November Dirt Dwellers in SMA
—Blogpost written by Bob
In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico. 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 our life style!
Monday, November 15
Today was the day for Kali's surgery for neutering. She had to fast for 8 hours before her surgery and that was tough for her--she couldn't understand why she wasn't being fed in the morning. This was probably as tough on me (worrying about her) as it was on her.
We drove to the vet’s office (and I use that term loosely)—it was in an industrial building which seemed anything but a medical facility. I had visions of the vet selling removed animal parts to nearby taco stands. This ugly vision made me worry about Kali in the near term and affected my view of taco stands permanently.
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| The outside of the vet's facility looked like the other nearby industrial buildings. (Note the cross on the roof.) |
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| A courtyard opened up immediately inside the front door of the vet's facility. |
Against my better judgement, we dropped her off and we were told the cost would be 1800 Mexican pesos (about $90 USD) and we found out that credit cards were acceptable forms of payment. They said she should be ready about 2 PM (earlier than the 4 PM previously stated on the phone).
We spent most of the morning grocery shopping at La Comer (about 2 blocks away from the vet's facility), focusing on many items we missed previously but I couldn’t help worrying about Kali.
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| Fresh papayas for sale at La Comer. |
We went to Mario’s for lunch, a very short drive from La Comer. Today, we met Mario, the owner.
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| Mario, the owner of Mario's Mariscos Frescos, with Maggie at lunch today. |
Mario mentioned to us that we should visit Mazatlan, spending two days to get there (staying overnight in Guadalajara). We thought about it awhile and decided to spend the week before Christmas there as one of our side trips. (Another week-long side trip we were considering making was to Puerto Vallarta in February.)
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| A colorful image from inside Mario's involved reflections from many different surfaces. |
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| This painting of a swordfish was painted on a simple piece of 1/2-inch thick plywood. |
After stopping again at La Comer to buy some frozen items, we drove back to the vet’s facility and we were there nearly an hour early. We were anxious to pick up Kali!
When we walked into the vet's facility we were able to meet the vet and get personalized instruction about Kali's recovery. He pointed out that he expected a male this morning based on Maggie's instruction (using the word "castrado" for the operation) and that is why the surgery cost more than originally quoted. (The total cost was 2200 Mexican pesos or about $110 USD.)
After meeting and talking with the vet, that ugly vision I had previously (about him selling animal parts to taco stands) went away. He was a younger (Mexican) man in his thirties or forties and spoke excellent English. He was very professional and his care about the animals he treated was evident.
We had to keep Kali in her carrier for 2 more hours after getting home. She was heavily medicated but kept trying to get out of her carrier. After leaving the required 2 hours of confinement, Kali couldn’t get enough of our attention. She would alternate her (desperate) needs for attention between Maggie and I. Her pupils were still dilated, apparently from the medication, and she was quite active throughout the evening, considering what she had gone through. Later at night, she came in to sleep between us on the bed. (In some strange way, Kali became emotionally closer to us today.)
Tuesday, November 16
When we woke up at 7 AM, the outside temperature was only 37 degrees! Still, the outside temperature was expected the reach the mid 70's in the afternoon. (The weather report actually listed a 2% chance of rain today.)
We didn't have anything planned for the day because of Kali's recent surgery. We went out for lunch at el Grandpa & Son Burgers and had delicious hot dogs, even though that may sound strange--it was one of our days of craving food from back home.
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| The sign above the restaurant where we ate lunch. |
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| I look like a tired old man in this photo and like I'm contemplating something serious just after lunch. |
At lunch we decided to take a taxi to the Tuesday Market. The Tuesday Market is like a large collection of individual flea markets.
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| The massive structure housed all types of vendor displays. |
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| Most of the stalls involves clothing or grocery items. |
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| Mexicans are fans of American clothing. |
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| Colorful baseball caps covered an entire wall. |
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| Lots of colorful bags at one stall--Maggie must not have seen this one! |
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| Maggie dug through this mass of Christmas ribbon to find enough to hang our Christmas lights. |
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| We took a public bus home from the Tuesday Market--it was standing room only. |
We got home sometime after 3 PM and we were beat, mostly from standing through the 45-minute long bus ride home. The Tuesday Market was simply overwhelming for me while Maggie can usually shop until she drops! We purchased some needed shoe laces, an extension cord, and Christmas ribbon.
In the early evening, Lola knocked my camera off the desk and onto the tile floor in the living room, about a 3-foot drop. The glass in the filter shattered into a million pieces and I was faced with removing another filter frame--this time on my 20mm wide angle lens (which was attached to my camera at the time).
Wednesday, November 17
This morning we were up early to take a taxi to the bus station and catch our 7:30 AM bus to Leon for our planned day trip. I decided not to take my big camera and save the wear and tear on my body a little bit. It was very cold in the morning as we rode in the taxi and waited for the bus at the bus station. (I guessed that the outside temperature was in the upper 30's.)
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We have always enjoyed traveling by luxury buses in Mexico and today's trip was no different. The Primera Plus bus we were riding on was manufactured by Scania--the parent company of Saab. The bus left on schedule at 7:50 AM and stopped at the Guanajuato bus station on the way to Leon. (Guanajuato was a little more than half way to Leon.)
When we got to the Leon bus station, we hailed a taxi to take us to the designer (his name was Xavier and he was the exhibitor at the recent Alternative Design Bazaar) of the shoes I wanted to buy. We met him at his very modern house in the hills above the city--it was beautiful!
After I purchased my new pair of shoes and a leather camera strap, Xavier drove us back downtown and gave us a tour around Leon's beautiful historic center. The historic buildings were preserved as in other cities but the streets were improved far beyond the cobble stone streets in San Miguel--this was such a welcome change.
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While the historic section of Leon is very old and small (several blocks long), the city is quite modern and has a population of nearly 2 million people. (We marveled at the modern walk signals at the intersections in the city, equal or better than most equivalent U.S. cities.) Most of the cars we saw were small Chevy's, Nissans, VW's, or the like. There were some BMW's and Volvo's.
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Xavier dropped us off at a very nice hotel (Hotsson) for lunch--this very modern hotel was within a couple blocks of the bus station.
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| Maggie looking at the restaurant's menu (by using the QR code reader) on her cell phone. |
We ate outside on a sort of veranda within sight of an old red church. The hotel pool was also nearby on this (second) level of the hotel. (We decided that if one of us found out we only had a month to live, we would want to live our last month at this hotel.)
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| This red church was located adjacent to the hotel's veranda where we had lunch. |
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| A photo looking down just one of the several streets of "Zona Piel." |
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| A display of shoes in just one of the several thousand leather shops in "Zona Piel." |
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| Where there are many shoppers, there had to be taco stands. |
We were good consumers for the Mexican economy as Maggie purchased two purses, a pair of shoes, and a few other little things. (In a way, it seemed like we were spending monopoly money since $1 USD was currently equal to 20 Mexican pesos.)
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We got back to the bus station in plenty of time to make the scheduled 3:50 PM departure. (Our temperature was checked three different times while in the Leon bus station because of COVID-19 and, of course, all passengers had to wear face masks.)
As the bus made its way back to San Miguel de Allende via Guanajuato, most of the trip was through "high desert" terrain with occasional corn fields and villages. (At the time, corn was just past harvesting in one of the three growing seasons of this area of Mexico. Corn stalks were being plowed under the soil to increase the soil's fertility.)
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| A photo I took with my iPhone out the window of the bus on our return to San Miguel de Allende. (This scene was typical of "high desert" terrain of Mexico's central highlands.) |
It was dark outside when (six-ish) we got back to San Miguel de Allende. By the time we completed our taxi ride back to our apartment, it was a long day for us old folks. We had a drink, warmed up a frozen pizza for dinner, and went to bed soon after.
Thursday, November 18
Today was a day of playing catch up in a way. We caught up on our rest for sure. One of the things we accomplished today was setting up a procedure for getting packages delivered from the U.S. Almost everything we need to get from the U.S. will arrive in packages.
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| I purchased a (used) Nikon 35-70mm f2.8D lens on eBay today--hopefully, it will become my everyday lens. |
Another accomplishment for me today was installing my new leather camera strap on my Nikon D750 camera. Every time I picked up my camera today, it had the pleasant smell of leather.
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I also had our collection of mail sent from Green Cove Springs FL to our new address in Laredo TX and forwarded to us here in San Miguel de Allende.
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| One of the beautiful houses that we noticed on our short outing today. |
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| Kali trying to keep warm today. |
We also finalized our arrangements for our trip to Mazatlan just before Christmas...more on this later...
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