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.
