Finally - Back to SMA

Feb 1, 2019

Hola. We landed in Queretaro at 9:30 p.m. with an easy flight from Portland to Dallas with a short layover then on to Queretaro. Nicolas greeted us warmly at the airport and brought us to San Miguel de Allende (SMA). Nicolas manages the house we have rented for the month. It takes an hour to get to SMA. 

Nicolas showed us around the house; it is fabulous. Each room is painted a color of Mexico, a wonderful palate of terra cotta, lime, turquoise, blue, etc. 

Two of the bathrooms have ornate tiles that Mexico is noted for.

There are two terraces upstairs with great night time views. We have a master suite with en suite bathroom. There is a large kitchen fully equipped, a dining area, a living room, and a den and half bath on the first floor.

Right outside the front door is a terrific dining area. I LOVE dining al fresco.  Upstairs is a queen bedroom and a single bedroom with a full bathroom and exit to the two terraces. Many houses in SMA have upstairs/rooftop terraces. We are at 6000 ft. in the mountains with good views around the city.

After biding Nicolas adios, in true Bergman fashion we unpacked and got everything put away. We puttered for a while and around 1:00 went to bed which was 11:00 Portland time. I managed to get so excited about finally getting here that I stayed awake until 4:00. OY! As some of you know in 2014-5 Ron and I traveled for a year. The final three months were dedicated to finding a place we could move to for a year. We spent a month Mexico, dividing our time between in SMA for two weeks then Cholula for two weeks. Next came Costa Rica where we stayed in Escazu for a month exploring nearby communities and finally in Panama with two weeks in Panama City and two weeks in the small town of Boquete. SMA won and we went home to say goodbye to friends and see our doctors for regular checkups before leaving the US for a year. In between, we found this house and leased it for a year. I started seeing doctors and shopping for our trip. I had two bags packed when I found out I needed eye surgery that prevented me from leaving the US for a year. Dang, I wept…not because of the surgery but the dashing of our dream. Well fast forward and we are now in the same house we had leased in 2015!

Feb 2

We got up around 8:30 and made a breakfast of eggs and toast thanks to the last tenant who left two days ago. The bread was still fresh and there were six eggs left. I had brought my favorite coffee beans    (about 4 lbs.) HA! Such a coffee-nut I am. After a couple of tries, I found the grinder. We got ready after breakfast with our tasks of filling the refrigerator and pantry. I was tired but motivated. There is a weekly organic farmers’ market about 15 minutes from here that we learned about last time we were here. On the way there we went to an ATM and got pesos. I found wonderful fresh veggies and bread. Fortunately, I remembered to take grocery bags with us and managed to fill three. I realized I had just spent all the money we had gotten at the ATM. Oops, a miscalculation. We had withdrawn $20 each…not $200. So on the way home, we went back to the ATM and got more pesos. Because of some farming practices, it is necessary to soak all fruits and veggies for 20 minutes in a solution to disinfect the produce. After processing the food, we put everything away and walked down the street to a small local eatery. Yum…roasted veggies over rice and a quesadilla with cheese, mushrooms and fresh spinach. We shared each dish which we often do.

We caught a cab to the large grocery store in the new part of town. We live in old-town known as Centro. It was a megastore with just about anything you might want. They also had a large selection of organic produce but not as fresh as the farmers’ market. We are amazed at how many gray-haired gringos are here. Expats have been coming here since the late 1930s. Stirling Dickinson from the USA helped to start an art school. Soon vets were coming here to study art on the GI bill and now there is a huge art community and a significant ex-pats community, mostly from North America. Apparently, for the last two years two major magazine, Travel and Leisure, named SMA the Best Place in the World to Retire. Back at home we put away groceries and rested. 

Around 7:00 we went to La Parada, a Peruvian restaurant recommended by Jen, our host and friend. Oh my goodness what a fine. The restaurant has two seating areas and we were seated in the area with an open roof so we could see the stars while dining. But the food was out of this world good. I told Ron we should return when Sandi and Bill join us next week. We ordered to entrees and a shared dessert and our bill with tip was $35! Not quite like home. We walked home and  I took a bath to help me sleep and we turned out the lights at 10:30.

Feb 3

It is Sunday and our tradition is to have a Dutch Baby for breakfast. Ron made a great one that got done 8 minutes, earlier than expected. Not sure if it was due to the altitude or a miscalculation of Fahrenheit to Celsius. We are outside under the shade of a dramatic overhead canvas strung between wall and house. After cleaning up breakfast dishes and ourselves we headed out to ‘wander’ with no agenda. After getting so much done yesterday we wanted to slow down and ‘smell the roses’.  So we headed to Parque Juarez where the annual plant sale was occurring. Before we arrived at the park, we visited a hotel courtyard where they were holding a pop-up art exhibit. The art wans't that good, but we liked the architecture. 

Finally at the park for the plant sale.  We attended this same event in 2015. Ron took scads of photos and I drooled over the plants. 

Today we wore the coolest clothes we had as it was another warm day. Unfortunately, I brought turtleneck, long sleeve shirts and Ron bought long sleeve shirts as well. We knew it would get to 70 degrees during the day but we didn’t count on the intensity of the sun. WOW. It is warm here so I wore the one short sleeve blouse I brought and Ron wore a t-shirt. Gringos!  After the park, we headed to town centro stopping at galleries or pottery shops along the way.

We spent three and a half hours looking for places we remembered from 2015. Bingo, we found our favorite tortilla maker and bought a short stack of about twenty and the man in front of us must have gotten a kilo and his stack was about eight to ten inches high. We found one of the movie ‘houses’ which is a room in a hotel and looked at what was playing this week. They were academy nominated films and we had seen all of them. We popped into an Italian restaurant around 1:30 and had a terrific meal of a spinach beet salad, focaccia, and linguine with pesto. We shared the two dishes which is a great way to keep our weight down. Everything was primo and the bill with tip was a whopping $15. You have to love these prices. 

We started talking about living in Mexico. As much as I love San Miguel because of what the ex-pat community has created here, I am also a little put off by the number of ex-pats. Ron suggested looking at other places in Mexico. Daydreaming is always fun!

The streets were very crowded but I found out from a friend here, Steven Goldstein, that tomorrow is a holiday so lots of people came to San Miguel for the holiday weekend. We will see how things are mid-week. After lunch, we tried to find a copper shop where we had a water pitcher made last time but we weren’t successful. After ‘gurggling’ it when we got home we got an address and will try again tomorrow. My feet were rebelling so I was glad to get home and ‘PMB’…park my butt. That is Ron’s term for vacations where you just sit under a palm tree and read your novel. Our usual vacation is ‘tourists on speed’ another Bergmanism. After resting a while I straightened the bathroom amenities and better organized the pantry.  Tonight we will make a hearty salad at home. Another fine day in paradise.