Settling in to San Miguel de Allende

—Blogpost written by Bob 

In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion to San Miguel de Allende (SMA).  We arrived by car on October 15, traveling from near Annapolis, Maryland where we live on our sailboat.  This has been quite a change in life style!

Saturday, October 16

We had a little crisis last evening when Lola decided to walk through our (open) apartment door and into the vestibule between apartments.  Our neighbor lady from the apartment below had her apartment door open for ventilation and began talking to Maggie while Lola ran into her apartment and under her bed.  After we captured and contained Lola, Maggie went out to our car to get our map of San Miguel and couldn’t get back into our apartment and needed the site manager’s help with the lock for our apartment door.  This brought out the talkative (I learned later she was Polish) lady from the apartment below again.  It may sound small now, but we were exhausted from the day’s drive and we didn’t need this little complication.

I'm not sure why I was up so early (5:30 AM).  I couldn't find the light switch for the kitchen lights, so I worked on this blog a little.

Our apartment had horizontal rocker
switches for the lights.  You could
tell they were added after the
walls were constructed.

Our car parked in front of our
apartment (the purple
building).

A colorful mural on the wall across the
street from our apartment.

Our outing for the day was going to Ignacio Ramirez Market where we bought some peaches, diced papaya, eggs, celery, cucumber, avocados, and limes.  We took a taxi back from the market--it only cost 30 pesos ($1.50).

The fruit stands in Ignacio Ramirez Market
had all kinds of fresh fruits, only one
of which we couldn't identify.

We tried to find a particular restaurant for lunch but kept walking in circles and never found it.  We finally had a pizza and a salad at a restaurant next door to our apartment (Gambos Pizza).  It was after 3 PM--so, we called it dinner.

This creative mural was about a block
away from our apartment.

Sunday, October 17

We slept a bit later this morning (7:30 AM) which probably meant that we have adjusted to the central time zone.  We had a light breakfast in our apartment—I had toast (made from Mexican bread) with peanut butter and jelly from home while Maggie had avocado toast.  (The avocados we got at the market yesterday were fantastic—so much better than what we could buy at home!)

This morning we drove to LaComer, a supermarket, for groceries that we couldn't find at the local shops.  It was very frustrating driving to LaComer--it should have taken 15 minutes according to our GPS and it took over 45 minutes.  Grocery shopping was just as frustrating since all the labels were in Spanish of course.  We got lots of things, including a good stock of liquor and spent 5,038 Mexican pesos ($251, probably half of what is would have cost us at home).

In the early afternoon we walked over to Gambos for a very tasty lunch.  Our waitress was Juliana again--she has been very helpful to us making recommendations on things we should see.  In the afternoon, we watched the Baltimore Ravens beat the LA Chargers--the score was so lopsided that CBS switched to a different (more competitive) game at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Our two cats pruning themselves
during a football game on TV.

We are expecting a nighttime low temperature of 47 degrees tonight.  It is surprising how cold it can get here because of the elevation (6,135 feet above sea level).  The afternoon high temperature was 72 degrees...pretty nice!

Monday, October 17

The outside temperature did get down to 47 degrees last night—it was only 57 degrees at 10 AM when we ventured outside. However, the humidity is very low—so it didn’t seem as cold as it would have at home nor as hot (78) degrees) in the afternoon.

A dejected Kali when we left our
apartment in the morning.

We finally found the little restaurant we searched for yesterday, Hierba Santa Cocina de Sur.  (It was located very close to our apartment but was separated from us by a tall wall--of course, we walked six blocks in the wrong direction first.)

Hierba Santa Cocina de Sur was an outdoor
restaurant in a courtyard.  (It is owned
by a young couple from Acapulco.)

My delicious lunch (sea bass) at
Hierba Santa Cocina de Sur.

My lunch (sea bass with mole and a fresh salad) tasted fantastic!   It was the first time I ever had a simple squeeze of lime for salad dressing.  The iced tea included a little orange juice and lime—it was very different and tasty!

From lunch we walked to the Artisan's Market and again walked in the wrong direction several times (using Maggie's iPhone) and finally had to ask for directions.

A colorful scene at the
Artisan's Market.

We took a taxi back to our apartment rather than walk in the wrong direction several more times.

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One of my heroes died yesterday, Colin Powell, from complications from COVID-19.  May he rest in peace.  

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For the duration of our stay, I hope to be posting every three days or so...stay tuned!

Thanks for following our blog!