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 Travel & Outdoors | October 2006 
Colors of San Miguel de Allende: Behind Colonial Doors
 Marianne Werner - Chico Enterprise-Record
| | One of San Miguel de Allende's many mysterious doors. (Marianne Werner) |
San Miguel de Allende is an unpleasant, unattractive small town located in the mountains of central Mexico in the state of Guanajuato. Colorless, depressive and gloomy, it is a dark, flowerless place with unhappy children, dull thistle gardens and day after day of unbearable heat. As a vacation destination, I recommend avoiding it.
But wait. Perhaps I have exaggerated. Perhaps I have distorted my description. Perhaps I would prefer that you not visit San Miguel, so it does not seduce you as it has me.
For truth be told, I'd like for others to stay away even though I know that is impossible.
I first visited San Miguel de Allende 25 years ago. My mother was living here at the time as she was to continue doing on and off until her death in 2001. My sister and I spread her ashes around the town in 2002, and in 2003 I returned to San Miguel in order to accompany a dear old friend of hers to his vacation house in Acapulco where I'd hoped he would reveal some insight about my mother.
Instead, he taught me to sail, regimented me to his ritual of early morning swims and fascinated me with stories of World War II when he was in the Dutch underground.
But as a longtime resident of San Miguel himself, he interested me even more in this other home of my mother, and though she is no longer alive, San Miguel still pulls at me.
Recently, my sister bought a beautiful home here, promising an altar to our mother, and I have returned to discover more about this place that doesn't at all resemble my bleak introduction. It is a place that feels more comfortable and more appealing each time I visit.
In reality, San Miguel de Allende is a lively and colorful colonial town situated at an elevation of 6,400 feet. Home to smiling children and brimming with beautiful gardens and flowers, it has a wonderful year-round climate: cool mornings and evenings, warm afternoons and only two unpleasant months - April and May.
In this town of about 80,000 people, 10 percent are Americans. There are no stoplights and no stop signs and only occasionally do one or two traffic policemen work. Well-worn cobblestone streets make for sometimes laborious, if mostly uneven walking, especially uphill. But green and white taxis are everywhere, and navigation becomes easier the more you wander about town through the labyrinth of streets.
Color abounds throughout San Miguel, and it is a festive, welcoming place - from the pink fuchsia and orange bougainvillea to the large gatherings of multicolored balloons vendors sell in El Jardin, the garden, the social and cultural center of the town.
Passing time in El Jardin is a special treat: young children chase one another; the balloon/plastic toy man wanders the square; mariachis play music in the evenings; people sit and watch the mix of visitors; and periodically, without regimen or predictability, the church bells of the Parroquia de San Miguel de Archangel ring loudly enough to be heard on the plateau up above the town center. If you sit in El Jardin for any period of time, someone you know will arrive. It is the heart of San Miguel.
One of my favorite destinations and located on the edge of town is Jardin Botanica, El Charo del Ingenio, the cactus/succulent preserve with trails covering 220 acres that highlight more than 1,000 varieties of cactus. Situated in a shallow canyon, the garden has numerous walking paths that wind around the hillsides, dipping at one point to a place where there is an active waterfall when the rains are abundant.
The garden is also home to dozens of migratory birds - I saw a few ducks and white herons on my walk - and several ceremonial monuments that reflect the heritage of San Miguel.
While the botanical gardens are on the outskirts of town, some of the most gorgeous constructed gardens may be visible throughout local neighborhoods in chance sightings behind thick walls of homes with heavy, ornately carved doors.
A walk along any one of hundreds of San Miguel streets reveals wall after wall, often with bougainvillea creeping over from inside the garden of the home that is enclosed. Occasionally, if you are in the right place to see inside, the dullness of brown, stone adobe opens to rich green patios filled with lavish succulent plants and tropical flowers and vines spreading orange, pink, and white across the walls.
One I come upon is for sale - $1.25 million - an aged colonial home built in 1680 with a beautiful rectangular pool that has dozens of water spouts arcing over its tiled edges. The home has three gorgeous bathrooms tiled floor to ceiling and wide door frames of restored antique wood. Outside are several gardens on the first and second levels with bougainvillea cascading across the curved roofs over ceilings on the lower floor; orange and pink flowers spread everywhere. From the street you see only a massive ancient door and high walls, but inside is living history of another time.
These secret doors of San Miguel are one of its most fascinating aspects, and they contribute to the casual seductiveness of the town. The more a person wanders, the more she is taken in by the warm and casual ambience, so some who arrive unsuspectingly may find it difficult to depart.
In some ways, visiting San Miguel is like going back in time 50 years. Despite the traffic congestion - many cars, no parking, narrow streets, no stoplights or stop signs - the pace of life is very simple. All modern conveniences are readily available, but there is no real industry apparent, and work is done by hard labor as seen when a job normally requiring a backhoe is completed by four men who persist from dawn until dusk.
Appealing to the visual sense, San Miguel is a palette of colors. Homes are red earth, mango, adobe, even an occasional purple or pink. The richness of colors is pervasive all over town; brooms are orange, buckets blue, chairs lime. The artisan's market reflects even more creative coloring: handmade lacquered boxes - green, yellow, red; pottery - sunflowers or lilies painted on vivid cobalt blue; hand-woven rugs - turquoise, pink, green; intricately painted ceramic animals - orange, red, green, blue. This dazzle of brightness is sometimes overwhelming. And seated calmly nearby these splendidly arranged and varied craft stalls are ancient, weathered, Mexican women paring cactus and pounding tortillas, a veritable contrast of the old with the new.
In addition to the artisans' market, there are several others in San Miguel; the Tuesday market is just outside of town and once a week its smells permeate an otherwise vacant lot. Diverse and tantalizing, numerous odors blend: sizzling chicken, fresh tortillas, rich red watermelon, mounds of ripe strawberries, hot chilies, fresh pineapple. You can also buy furniture, puppies, jewelry, clothing, shoes, CDs, aprons, pipes, tires, wiring - everything predictable and much that isn't. Although the Tuesday market is unique, several other city markets brim daily with mounds of fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs, blended juices, fish, meat, rows of newly cut roses, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, the smells again rich to inhale. Such effusive colors and patterns of arranged foods and flowers are a photographer's paradise.
San Miguel is also particularly well-known for its creative community, especially music and art. There is a two-week long chamber music festival in July; art studios are abundant and gallery openings frequent. Various theatrical productions are also advertised. Two art schools, Instituto Allende and Belles Artes, offer courses in multiple subjects and specialize in language instruction. San Miguel is a small, but rich haven for artists.
Not just a destination in itself, San Miguel is less than two hours drive from several well-known towns, Guanajuato and Delores Hidalgo.
Guanajuato, the state capital, was once one of the richest cities in the western hemisphere because of the mining of silver. A colorful colonial, cultural setting, it is the hometown of Diego Rivera, and also the site where a visitor can see mummies in the catacombs near the cemetery.
Closer to San Miguel is Delores Hidalgo, the actual location of the declaration of Mexican Independence on the steps of the town church, the words spoken by Father Hidalgo on Sept. 16, 1810. Delores Hidalgo is also the home of Talavera ceramics, some of the most beautiful pottery in the world.
One of the best days I spent in San Miguel was in La Canada de Virgen, the Canyon of the Virgin, within sight of a pre-Hispanic pyramid, currently undergoing excavation but not yet open for viewing. I visited a working ranch of 600 acres. Felix, one of the brothers who owns the ranch, picked me up in a truck that bumpily maneuvered the long, rocky, jutted road that leads to the ranch.
He took me on a long horseback ride down into the steep and rocky canyon. Native trees, plants, even geodes, were everywhere, and the canyon floor is cool and green, with still water that has settled along the rocks of the canyon wall. Afterwards, Felix's sister made a wonderful meal of cheese enchiladas, potatoes, broccoli, salsa and chips - all prepared without electricity in a dark, cool kitchen. Here, I remarked to Felix, "La vida es buena," life is good.
Not yet mentioned but very much a part of life in San Miguel, are the fireworks, perhaps one of the best symbols of the vitality, color, and celebratory nature of the Mexican people that I experience. This time they are to welcome the Dia de los Locos, Day of the Crazies, June 18, a celebration to give thanks to San Antonio. The fireworks begin with a rare Mexican promptness at 6 a.m.
I spent two weeks in San Miguel and found myself understanding more than ever what drew my mother back over all of those years. Partly, it was the pace of life. In Mexico, time does not control you. It seems to be based on how a person might feel about doing something particular at a certain point in the day.
Maybe the thing will happen and maybe it won't. But not being controlled by the hands of a clock removes enormous pressure. Life in Mexico seems easier once you realize that things will happen when they happen.
Marianne Werner teaches English at Butte College. |
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