San Miguel de Allende

June 21, 2017

My introduction to San Miguel de Allende was on the wings of a classic piece of traveller stupidity.  It was a complicated route from Guadalajara, and I used Google Maps’ navigation feature the whole way.  At last, hot and sweaty, I was entering town, funneled into a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam through single-lane streets that became more improbable as I went.  I was in a kind of medievalist theme park of tiny uneven stone streets wandering uphill through bright yellow and red boutique shops and restaurants; I couldn’t spare a long look because the driving was tight, crowded and dangerous; the Google Maps voice led me around the block on the bouncy, undercarriage-scraping stone streets until I finally reached my destination, found a parking spot, pulled over, and gratefully turned off the engine.

That’s when I remembered that, at the start of the drive, I had simply typed “San Miguel de Allende” as my Google destination.  I wasn’t at my hotel.  I was at some random point in town that Google Maps had selected as representative.

And that’s when I realized that I hadn’t written my hotel’s name down, or its address or phone number, because it was all there in my email confirmation.  But here in San Miguel I had no cellphone service and my phone wouldn’t display the email.  And there I sat, with no idea what or where my hotel was. 

So my first act in San Miguel de Allende was to wander lost and sweaty through the compact, absurdly scenic stone streets with cellphone and notebook, looking for a wi-fi connection to borrow.  Fortunately the “representative spot” had plenty of hotels, and in two stops I found one whose wi-fi worked, whereupon I recovered my email, re-learned my hotel’s name (and wrote it down!), and was able to drive to my ACTUAL destination.

***

I had booked a hotel rather than a hostel out of the desire for some private space for rehabilitation, especially a bathroom to myself.  Within minutes of arriving I had shaved, showered, and brushed my teeth, all things that the skanky shared bathroom at The Roof hostel in Guadalajara had discouraged.  Then I was free to blink and look around.

My hotel—the “B&B Casa Hotel Colonial Centro”—was beautiful, but strangely impractical.  It had a sweet courtyard in fierce red dominated by a huge photo of Frida Kahlo (her theme continued throughout the hotel), and my room had a wonderful large bed and glass doors opening to a balcony over the courtyard.  But the hotel was unmarked from the street and its printed address included no numeral; I had to ask neighbors which house it was.  (It’s the one with the metal gate with the brass knocker ring.)  The room had no desk, table, or luggage rack, so my pack shared the double bed with me; it had no waste basket, so the little bathroom one collected all my car trash; it had no Kleenex, so I had to borrow the toilet paper roll at night to my bedside table.  The neighborhood was pretty but noisy, during the day with shouts and parade-band practice from the nearby primary school, at night with at least seven constantly barking dogs.

The courtyard at the B&B Casa Hotel

San Miguel de Allende is much like the hotel room: beautiful, but impractical.

The whole thing is a construction of tiny stone streets such as might be excused at Mont St. Michel or Tashbaan, but here the Mexicans do it on purpose and then throw a full urban complement of cars into it.  The lines of cars parked along the streets leave exactly one car width down which the moving ones file, and the postcard-pretty cobblestone intersections have neither traffic lights nor stop signs but they DO all have blind corners thanks to square buildings crowding the road, so each corner becomes a hesitant nose-poking business of cars and pedestrians, the latter of whom have no option OTHER than jaywalking.

 A large bus on a small street in San Miguel. 

The pedestrians, in turn, of which there are throngs, are squeezed onto such narrow stone sidewalks that they can walk at best two abreast, and when they meet, or encounter a tree growing mid-sidewalk, someone must step into the street, where there’s just enough room between them and the passing cars, if the space is not already taken by a motorbike passing faster.  Meanwhile, the irregular stone sidewalks, with a steep curb down to the irregular stone streets, make for a paradise of sprained ankles; I had one fall yesterday that ripped the knee of my good green pants.  But I saved my camera—

Because around all this is the prettiest Mexican town you could imagine.  Everywhere is a decorative pileup of romantic terraced homes and shops all in mustard yellows and brick reds, facing each other in a competition of Juliet balconies, iron-barred floor-to-ceiling windows, porthole dormers, stone archways into shady patio courtyards, hanging gardens, lanterns on wrought-iron brackets, on and on down every street in every direction.  The morning sun pours channeled down these streets picking out shadows from the climbing flowered vines on the yellow plaster walls, and it’s impossible for your camera to keep up.

(In fact San Miguel is known as a professional photographer’s dream, and I felt keenly my amateur status.  The little trench streets are challenging: they’re so starkly divided into sun and shadow that I haven’t been able to set my exposure right.  I still haven’t gotten a good San Miguel photo!)

So far all I’ve done here is wander the streets, hang out at the cathedral square, browse the high-end galleries at the Aurora Fabrica art space, and eat at the little boutique restaurants.  I’m happy to report that I seem to be recovered from my traveller’s stomach, just in time to enjoy the superb food of San Miguel. 

a delicious portobello omelet and coffee breakfast at this little place

The restaurants are a little pricey—but then it is a tourist spot, and I felt like indulging.  And it was fine to eat a gourmet pizza at the fancy overlook restaurant when I hiked up to the El Mirador lookout high over the city at sunset.

The town cathedral, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel, from El Mirador

The one mystery is that San Miguel de Allende is supposed to be a haven for American ex-pats, and I’ve yet to encounter a single one.  Indeed, after my noisy night in the nice hotel I transferred to a hostel in town, hoping to meet more fellow travellers—but I was the only guest!  I had the ten-bed bunkroom to myself last night.  It was quieter than the hotel.  But I have a friend-of-a-friend here whom I’m meeting later, so at least I’ll be able to talk to somebody!