Tag Archives: Antotonilco

Colonia San Antonio, Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Water, water everywhere and … well, that’s the whole story

Water was a running theme all day Sunday: On Carretera Antotonilco A Cruz del Palmar, next to Rio Lajas, on the way back to San Miguel.

I walked and waded 19 miles along muddy roads on Sunday, only to find myself wading through a couple of inches of water in my apartment during the torrential downpour later in the evening. Wet and wild was sort of the theme on Sunday.

There I was, standing at the front door, watching the downpour and marveling at how Moppit and I had dodged a bullet.

Moments before, we’d set out for our evening walk when the sprinkling started. Normally, we’d race around the block before the rain began in earnest. Not this time. After eight rainy seasons in San Miguel de Allende, you learn to listen to your gut, read the clouds, scope out the wind, and sense the drop in barometric pressure.

We turned around and raced home, just as the skies let loose.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

Chasing entrepreneurial dreams across dusty back roads of rural San Miguel de Allende

I just spent a half-day rambling around some dusty backroads in the regions around Antotonilco chasing hopes and dreams with a dozen other like-minded people.

Not our hopes and dreams.

No, we were in pursuit of the hopes and dreams of budding entrepreneurs – a beauty salon owner, the owner of a market stall in Antotonilco, the owner of a tiny produce and dry-goods tienda in an indigenous village, an Otomi women’s collective that makes herbal remedies and natural cosmetics, an Otomi embroidery business, and a woman who sells corn-on-the-cob at local football games on Sundays.

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

Hiking the Rio Laja to Antotonilco

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All it takes is to miss a turn and you end up on a quiet country road like this one, which leads to the long-ago abandoned hacienda Las Trancas, about midway into the first section of the trail and a fabulous spot from which to engage the river.

We did it! We found the off-road, Rio Laja trail from San Miguel de Allende to Antotonilco. Several weeks ago, when we walked to Antotonilco along the old highway it was pleasant enough but the road is narrow and pretty busy.

Here and there we’d catch glimpses of the chalky gray Rio Laja which flows south into the sprawling reservoir called La Pressa Allende. And here and there was evidence of a trail!

We’re still new at this hiking/walking thing and lacked the confidence to jump off the road and into the brush along a river we hardly knew. Who knew where we might end up? Continue reading →

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