Today was the main event for San Miguel’s beloved patron saint: more parades, more fireworks, more dancing, all on a grander scale than on preceding days. Dozens of indigenous groups descended on the centro in dazzling costumes. Aztec dancers with huge sprays of pheasant feathers bouncing from their headdresses; strange goatlike devils with long wagging tongues; small children in animal skins with painted faces; tableaus on flatbed trucks that portrayed the story of the Spanish conquest. Add the street vendors selling roasted corn and cups of fresh fruit, plus the crowds of Mexican families who arrived in San Miguel to celebrate the holiday, and the scene was truly a festival of the senses. It lasted all day and into the night.

One of the most impressive sights of the festival celebration is the ancient tradition of the voladores. The pole is very tall — 75 feet would be a conservative estimate — and one man plays a bamboo flute and drums on an impossibly tiny perch on the pole’s tip (no safety nets here, folks). Four other men make a breathtaking upside-down descent to the pavement by swinging on ropes tied around their waists, making 13 revolutions each (equalling 52, the number of weeks in the year) on the way down.

 

Val came down with a 24-hour flu and stayed home at the casa, in bed. But Mark, feeling adventurous, rose at 2:45 am to walk down to the centro for the incendiary kickoff of the festival weekend. In Mexico, fireworks can be a full-contact sport.

Halfway to the middle of town, Mark met another parade.

In the central square, a huge crowd had gathered. At precisely 4am, a hail of rockets launched from the parroquia came raining down on the crowd. Most sane people immediately dove for cover, but a group of about 50 men — some in big sombreros –danced wildly among the exploding fireworks.  The rain of exploding projectiles continued steadily for the next 45 minutes while simultaneously, on the opposite side of the square, the city launched even more fireworks skyward in response. Mark hunkered down behind a stone pillar, where he was shielded from most of the pyrotechnics.  This incoming rocket, however, hit pretty close to home.

From the Casa de la Cuesta, high on the hill,  Val could see the fiery glow in the vicinity of the centro. From that distance, it looked as if the city was on fire. When it was over, the charred remains of thousands of rockets demonstrated the intensity of the celebration.

The finale was the lighting of several large pyrotechnic displays, intricately created to represent a chalice, a cross, St. Michael and the Virgin of Guadalupe. They were wired to the big iron gates in front of the Parroquia.

 

 

 

This evening, as we walked to an opening reception at Bellas Artes, another procession was starting up in the centro. As the countdown continues toward the city’s biggest celebration, the feast day of San Miguel, a seemingly endless assortment of small churches parade their statues of the archangel through the streets.

We have found San Miguel to be a study in contrasts. Everything happens at its own pace. People enjoy life simply, but fully.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell which century you happen to be witnessing. Yet, three blocks (and 300 years) from this little procession, the opening reception we attended at Bellas Artes unveiled cutting-edge contemporary design within the walls of a colonial convent. It was a dramatic and beautiful collision of time and place.

Jewelry designers from throughout Mexico and beyond came to San Miguel this weekend for a competition and fashion show featuring their new works. The jewelry — fine silver, precious gemstones, innovative and detailed craftsmanship — was displayed in glass cases placed throughout the courtyard. We spoke with some of the young designers. Then we watched the fashion show, carried out to the beat of Mexican techno music. Cool!

Heidi’s friend, Lisa Simms, won the competition with a lavish piece from her Wearable Sculpture collection. Lisa’s studio is here in San Miguel.

Here’s a shot from the fast-moving fashion show.

 

Tonight, the jardin was packed with more than 60 of the city’s green-and-white taxi cabs,  all decorated in balloons and flowers (and one elaborate shrine to Saint Michael tied to a car roof) in preparation for the blessing of the taxis. It reminded us of our Gulf Coast shrimping fleet, decorated and blessed annually by the local bishop.

At first glance, the shiny cabs all look alike. But, as we have ridden around town, we have noticed that each driver finds a way to personalize his vehicle. It may be something small, such as a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe (the saint with the greatest market penetration around here, as Mark likes to say). It may be something that expresses the alter ego of the driver… such as the customized windshield design seen above. Could it be a commentary on the cabbie’s driving style?

Earlier this afternoon, there were more Indian dancers in front of the Parroquia. Their stringed instruments are made of armadillo hides.

San Miguel is a city of surprises. You notice something new and interesting with every stroll through town. Today, we saw these beautifully handbuilt pottery vessels in a local restaurant. Each one is around 30 inches tall, and is covered with an infinite variety of carefully formed textures. The resulting piece looks like a huge, elegant pineapple.

The first day we arrived, we noticed this little house with its exuberant rooftop container garden. Some of the plants are growing in clay pots, some are growing in tin cans, but all are lush and many are covered in flowers. It’s the kind of sight that makes you smile.

Never again will I be satisfied with that stuff labeled “salsa” on the grocery store shelf. Oh, no. We spent this morning in the cozy kitchen of Coci (Chef) Maria Ricaud, learning how to make five kinds of salsa. We learned about choosing fresh and dried peppers: which ones require soaking, which ones require cooking. After two fast-moving and wonderfully aromatic hours watching the energetic Coci Maria dart around the kitchen, chopping and simmering, we had a tasty lunch of all the completed salsas with tostados and, for the carnivores in the group, chicken taquitos. We also had our choice of traditional Mexican lunchtime beverages: hibiscus tea, tamarind juice or a sweet drink made of rice and cinnamon. Mmmmm.

Later in the afternoon, when we got hungry again, we had dinner at El Pegaso (Pegasus). One of our favorite restaurants, it has an eclectic menu of Mexican specialties and international cuisine… and a mouth-watering dessert selection that will stop you in your tracks. Val’s favorite El Pegaso dish: hot corn and chipotle soup. Mark’s favorite: chicken in mole’ sauce.

As San Miguel’s feast day celebration draws closer, there is something new and interesting happening each evening in the jardin (central square). Tonight, there was a procession of a St. Michael statue from a small outlying church. A tiny boy dressed as the archangel Michael walked in front of the shrine.

Note from Val: my drawings from San Miguel will be posted on my botanical drawing blog, The Illustrated Garden, on Oct. 2.

 El Charco de Ingenio, the beautiful botanical garden in San Miguel, covers more than 220 acres and has a vast collection of cacti, succulents and native wild plants. We looked forward to the early morning tour, and once more left the casa without our usual delicious breakfast. On the way to the gardens, Mark tried atole, a traditional drink which is sold on the street.  Corn and water are cooked down into a thick liquid, then mixed with chocolate. The consistency is similar to heavy cream.

We arrived at the botanical garden, where our tour group was assembling for the two-hour hike, and discovered that we were underdressed in comparison to our fellow tourists. It was amusing to watch the ladies navigate the canyon rim and frequent giant anthills in their designer footwear. The usual tour leader, Mario, was away and so our group was shepherded through the park by a New Yorker whose knowledge of native plants was sketchy at best, but he did a terrific Ed Sullivan impersonation.

As luck would have it, our visit coincided with the end of the rainy season and consequently an abundance of wildflowers. Everything is in bloom. There were wildflowers along the trails in the garden, including this one called Cinco Llagas (Five Wounds) because the five red marks on each flower are symbolic of the five wounds of Christ. The common name is Mexican marigold.

Running through the center of the botanical garden is a deep canyon with a pool in the bottom. The pool, which changes color according to the amount of rain and runoff feeding into it, is supposed to have been considered the gateway to the underworld in the days before the Spanish arrived here.

There are not many trees in the botanical garden. Instead, the landscape is punctuated with huge agave (we call them century plants at home), golden barrel cactus, prickly pear and a sneaky cactus called jumping chollo, which has barbed white needle-like thorns that spring off the plant if you brush past it. The fruit on the prickly pear cactus, below, are called tuna and are sold in the marketplaces in San Miguel.

The Dalai Lama visited San Miguel in 2004, and he declared the botanical garden a Zona de Paz, or Zone of Peace. His Buddhist prayer flags still flutter under a mesquite tree.

After our morning in the really big botanical garden, we went to the really big traveling market that arrives in San Miguel every Tuesday. Tuesday Market is made up of thousands of booths selling anything imaginable: fruits, vegetables, lingerie, video games, chickens, cosmetics, parakeets, gas burners and parts to repair your electric blender. There were tables of used clothing, piles and piles of clothing, for $1. There were snakeskin cowboy boots and enormous fried porkrinds that appeared to be the entire skin of a pig, all fried in one piece. There was also a kaleidoscope of different-colored frijoles:

Botanical farmacias abounded at Tuesday Market. Dried medicinal plants were sold in bulk, with labels describing the various ailments they could cure. Next to the dried plant materials were tinctures, medicinal soaps, boxes of medicinal tea blends and even powdered curatives for baldness. Just in case the herbal medicines didn’t work, the plant sellers also carried an assortment of charms and little bracelets with images of saints.

Later in the evening, we were relaxing on our patio when we heard drums and a brass band on the street below. We walked outside the casa to investigate, and found that the street had been blocked off and draped with banners. A crowd of neighborhood residents were celebrating a couple’s 65th anniversary with cups of chocolate, balloons for the children and a lively dance performance by giant papier-mache puppets who will be part of this weekend’s fiesta.

We got an early start on a day-long trip out of San Miguel — so early that we had to forego our usual large and delicious Mexican gourmet breakfast. Our driver and guide, Jose Luis, picked us up in his taxi. Jose Luis, who spent eight years in Texas and Kentucky working for his brother’s horse-training business, speaks excellent English and so is a perfect driver for those of us who are barely functional en espanol.

Our itinerary was: a visit to the pottery makers in Dolores Hidalgo, home of the famous Talavera tile; then on up into the mountains to Santa Rosa, where majolica pottery is made; and finally a pass through the state capital of Guanajuato.  But first, we needed some breakfast to fuel up for the long day ahead. Heidi, our hostess at Casa de la Cuesta, knew about a little roadside stand on the highway from San Miguel to Dolores. It is operated by three sisters, and they serve the kind of simple meals that the Mexican working people eat. It was called Parador Amigo (Stop, Friend) and it was basically a Mexican diner/truck stop. The sisters were cooking outside, so the instant we pulled up, we smelled the wonderful aromas rising from their stove.

The sisters lifted each lid on their warming table, and we picked out our breakfast selections. We each had our plates piled high. Mark had carnitas (barbecued pork), frijoles and queso, some quesadillas and nopales (more on that in a minute). I had spicy rice with cheese, frijoles and a giant pile of nopales. Nopales are what I’m going to miss most when I come back to los Estados Unidos: they are strips of cactus, peeled and sauteed with onion. They are a little bit tangy and they are delicious. We also had a basket of bosillos, the crusty bread served everywhere around here, and hot cups of Mexican coffee. The coffee is boiled in a pot with canela bark (cinnamon) and chunks from big cones of brown sugar. It is black and sweet. Just when we couldn’t stuff ourselves any more, one of the sisters brought out a wooden tray with an assortment of beautiful, freshly baked sweet breads. Breakfast for all three of us came to the equivalent of $9.

 

Like many homes and businesses in Mexico, the Parador Amigo has a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Theirs is next to the front door.

Back on the road to Dolores Hidalgo, we passed through terrain typical of the high plains of Central Mexico — a rough, rolling landscape with blue mountains piled up along the horizon.  The soil is rocky, studded with cactus and the occasional small tree. The roads are lined with bright yellow girasoles (Mexican wild sunflower) and mirasoles (Mexican wild pink cosmos).  It took about 30 minutes to arrive in Dolores, a town renowned for pottery factories. Jose Luis knew where the best ones were.

Using paintbrushes made from strands of horsehair, the decorators are swift and skillful. This artisan is painting the black outline of a Talavera decoration, which will have color added and will be fired once more before the shiny outer glaze is applied.  The end result is brilliantly colored, typically flower or fish patterns. They stack thousands of finished pieces out front for sale: water jugs, coffee cups, bowls, vases… and dozens of design choices for Talavera bathroom sinks. A custom-glazed bathroom sink sells for $25.

 The factory offers other more unusual and very functional items, as well:

Jose Luis has the one with the hummingbird design in his own home.

 The central square or jardin in downtown Dolores Hidalgo is large and very popular with the local residents, who gather to visit or relax. The town is named for Father Hidalgo, one of the primary figures of the Mexican Revolution. His church (and a statue of him) are the dominant landmarks in the jardin.

 

Intricately glazed pottery isn’t the only thing Dolores is known for. The jardin features several famous helado (homemade ice cream) stands, and competition is fierce to offer the most extensive selection of flavors.

Walk anywhere near one of these sidewalk vendors, and you will be offered five or six flavors to try. We tasted tequila (actually delicious) and beer (also good) ice cream, prune ice cream,  shrimp (sounds awful, but Mark said it was tasty) and pinon (pine nut). It was hard to choose what to order. Jose Luis ate his favorite (prune). Mark had a combo of avocado-pinon-vanilla with mystery fruit-and-chocolate. I had avocado, which is incredibly yummy and smooth. Here it is, in a crispy baked shell:

“Hurry up and take the picture! It’s melting!”

We left the busy, crowded streets of Dolores and made one more brief stop on the way out of town. About six or eight months ago, Mark was doing some research in the early stages of planning our trip. While browsing some satellite photos of Mexico, he noticed a strange shape in an image from Dolores Hidalgo. Visible from space, the shape resembled a large sombrero and a striped serape — which, in fact, it was. The body of beloved Mexican folksinger Jose Alfredo Jiminez is housed in a unique tomb. The 14-foot concrete sombrero is accompanied by a rainbow-striped tile serape approximately 50 feet long, standing in the middle of the Dolores municipal cemetery. The titles of Sr. Jiminez’s greatest hit songs are inscribed on stripes of the serape. It’s an impressive sight.

Thirty minutes from Dolores, the highway started a gradual climb into the mountains. The air became cooler, and sheer rock faces rose next to the road. The tiny town of Santa Rosa is high in the mountains, perched on the side of a steep slope spotted with the yellow flowers of coffee bushes, wild pears and small tejohuates trees. The tejohuates branches were full of a small, round fruit which Jose Luis told us is used to make a popular Christmas punch served in Mexico.

Santa Rosa is known for its majolica pottery tradition. The largest building in the town is the pottery workshop, which produces highly detailed and decorative majolica ware.

Majolica, which uses tin glazes, originated in Italy. But Mexican imagery — including fruits, flowers, horses, religious symbols and the lively Day of the Dead skeleton motif – seems to fit the brilliant colors and precise shading that is typical of this technique. The Santa Rosa potters also add handbuilt fruit or other accents to the wheel-thrown pots. After starting with red clay native to the mountains, they coat each piece in white slip and then paint the glazed designs on top of that.

In front of the pottery workshop, the shoulder of the road drops away into a deep canyon. Barely visible down among the trees at the bottom, Mark spotted the spires of an ancient church. When Jose Luis asked the way to the church, an old man pointed at something more rocky path than road, and off we went — slowly, bumping downhill over a dusty, rutted trail and hoping we didn’t meet anyone coming the opposite way. There wasn’t room to pass. The little trail followed the edge of the ravine down to the bottom, where the majestic parroquia Santa Rosa sat halfway along the one street through the tiny village. There was a great and silent dignity about the old colonial church.

It was late afternoon when we reached Guanajuato, the state capital. The city is scattered in the bottom of a deep, green valley and was once home to a great silver mining industry. We had a leisurely meal in the courtyard of La Valenciana, a large and gracious colonial Spanish house, then walked across the street to visit a La Valenciana church known for its carved altar, covered in gold.

Guanajuato is a big, busy city with a major Mexican university and a large commercial district. Traffic is heavy, and much of it moves beneath the city in a network of 400-year-old stone tunnels that were built to divert a river to run under the streets. You turn a corner, and suddenly the street dives into a dark tunnel lined with stone walls and supported with low, stone arches. There are underground intersections and underground parking spaces. When you come up, you’re in another section of town.  It’s not unlike a giant ant farm.

 

We got an early start this morning, because it’s the autumn equinox and the beginning of a festival week and the Aztec tradition is to “raise the dawn” with lots of noise and fire. In modern times, that means lots of fireworks going off around 4am. Harmonizing with the extremely loud fireworks were the fighting cocks on the rooftop patio a few doors down, and an assortment of church bells calling the faithful to mass every five minutes. If this were a musical performance, the title would be “cock-a-doodle-ding-dong-BAM! BAM! BAM!” and it would be played with the volume turned all the way up. We woke up laughing and enjoyed the concert for an hour or so until the dawn had been successfully raised. It was a good start to a new day of exploring.

After our breakfast with the other four guests here at the casa (Ahma, we had really good tamales along with black beans con queso and scrambled eggs with two types of chile sauce, plus fruit and yogurt) we headed down to the biblioteca to meet a tour of local houses and gardens.

The biblioteca (library) is amazing, with a big open courtyard, a cafe and all kinds of inviting alcoves full of books. They raise tens of thousands of dollars every year for scholarships and medical care for Mexican children. Their scholarship program is funded by weekly Sunday afternoon house and garden tours. You buy your ticket at 11am and then come into the central courtyard for refrescos (refreshments) and entertainment by costumed troubadors. There is an art sale going on, as well. It’s lots of fun while you wait for the tour bus to arrive.

The house tour was interesting. It went to three houses in different parts of the city, and was like a Parade of Homes, Mexican style. Afterwards, we walked back to the center of town to watch dancers performing in front of the parroquia.

Speaking of mysterious customs, we have noticed that groups line up around a certain ancient rusty gas pump near the park for photos. Look carefully, and you will see a lovely square with a big sculpture of Allende on horseback just across the street to the left — a very scenic spot for a photo — but instead, everybody is arranged around a gas pump that appears to date from the early Mayan civilization. Mark asked why they wanted a picture of the gas pump, and the reply was: “We think it is beautiful.”

Here is Mexico’s most photographed gas pump:

This town is full of beauty. Mark photographed these two doors on our walk back to the casa for afternoon siesta. Everywhere you look, the architecture is enough to make you stop and admire 500 years of fine craftsmanship.

(Note of explanation from Val to those of you who aren’t Clyde or Richard: Every Friday for the past eight years, Mark has had lunch with two of his college fraternity brothers.  Just like any best buddies, they tease each other mercilessly. Well, last night Mark had a very exciting encounter with a famous Mexican sex goddess. Margarita Gralia is a former international fashion model, movie actress — she played Senora Robinson in the Spanish-language version of The Graduate —  and Playboy playmate. She owns a restaurant here in town, and she stopped by while we were having a coffee there. She’s a very nice lady. Needless to say, this post from Mark is dedicated to Clyde and Richard, who are reading this blog also.)

Dear Clyde and Richard,

You poor guys are always in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were invited to join us in Mexico, but you turned us down. Richard, as a perpetually single guy, this was your ONE and ONLY chance to meet a real, live Playboy playmate. You blew it. Could have, would have, should have. Look upon these photos and weep:

 

Mark and his new Mexican friend

On the restaurant wall  (this one’s for Clyde)

Everything in San Miguel is ancient, but beautiful and still in use. The Dunkin’ Donuts shop is in a building that was built in 1710, for example. The doors of houses and businesses are hundreds of years old, and the hardware still works just fine. This lock is on the side of the Bank of Mexico location on the town’s main square. Why buy a new lock when the one you bought in 1656 is still in perfectly good shape?