Last Days in San Miguel de Allende
—Blogpost written by Bob
In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion in Mexico. We arrived by car on October 15 in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), traveling from near Annapolis, Maryland where we live on our sailboat. This blogpost described the first part of our last twenty days in San Miguel de Allende. (At the end of January we will be moving to Bucerias near Puerto Vallarta, on the Pacific coast, for our last two months in Mexico.)
Wednesday, January 12
We slept in a little late and went out for breakfast at the nearby coffee shop. It was so cool outside (upper 50's) that I could feel the cold of the glass tabletop through my (vintage) sweatshirt. During breakfast we discussed the possibility of spending the worst three months of next winter (January, February, and March or the like) in Mexico (but on the coast), as opposed to six months like this year.
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| John's hat by the front door of our apartment. (John was the previous tenant who lived in this apartment on/off for the three prior years.) |
We had no agenda for the day except for changing the 20-liter water bottle and changing a light bulb in the dining area. (The light in the dining area still didn't work, probably because of the wiring. Refer to my description of Mexican electrical wiring in a previous blogpost.)
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We simply relaxed most of the day--after all, that's what retirement is all about, right? We walked to the Aurora office of La Conexion (the small package shipping service) to check on two expected shipments. The guy at the counter looked them up in their system and told me he expects them on Friday (this week) or the following Monday. It was difficult to decipher if he was telling me the truth or just telling me what I wanted to hear. (I had not yet received an email invoice for either one which was unusual compared to my previous experiences.)
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Maggie was still experiencing a "brain fog" leftover from her bout from COVID in the U.S., at least that was her excuse for losing two games of Words with Friends in a row.
Thursday, January 13
The morning temperature was very cool (low 30's outside). The floor of the apartment was cold as usual. We got up around 8 AM and had a light breakfast at home (Cheerios with sliced fresh strawberries on top for me while Maggie had an English muffin with peanut butter and fresh strawberry halves). (The local strawberries were very flavorful!)
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Our landlord scheduled a "showing" of our apartment in the afternoon at 3 PM for a new tenant (since we are leaving at the end of the month). Consequently, we scheduled our day's outing around the "3 PM showing." Our day's outing included a trip to La Comer (the supermarket), a stop at a scenic overlook (to take pics of San Miguel de Allende), and a late lunch at Pizza Guy restaurant.
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The following images were taken in the mid-to-late afternoon:
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| A funeral procession complete with mariachi's heading down the main road into town. |
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| San Miguel de Allende as viewed from the scenic overlook along the highway. |
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| Looking toward the lake from the scenic overlook |
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| Interlocked padlocks along the metal fence at the scenic overlook. (Since the padlocks have names on them and the scenic overlook is probably a great location for young lovers, one can only assume what the named inter- locked padlocks mean.) |
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| A work break in selling newspapers along the highway. |
We got back to our apartment at about 4 PM, later than usual for me. After putting away groceries and marinating salmon fillets, I settled down for a mango margarita using a very fresh mango that we bought at the supermarket. Our day wound down from there...
Friday, January 14
The outside temperature dropped to 31 degrees last night (actually early in the morning). We used three heavy blankets for warmth during the night. (Remember that there is no central heat in this apartment nor most others in Mexico.)
We had an electrical power outage around 11 AM today— the second one within the 3-1/2 months we’ve been in San Miguel de Allende. It started by the (old style fluorescent) light bulbs dimming (first, in the bathroom, then in the kitchen) and the microwave chirping—it wasn’t an all out immediate power shutdown. After a few minutes though, it turned into a complete electrical power shutdown, including the server. (I was writing this on my iPad with about 50% battery power remaining, later transferred to my laptop when electrical power was restored.)
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| Maggie at the Food Factory for lunch today. |
We went out for lunch at the Food Factory in Fabrica La Aurora—it was great just to be in the warm sun! After lunch we stopped and picked up our two packages at the Aurora office of La Conexion. One of the packages was a replacement GPS I bought on eBay back around the holidays. (The second package was a stand I bought for my iPad, primarily for use while I’m watching FuboTV.)
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| Setting up our new GPS in front of our apartment. |
The new-to-us GPS looked like it had rarely been used and it fired up right away. The Mexican maps seemed fine but I have no idea when the last map update was made. I setup the GPS in our car during a “second showing” of our Guadeloupe apartment in the afternoon.
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As the long shadows of the late afternoon crept across Calle Cancion India, a lone artist continued to work on his street mural. Our electrical power was finally restored at 4:05 PM.
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