San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA events, Aug. 4-10: What a bazaar week this is, plus all-star baseball … and yes, everything else

So many opportunities for shopping: Sunday Market, Tuesday Market, Bazar Nativa, Rodarte, Tosma Saturday Market , Bazar Los Frailes— so much great shopping, so little time.

Sunday, August 4   


10-5 p.m.  Raising the bazaar on shopping

Bazar Nativa brings together merchants of second-hand and new clothing, antiques, costume jewelry, oriental, ecological and artisanal products, stones, toys, food, and even micheladas and live music on the first Sunday of each month in the Los Pinos Hall. 

Bazar Nativa is also a space that provides an opportunity for local artists to make themselves known. Yesenia Múñoz stressed that although most of the exhibitors are local they currently also have merchants from Celaya, Dolores Hidalgo, and Querétaro.

This Sunday, organizers expect more than 70 exhibitors and they have room for more. The exhibition hall is located at Salida Real a Queretaro #173.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA events: July 21-27: Dog days of summer? Not here.

Sunday, July 21

8 a.m. — Doggie day out
Elsewhere it may be the Dog Days of summer but not in San Miguel! Plaza La Luciérnaga is celebrating a happier Dog Day by inviting you and your pooch out to the shopping mall for a day of activities, prizes and lots of fun. Bring your pet.

10 a.m.–5 p.m. Artisan fairs popping up
In the Plaza de los Insurgentes, popularly known as “Plaza Garibaldi,” you can find products for the home, decoration and gifts such as mirrors, lamps, rugs and hearts, even high-quality jewelry and great designs, all made by San Miguel families from a wide variety of communities, neighborhoods, and colonias.
From July 24 to 28, a new edition of the “San Miguel de Allende Artisan Fair 2024” will be held around the esplanade of the Jardine Principal. It will offer “maximum face-to-face exhibition of the color and beauty of local crafts and labor, before thousands of local and foreign visitors.”
DiscoverSMA has the details!

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Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA Events May 19-25: Who doesn’t love a parade … or three?

This week starts off with not one but three locos parades. Each leaves from a different location at staggard times but they will emerge and find their way back to Parroquia San Antonio de Padua where a towering soundsystem is set up.

There will be dancing food and music into the night. Don’t miss it.

At the other end of the week, the long-awaited memoir and photography of Ojala Ninos founder Elsmarie Norby, “It Is To Wonder,” is published and she will talk about her journey on Friday. Take my word for it: It is too wonderful.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA events, April 28 – May 4: Flea markets and bazaars, oh my! Fireworks and Derby Day, oy vey! And Doug plays well with others! You want it? We got it

It is a great time to be alive in San Miguel – and rummaging through flea markets, art bazaars, Sunday and Tuesday markets. We have a few of them listed for this week.

Meanwhile, the forecast for fireworks is strong on Friday, May 3, as construction workers get their own religious celebration – not quite a holiday as they still must work – but crosses will be affixed to the highest points on projects, a meal will be served at lunchtime, and  … fireworks!

Speaking of fireworks, musician Doug Robinson brings together an impressive gang of musicians for what has to be the musical event of the week — if not the month. And that’s on May 4.

The horse jumping continues at Otomi and the running of the Kentucky Derby offers another great excuse to gather, bet a few bucks, and drink syrupy cocktails. We have only one fundraiser here, tied to the Derby. But I’ll bet many a sports bar will welcome your patronage. Print out the recipe for Mint julep and bring it with you.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA Events, April 14-20: Let’s get this brunch going!

Let me start the week by saying, dawg, I’m tired. It may be the hyper-awareness of a birthday of a certain age that came and went last week but really drove home the point: I have had way too many birthdays in my life.

And that realization leads to another realization: I’m tired.

All of this is to say that as I was putting this calendar together Saturday night, I reached a point where finishing this thing wasn’t going to happen on deadline. So, on Sunday, I updated this page with a half-dozen more fun things for you to consider.

And as always, send your ideas and events to robertj.hawkins2012@gmail.com. Thanks for playing along!

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA Events for April 7-13: Eclipse was cool … but wait, there’s more!

It’s a promising week when an eclipse of the sun is not really the best thing happening in San Miguel de Allende. I mean, you can’t even look directly at it unless you are a former president of the U.S. or you have special glasses.

What fun is that?

Well, it could be some fun even though we’re on the “partial” side of the path. Just, you know, take care of your own eyeballs. So you can see what else is coming up this week.

There is a lot to be excited about — boxing, bullfighting, classic movies and plays, crazy good singers and musicians, a Jerry Rife photography exhibition (see photo above), and a burlesque show that includes the Mexican Elvis — El Vez. (Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of El Vez. Oh, come on!) The ones doing all the burlesque are Moscato Sky, Carmen Caliente, and Ruby Mimosa — and with names like that, baby you know you want a front-row seat.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

Events for March 31 – April 6: Last hurrah for Easter and High Season and then …

If you haven’t been, you owe it to yourself to go see the Exploding Judases, today, Sunday, at noon. Go sooner and get a close-up look at the lifesize papier mache figures that will be blown to smithereens. You may even recognize one or two! You may even want to project a name or two of your own onto the more anonymous ones.

Frankly, the pyrotechnics signal the end of High Season, that semi-sad time of year when the season begins to change, to heat up and get really really dry, and all that money changes course and begins to flow back north to the United States and Canada.

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fiction, Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The last Christmas movie you’ll ever have to read

News headline: Hallmark has created 42 movies for the holiday.

Subsequently, House Beautiful magazine gushed about the  “comforting predictability of these flicks … No matter which title you switch on, the best thing about a Hallmark holiday movie is knowing that pretty soon you’ll be watching a happy ending.”

I don’t know if people who watch all 42 of these movies get a participation medal or a stay at the sanatorium. And Hallmark isn’t the only one flooding the zone. Somebody, noticing the overwhelming whiteness of characters in Hallmark movies, began putting out ethnic versions with the same insipient stories.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

San Miguel is one giant living Christmas card

Walking Moppit the Philosopher Dog this morning and she was adamant about turning up Aldama as we left the main entrance to Parque Juarez here in San Miguel de Allende.

Normally we engage in a powerful battle of wills.

Moppit will want to go left when I want to turn right.

She wants to turn around and head home for a doggie treat while I want to press on for a few blocks more.

She wants to stop and sniff every pee-drenched corner when I don’t want to break the rhythm of my steps.

She wants to stop at Cafe Hortus for a croissant while I prefer walking over to Panina for a rosemary and raspberry scone.

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Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Movie review: ‘Spirited’ away

Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell sing and dance their way through “Spirited” en route to making a classic holiday comedy movie.

Let the Christmas movie season begin!

Contrary to first impressions, not all holiday movies this year are about:

  1. A high-powered, stressed out, high-pressure, mid-30s, professional urban woman who …
  2. Returns home to Hickville to help her Mom/Dad/kid sister/orphaned niece …
  3. To move into a rest home/restore a failing business/take over the family B&B/adopt a child …
  4. And falls in love with the hunky fireman/hunky plumber/hunky school teacher /hunky yoga teacher …
  5. Who really has a PhD/feeds the poor/is secretly wealthy/makes Christmas toys for needy kids/builds wooden boat/is Santa.
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