrez in the late 19th century. He added the wedding cake spires built of local cantera stone, apparently inspired by a church in Belgium.
At the center of the town is also a relaxing tranquil garden (el jardin) inspired by French garden design. The square fills up quickly during the day with street hawkers, musicians, and locals taking a break and resting in the shade of the many trees in the garden. By evening as the lights come on, the activity gets frenetic with children playing, vendors hawking food and toys and trumpeting musicians. We had lunch at the El Rincon de Tomas a small cozy restaurant with fresh food and friendly servers. We were tired from the heat and walking and hailed one of the ubiquitous green cabs back to the hotel for a short ride for 20 pesos, or roughly just about 1 USD (pro tip: negotiate price before the trip). In the evening, on a tip from Barbara, we strolled to a nearby ice cream vendor who’s reputed for making all his ice cream from scratch. Small roadside ice cream shops are everywhere in the town though my recommendation would be to try the one that we tried, at the intersection of Insurgentes and Ignacio Hernandez Macias. The vendor selling ice cream outside Iglesia de la Concepcion on Hernandez Macias also was very good.
As dusk descends street food vendors set up shop and the area fills with the smoke and smell from the food trucks. We stopped by one near our hotel. Not being meat eaters, our choice was limited to gringas filled with cheese. As night grew, the crowd increased, happily eating off handheld plates by the street. Tired and satisfied, we walked back to the hotel and slept like babies.
Walking history, organic food, and cactus salad
The next day morning we were back at the El Jardin for a historic walking tour of the city. There are tours in English run by the expat community for tourists and we picked one for the day that we read about in Attencion — the weekly newspaper. The tour guide was knowledgeable and the two hours tour was chock full of information about the origin story of the city and the historical background to many of the architectural landmarks. The place is rich in history and was the epicenter of the Mexican uprising against its Spanish conquerors. San Miguel was a pit stop in the colonial Spanish silver trade route between the silver mines of Guanajuato and Mexico city where silver would be ferried from the mines. Before the Mexican war of independence, San Miguel was a bustling place where travelers would stop for food, drinks and maybe a little entertainment. The city had to go through destruction, decay, and neglect after the war and began to reclaim it’s lost glory only after World War II as artists from US and other countries, started making San Miguel their home. In 2008, UNESCO recognized the main downtown area as a heritage site. Today San Miguel is a bustling city of tourists and expats.
As part of the tour, we visited the churches in the area, an old convent that still houses cloistered nuns, a convent turned art school (Bella Artes) and other historical landmarks. The art school has some fantastic murals that you shouldn’t miss. For lunch, we headed to Via Organica, the organic restaurant and feasted on fresh organic produce and cheese. Post lunch we visited the Ignacio Ramirez market a large area with a variety of shops selling everything under the sun from fresh produce to clothes, shoes, and electronics. Rows of peppers, and fruits and the colorful wares was a treat for the eyes.
After a quick siesta back at the hotel, we headed out to experience dinner at the upscale vegan restaurant — Don Taco Tequila and enjoyed the fresh chips and salsa and the eclectic menu. The cactus salad was a first for me, and one of the best food that I had tasted.
After dinner, we strolled leisurely in centro for a bit taking in the sights and sounds before retiring for the night.
Lost pyramids and fish tacos
The following morning we set out early for an archaeological tour of Cañada de la Virgen (Canyon of the Virgin) with archaeologist Albert Coffee. This site has some of the more recently discovered pyramids in Mexico. Albert was part of the team that officially excavated the site in 2011 and his exceptional storytelling and experience makes all the difference. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour. These pyramids unlike other sites in Mexico and parts of Meso America were not built by Aztecs or Mayans and instead are believed to be the creation of indigenous Otomi tribes, that lived there. The tour is unique because the ruins are part of a private hacienda owned by a German family and while the archaeological site is federal property, the larger property is still private owned. Albert quipped that one benefit of being surrounded by private lands is that the site has prevented reckless commercialization. The federal government runs it’s own guided tours and runs transport shuttles that transfer tourists to the base of the canyon from where the pyramids are a short hike. The amount of astronomical, architectural and mathematical genius behind the planning and execution of these structures are astounding particularly when there were no mules and wheels yet to ferry the stones to the construction site. A central feature of the pyramids is a sunken patio which is believed to have been used as a mirrored display of the night sky during rainy season as there are provisions to plug the drainage from the patio. High walls enabled favorable acoustics that enabled priests (astronomers) to narrate far-field observations in real time — equivalent to the modern-day audiovisual presentation. The architecture of the pyramids is based on precision mathematics to allow tracking solar and lunar orbital paths and observe important celestial events. One particularly striking feature is that during solstices, the building design makes it such that sun and moon rise from one end of the pyramid and descend from the other side, likely creating powerful visuals for those who can observe them.
The tour ended around noon and by the time we reached the center of the town we were hungry and cranky. We picked Baja Fish Taquito for lunch and was blown away by the fresh chips and salsa and amazing seafood.
Colorful Sunday Market, Mixiotes and Agua de Jamaica
The next day being a Sunday we decided to take it easy and instead opted for a cooking class with Blanca the resident chef and front desk manager at CDLN. Blanca took us to the local mercado for buying the ingredients for our recipe. A big part of the Sunday market is food. Buyers start their day with sumptuous brunch with freshly made Gorditas (stuffed bread) and Menudo (beef belly soup). We learnt how to make Mixiotes and enjoyed shrimp, chicken and fish mixiotes with Agua de Jamaica (fresh hibiscus tea) for lunch.
Rugmakers of Augustin Gonalez, Fresh Gorditas and Tortillas
We only had a couple of days left in San Miguel. Barbara had set us up for the “the Rancho tour” with Charlotte Bell to visit the rug hookers village, Augustin Gonzalez. The rug hookers community is a group of about fifteen women in the village that use their unique indigenous art to weave beautiful woolen rugs. The tour started with a simple vegetarian lunch freshly cooked by the women from the rug hooker community. Oaxaca cheese stuffed gorditas, tortillas and quesadillas were served from the wood-fired stove accompanied by freshly made salsas ground in stone mortar and pestle. There were other accompaniments and clearly was one of the most delicious meals that I ever had. Due to Charlotte’s many years of initiative and leadership, the rug hooking women have found a market and that has helped them earn a decent livelihood and the tour does a lot to help acquaint the visitors with the simple Pueblo life and culture. All proceeds from the tour go to the rughookers project and their community. The simple pueblo homes with guava trees, chickens, goats and children playing outside rolling over ground reminded me of my own upbringing in the countryside and brought back memories of a carefree childhood. The tour ended with a visit to the rug hooker artist workshop and a visit to the last known Otomi matron who taught the group a few Otomi phrases.
Farewell San Miguel
We decided to relax the last day of our stay with a visit to the hot springs in the area and ended up visiting Escondido Place a hot spring resort outside town. After rejuvenating ourselves in the hot springs and a great lunch at the onsite restaurant, we returned back satisfied and full. Back in town, we went out to the market to buy souvenirs and pick up Churros for friends back home, from the famous San Augustin Chocolates and Churros. San Augustin has terrific Churros and other goodies which are totally worth it, with the caveat that be prepared for long lines that snake outside the restaurant.
Leaving Barbara and her staff’s hospitality at the Casa de la Noche was tough and we finally said goodbye to them the next day. The staff was really thoughtful to prepare an early morning breakfast before their scheduled time, just for us. We took the Bajio shuttle back to the airport sad leaving the town behind but with a resolve to return again soon.
