Mas o Menos

We travelled to San Miguel de Allende, Travel and Leisure Magazine’s Best City in the World the last two years, so we’d be here for the raucous and colorful celebration of those who have left our midst. Just as it was ten years ago Los Dias de los Muertos were loud, crowded and memorable. To be at the El Jardin at night is to experience a Times Square New Year’s Eve in miniature.

The Spanish Colonial bones of the splendid city of 75,000 haven’t changed since we visited ten years ago. The historic buildings are still standing and assiduously protected, and San Miguel is still a Pueblo according our guide Carlos. The designation Ciudad or city is reserved for real sprawl. Yet, the pueblo bonito has become busier and more touristy and not for the better according to me. As a plodding student of the Spanish language, speaking the local lingo is an even less necessary than it was a decade ago. And so, I’d point you to Antigua, Guatemala for more immersion, better instruction, fewer English speakers and a cultural experience that rivals San Miguel. Smaller, more intimate and more comfortable for, dare I say, two thirds the price.

About four days into this visit I was touristed out. To quote the immortal Peggy Immel, “I get tired of wandering around looking at shit.” The woman has a way with words.

My sense of place comes from being in the culture not just an observer of it. It’s the reason that, like Bourdain, my fondest memories come from a food cart or a counter in the public market for a massive Cubano sandwich with every meat known to man including slices of hot dog. Need I mention that two of those suckers and two Boing fruit drinks set you back six bucks.

And to the subject of cost, depending on how you eat and drink, prices in the old Pueblo are creeping toward those of the US of A though an eight-course prix fixe dinner at the elegant Moxi in the Hotel Matilda was just $65. That’s half of a similar repast north of the border I’d say. But there may be more million-dollar homes in San Miguel than Santa Fe and that foretells something insidious.

When I look around in Spanish school, in better restaurants, galleries and music venues everybody is me, white and old. Might as well have stayed in Taos by that measure.

The drone of stores left me in shock by day four and our palatial if worn digs are just far enough up an unrelenting hill to make going to El Centro and back a workout and then some. My idea of a neighborhood is walking a couple of blocks for a baguette or a pastry, for a leisurely breakfast or a convivial drop in bar. Here it’s a twenty-minute proposition. Good thing taxis are cheap and plentiful. It’s roughly 60 pesos or $3.25 to downtown or back. Still Peggy and I try to walk to and from El Jardin unless it’s late night or we’re packing groceries.

Our neighborhood, Atascadero, is a kind of Gringo Gulch. It’s so Anglicized that there’s a croquet lawn at the top of the hill and half of the people we meet on the dreaded hill say “hello” not Buenos Dias.

Music has been a highlight of our trip so far. Our housemate, Bob Dempsey, made reservations to see the world class guitarist Gil Gutierrez and his trio play at the Instituto Allende the night after we arrived in San Miguel. We were excited to see Gutierrez whom we first heard play in 2008. Ten years ago we went to hear him thinking he’d be playing with Doc Severinsen, Johnny Carson’s long-time band leader but Severinson was ill. Still we were treated to an otherworldly musical performance sin Doc but with Señor Cartas, Gutierrez's partner at the time.

This time Gutierrez was joined by a jazz violinist and a drummer both from Mexico City and a bassist from San Miguel. Each was outstanding. Bob and our other housemate, Jamie Hindman, said they’d never heard a better musical performance anywhere and those dudes have seen it all.

Then on the second night of Los Dias de Los Muertos we sat on the tile floor of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel to hear an orchestra and choir from Mexico City perform Mozart’s Requiem. That's the night that I almost got in a fight with a rude French jerk who tried to muscle a spot next to Peggy. I can see the headline now, "Elderly gringo clocks arrogant frog during Mozart performance."

Another night we watched a Flamenco troop in full Day of the Dead regalia dance, play and sing at Teatro Angela Peralta. Suffice it to say, there are more diversions in San Miguel than my simple mind and spirit can accommodate.

Until yesterday, we’ve had a paucity of time to just be. For me that’s writing, photographing and exercising. I’ve run exactly once, lifted precisely zero and that makes Steve a snippy SOB. It was the first time I felt I was “in” San Miguel and not watching a piece of performance art. I walked down to northeast corner of El Jardin for a breakfast of jugo de naranja, café Americano and Huevos Otomí, scrambled eggs in a white bean soup, I first tasted it in 2008 with my friend Lindsey Enderby and he never fails to mention it when we talk about San Miguel. This one’s for you, amigo.