The Christmas tree went up yesterday in the public square. Right beside the pink gothic Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel here in San Miguel de Allende.
Bit by bit, the city begins to embrace the holiday.
All of the streets leading into the Jardin Principal are strung with tin stars and twinkling lights. The gazebo and trees in the little park are a Christmas wonderland.
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Parading around as elegantly dressed skeletons is so much fun in San Miguel de Allende that apparently, it takes two parades over two days to fit it all in this year.
In the past, it was sufficient to stage one parade of promenading Calaveras, Catrinas, and Catrins — and a variety of other-worldly subsets in various manifestations of theatricality.
Last year, after the wastelands of Covid had subsided and a rebirth of traditions signaled a new dawn, the annual Dia de Muertos parade was a joyous traffic jam of humanity. Skeletons paraded en mass down the Ancha. Preciously costumed Catrinas and their cohorts, led by a masterful and exuberant Mariachi band, exited the sanctuary of the Rosewood and paraded toward the Ancha.
The two masses converged and ground to a halt as paraders funneled up the narrower Zacateras, made narrower by the density of the watchers on both sides of the road. It was a slow slog up to the Jardin where seeing and being seen is the endgame of the evening.
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People are taking to the rooftops of San Miguel like never before. Some head there to dine. Some to drink and dance. Some to watch the sunset. Some to watch the center of San Miguel transform into something else almost on the hour. Some, just to stop time for a little while.
We were on a rooftop on Sunday to watch two dear friends get married.
The sunset, the incredible cloud formation, the view — that was all extra.
I couldn’t resist rushing this photo onto Facebook to share but now it is in its proper place — a big and beautiful display on the blog.
If you like people-watching, those people dining across the street are there for you. Notice the two women with their Dia de Muertos headdresses on, the couples dining alone, the tables of friends. The unspoken anticipation that soon lamps will be lit and seats will be filled with banter, laughter, quiet sips of wine, brow-knitting scans of the menu, scurrying waiters, and exuberant music.
The audience is assembling. The air will soon cool. The lights are about to dim. The curtain is about to rise.
And the show — and San Miguel is a bona-fide long-running show — is about to begin on another night in Centro.
The photo was taken from Terraza Trinitate on Cuna de Allende 10, Zona Centro, San Miguel de Allende.
The view across the street is part of the lively rooftop dining scene in Centro.
Life is like a box of farm-fresh vegetables. You never know what you are going to get.
I know. I know. I can hear Rose Alcantara’s voice already, “Don’t play with your food!”
I can’t help it. Such an abundance. It demands a shot at Still Life before it is reduced to gourmet.
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My name is … well, never mind my name.
Just know that I walk these cobblestone streets and … I see things.
Things I can’t explain. Things that need no explanation. Things that are new to me but are as old as time. Things that are marked down 20 percent for this day only. Things that are here today and gone tomorrow, probably back to the United States. Things that say something. Things that have nothing to say but will buy you a drink, just for the company. Things that I find interesting but my dog doesn’t.
You know, things.
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It is popular and entirely appropriate in San Miguel de Allende to say “You never know what’s behind a closed door.”
Entrances on San Miguel streets give you no hint at all as to what lies behind them.
The most humble of doors can open onto a garden of Eden, a fairyland, a small village, a rabbit warren of homes, a vast and empty park, a stately hacienda, ancient ruins, a private town square surrounded by stately homes, ageless and towering trees, private roads – well, whatever imagination and money can conjure.
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A reader pointed out yesterday that my blog post on flowers which included some from Cape Cod and Newport, Rhode Island, was sorely lacking, in his opinion.
He essentially asked, How can you post pictures from these two places and not include a single ocean view?
In the writer’s own words, “No cape or Newport there..no ocean in site.”
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You want to hear about how my IT wizard supercharged my streaming media speed so that I can actually watch a movie uninterrupted (sometimes) off my FireStick?
Nah. Me neither.
How about the coming Sriracha shortage because drought conditions in northern Mexico are killing off the chiles harvest and the hot-sauce factory has closed?
You already know that one, huh?
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That’s true. I only saw half the Crazies parade this morning in San Miguel de Allende.
The upper half.
Even at 6-foot-2 I wasn’t tall enough, or close enough to watch the Dia de Los Locos parade with such an unobstructed view. Man, there were a lot of people out there, and they got to the curb long before I did. What’s fair is fair.
Therefore, you may notice that many of my photographs are filtered through a variety of hairstyles, various hats, the occasional waving hands and fingers, hands holding iPhones in front of my iPhone, and the odd umbrella.
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We’ve been dodging in and out of the rain since we began walking the Wild Atlantic Way in County Clare four days ago. This morning, awakening to the steady patter of rain on the windows of the Wild Atlantic Lodge in Ballyvaughan, it feels like we’ve run out of dodges.
Did we really want to walk to Carran — or Carron? It is spelled both ways, often side by side, and nobody seems to really care. I asked. “Either way,” is the most common response.
One of the Burren walking guides calls this leg “extremely rewarding and scenic …”
Well, that is encouraging. Except it is dumping buckets outside.
But wait, there is more.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 