Mexican Flies

Mexican flies are far more difficult to swat than norteamericano flies. Mexican flies are faster and can escape and evade far more skillfully than fat, slow norteamericano flies. I base this solely on anecdotal evidence—all of the anecdotes my own—but to me that evidence is overwhelming.

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I must return to the subject of eating out on the economy for a moment. Tomorrow I will have been in Mexico for two weeks precisely. During that time I have eaten in a restaurant once, and I have never eaten at a food stand. Other than that one time, I have washed and cooked my own food entirely.

Now then, if it were possible financially for me to eat at the restaurants in the historic downtown district every day, such as Harry's New Orleans Café, I would without hesitation. They are as safe as any restaurant in downtown Chicago, but their prices are the same as swanky American restaurants because in great part they are feeding Americans and some filthy rich Mexicans here and there. That is not going to work for me.

So that brings me to the real Mexican restaurants up the street here. In spite of horror stories such as California Ruthie's, I am going to roll the dice now and again after sizing the place up as best I can. So many of these are sidewalk cafés, and I'm tellin' ya! That food looks and smells delicious! And it bears no relationship whatsoever to the “Mexican food” that we have in Iowa, near as I have been able to tell. Lots of new and interesting stuff. Occasionally, I am going to roll the dice with some of these little Mexican restaurants.

So what about the sidewalk food stands? I don't know. These places are where the working Mexicans eat their lunch. There is this one stand that intrigues me because of the tortillas they turn out. Mexicans crowd around it for lunch, and they do not seem to be keeling over.

On the other hand, my friend Rick the Sailor some years ago caved for some ice cream a little further south on the Gulf coast--rich, beautiful, delicious ice cream from a Mexican stand. He fell deathly ill. I can no more afford to become ill than I can afford to eat up town.

But who is to say that I will not fall ill from this Mexican butter that I am about to slather on these beautiful garbanzo beans—chickpeas to you southerners? The Mexican F.D.A. does not inspire confidence. I am developing a great fondness for the Mexican people, and I would not want any insulted by a comment like that. So let me hasten to explain that the reason I say that the Mexican F.D.A. does not inspire confidence is not because there are no intelligent, competent, and dedicated people working in the Mexican F.D.A. There undoubtedly are. It is just that there are no funds down here. There are no funds for anything down here. I don't care how competent or how dedicated you are, you cannot do much to ensure the food is safe if you do not have adequate funding.

It all boils down to a crap shoot.

But life is a fuckin' crap shoot, so what the hell?

It is just that it would be a goddamned shame to have survived the Mexican army and the Mexican police and the Mexican narcos up there on the border and then get nailed by Mexican butter in the heart of this country. At my wake I'm not so sure I wouldn't rather have my children be able to say, “The narcos got 'im down in Mexican” than have them have to say, “He got some bad Mexican butter.”

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Perhaps nobody except me will find any of this interesting at all. So be it.

I visited a new addition to San Miguel de Allende the other day. High end condos are being built in there. What I found most interesting was that the new streets being laid in were of cobblestone. It was fascinating to see a brand new cobblestone street being installed. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera. In any event this new addition will conform in general appearance with the rest of the city.



There are some street repairs going on now in the historic downtown. These are ancient streets, and this one is not technically cobblestone. I would call it “slabstone.” There are squares of rock carefully mortared in to make a very attractive checkerboard patterned street that is much smoother than the cobblestone. The colored granite squares that you see are really the sidewalk, not the street.


This is Canal on the way up to El Jardin, that shaded plaza that I keep returning to.


You can see that the crew is simply jackhammering out the old squares of rock that have shattered and are mortaring in new flat slabs of rock.

We are not going to let a contract to lay blacktop over the top of these stone streets as they did with my beloved brick streets in Cedar Rapids. Of course I realize that Cedar Rapids does not have the immense amount of cheap labor that would be necessary to repair those brick streets. We have enough cheap labor here to construct a street out of little cat's eye marbles and mortar if we wish.

The Other End of Town

So far I have shown you the quaint and cute stuff up the mountain from the end of San Antonio Street well to east of where I am camped. Immediately behind my campground is the west end of San Antonio where the not-so-quaint stuff is located here on the edge of town.


This is the Mega Store. It is a big Mexican white box store. Walmart is here in Mexico. I saw one in Matehuala back up the road. But that is the only one I have seen. The Mega Store is certainly the equivalent, Mexican style. And thank goodness it is there. I found two different special, small light bulbs for my camper there that I would not have had any idea where to look for otherwise.


Well, I did also buy some water in bulk there.

I guess I bought some cheese and crackers there.

And I bought some other stuff there if the truth be known.

In the food section of this particular store half of one entire large aisle is given over to beans of various sizes and shapes. The other entire half of that aisle displays rice of various makes and models.

The produce section truly is not worth a damn. One really does have to go to the open market for any decent fruits and vegetables.

Mexicans are apparently not high at all on peanut butter. In this very sizable store I could only find the tiniest container of Jiff peanut butter. There were some tiny containers of Jiff creamy style only and some tiny containers of Jiff with honey, which I had never heard of.

I did strike it rich with that cheese and crackers purchase. I really had no idea what I was buying, but when I got them home, I found that both the crackers and the cheese were great, and together they were dynamite. I still have a couple of cans of soup, the contents of which I have only the slightest idea about even with the use of a English/Spanish dictionary.


This is the Happy Chicken (Feliz Pollo). It is a very popular Mexican franchise, as you can probably tell by the size of this place. Tough to tell what “asado” means when the Mexicans use that word, and they use it all the time. Could mean grilled, barbecued, or broiled. In this case I suspect it means roasted. Ask the folks in the kitchen at Xavier's for me, Spike. What does it mean when it relates to chicken like this? It's pronounced AH-SAH-DO.

“Al carbon” definitely means charcoal grilled. But regardless of the mode de cuisine, how could any chicken within 50 miles of a place like this of this size be at all happy? The Chicken Delight people were delightfully vague as to who was delighted, but presumably it was the customers. Happy Chicken, however, makes absolutely no sense at all. Nonetheless, very soon I am going to try out the food at the Happy Chicken.

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Parque Benito Juárez is far and away the most enchanting city park that I have ever encountered.


It is less a park and more a jungle with a maze of concrete and brick walkways and bridges.


I really do pay attention to landmarks when I am in it because it soon becomes disorienting


There were an unusual number of folks in the park this weekend because of the fiesta.


Because one can find somewhat isolated spots in this park so easily, I am convinced that it was specially designed for lovers who have no where else to go in order to do it.


And boy, do they get it on in Parque Benito Juárez! When I walk through the park in the early mid-afternoon, I do so looking straight ahead with my eyes slightly lowered and focused on the walkway surface right in front of me. There are kids all over the place necking and feeling up each other after school. It is really quite romantic in the afternoon.


But when the young adults come out in the evening, the night time is the right time. Wow! It is all business then, and I simply avoid it.


These are the hoops courts, which get a lot of use in the early evening, but in the mid-afternoon sun such as this, it would take an extraordinary hombre to play basketball on these courts.

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There has been a fiesta going on in town all weekend, and I am about to go nuts. More about that later when I am up to talking about it unless I go to a Mexican jail for braining this carnival asshole with the bullhorn less than a block from my camper. Because he is chanting over a bullhorn, I cannot make out one single word he is saying. Spike, ask the folks in the kitchen what it is that these carnival people chant over and over and over through the bullhorn. It is insane!

And while you're at it, Spike, ask them if we start our fireworks complete with aerial bombs at 5:30 in the morning all over México, or am I living in the middle of some real unusual Mexican fireworks freaks.

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I need to make the acquaintance of a trusted Mexican here soon so that he can explain stuff to me. I still haven't the faintest idea what is going on around me.

I am not complaining. I'm just saying. . . . . . .

(I learned that construction from my youngest child, Sarah.)

El Chorro

I cannot do justice to the beauty of the city with my little camera. Nonetheless, here are some more pictures taken in the oldest neighborhood in the city, El Chorro.



Calle Chorro. (Chorro Street.)


You can see the Café Chorro in the distance, the yellow building in the upper right corner. The balcony there is the location from which the panoramic picture in the earlier entry concerning the San Miguel Laundromat was taken.


I am not sure I could do this street on a bicycle. I would certainly need a different kind of bicycle than the one I have with me because of the cobblestones.


Looking down on the abutting street from the balcony of Café Chorro.



This building houses the San Miguel de Allende Cultural Center now. It is almost older than dirt. It is a colonial building currently undergoing restoration at a very, very deliberate pace.

San Miguel de Allende Weather

There is only one weather site reporting on a weather station that is actually here in San Miguel de Allende. All the other sites report on weather stations that are at least an hour away and at lower altitudes. I have put a link to the site accurately reporting San Miguel weather at the top of the links list to the right.

The San Miguel Laundromat

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Today's point of interest is the public laundry in the very old neighborhood of El Chorro. This is a series of basins with a water trough above them fed by a spring. This was the old traditional public laundry area of the city where the women came to wash clothing.




Apparently, they still do. Here is a link to a photo under the protection of copyright portraying the San Miguel Laudromat in action.


I walked over to see this today, and I think the old public laundry overrated as an attraction. Still, the old neighborhood itself is truly beautiful, and I will go back for that fact alone. This is the view out over the lower part of the city from the balcony of the Café Chorro where I could not only enjoy this view but purchase the cheapest coffee I have found yet.

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What are we going to do about these beggar ladies? Because of the inadequate social safety net in Mexico, one is continually confronted with elderly women, widows one presumes, with no family to take care of them who are reduced to begging in the street, in the plaza, and everywhere else in public.


Here is another. It is the little lady with her back to us. She was working the shaded part of the plaza that I like so much, which is officially known here as El Jardin (“The Garden”) by the way.

I have been handing out a peso here and a couple of pesos there, but I cannot afford to support all these women. There is nearly one per block. Here's my idea. I am going to pick out a couple that I can recognize, and every time I see one of them I will contribute. The others will have to do without me.

Anybody have a better idea?

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I have to backtrack a bit on my quick enthusiasm for the tortillas. They are still delicious today, but they do not take peanut butter worth a damn. I had to buy a loaf of bread and get the toaster out again.

I do not wish to have the resident Americans here included within the ambit of my acid remarks of yesterday about American tourists. The residents are cool and quit a trim lot since they walk up and down hills so much.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt.

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These gals, Carol and Norma, maintain a wonderful web site called Falling in Love with San Miguel. And there you can also purchase a copy of their book, Falling. . .in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security. Give it to some old person you want to get rid of.

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Miscellanea

My own personal auctioneer and newspaper layout man, Scott, proud owner of a popup camper himself, has emailed me to convey his great pleasure at seeing pictures of my popup camper erect and deep in old México.


Here is another shot of it for you, Scottie, complete with the door to the ladies' shower in the foreground. I hope to get this up in time for you to see it yet tonight on one of the newspaper's computers. Terry, too.

The train has not run out of track yet, Scott. I may pull her even further south. San Miguel de Allende is wonderful, and I intend to take a good deal more time to get acquainted. However, there are a great number of Americans here. It is not yet a dump for Americans like Cancún or Cozumel. But still, there are a great number of Americans here. On the one hand that makes this a good transitional place, so to speak. On the other hand those Americans who choose to travel abroad are such assholes in inordinate numbers. I don't understand what the deal is there.

I am speaking in generalities based upon predominant percentages now. After all I myself am an American traveling abroad, and I like to think of myself as fairly presentable in manner and deportment. With that disclaimer I simply wish to say that those Americans who would make the very best ambassadors of good will abroad tend to be those Americans who choose not to travel abroad at all or to travel abroad very seldom for some reason. It is a weird state of affairs.

At some point I may make a move to a place with very few Americans circulating about. Oaxaca beckons. If my nest with the Mexicans is fouled there, it will have been I who fouled it, not some jerks from the near north side who preceded me.

But wow! That is a long haul. The train will very nearly have run out of track if I get there.



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I know that I am oddly sensitive to attire for a male. See blog entry of 13 May 2009 concerning Levi Strauss and Wrangler jeans in Texas. Still, I was conveying some observations concerning attire in Mexico to my granddaughter today by email that I though might be of interest to some of the rest of you after I thought about it.

Women here, and that most certainly includes young women, do not wear shorts. None. Period. Many wear the snugly fitting blue jeans. Others wear dressy looking sweat pants or slacks. Quite often the young women are wearing cute skirts. No shorts though.

As for the men, no self-respecting Mexican man would think of wearing shorts. Some of the teenage boys do wear the very long shorts—are they still called cargo shorts? But that is it. If you catch sight of a man in shorts from the back here and then catch up, it is sure to be some geek from Peoria. An older couple walking down the street both wearing shorts viewed from the back here stand out in a rather ghastly American way.

Those attending this blog who have known me personally for a long time know that I am not a big fan of adult males wearing short pants in public. . . . . . .unless the occasion clearly calls for it, such as jogging or bicycling or some such. However, admittedly in Iowa there are days in the summertime that are so oppressive that I grant waivers.

The difference between Iowa and here is the humidity. Long pants here are perfectly comfortable—or as comfortable as anything can be—in ninety degree weather. Your clothes do not stick to you here. Today it was right at 90, and I was wearing my original model rodeo style Wrangler blue jeans made with the extra heavy duty denim in the street and at the market. These are the very same jeans preferred by the saddest cases of testosterone poisoning among Mexican men. Not a problem at all, I assure you. I did pull those bastards off and get into shorts real fast when I got home though.

El Mercado (The Market)

I was not a big open market kind of guy. In fact the last time I was in a big open market was in New Orleans at the French Market, and my companion and I were so desperate to get out of there and get a drink at Jimmy Buffett's place that we even walked right by the alligator heads without taking a closer look. I am into open markets big time now though.


Mercado Ignacio Ramirez is one of the three big markets available in San Miguel de Allende and the one that is open every day. In fact now I am fired up to hit the big, big, big one that is only open on Tuesday. Of course I did not even know about it yesterday, Tuesday that is. Ah well. Next Tuesday then.

I am admittedly not into the heavy duty cooking. I am getting my rice cooked and my beans cooked, and that is about it. When I was back in Texas, I had my friend Beej in a chat room, and via a chat she walked me through the preparation of a roux into which I threw some tuna and canned peas to slather on some toast. That was delicious and sophisticated cooking for me. However, I know that some of you are interested in that sort of thing. I commend to you Arlene Krasner's article at Sally's Place. I am going to see if I can find this Arlene Krasner. Her article about the markets of San Miguel is very well done.


The flower section is wonderful, and Arlene assures us that on Thursdays it is doubly wonderful.



She is also quite correct that one does not attempt to purchase fruits or vegetables at a store here. One purchases those at the market. Even I had figured that out previously.


And here is one of the bean guys! On down this aisle a bit are the meat guys.


Yes, that lady is asleep.


The market transitions here from food to artisan work, such as textiles, basketry, metalwork, trinkets, hats, shoes, extra tight jeans, etc.

Arlene Krasner is also correct about the tortilleria. I purchased 30 fresh tortillas there for 44¢ American and had ten of them eaten before I had walked 20 yards. Let me make clear that these are just the empty soft shells. They are delicious when they are so fresh that they are still warm. I no longer buy bread. Yes, family members, you won't believe this, but I have put my toaster away.

Now let me confess to one of the major reasons I enjoyed the market so much. These poor people have to listen to my Spanish. Not only are they a captive audience, they must act as if it is a pleasure to speak Spanish with me because they dearly want to sell shit to me. It is a helluva deal in terms of language practice. A couple of them tried to change us over into English. I did not respond. If they really want to sell shit to me, then they must speak Spanish with me.

Mi Casa Su Casa

Lynn is correct. I do need to post something about my accommodations currently for those who are interested. I have put that off because the physical layout of El Hotel La Siesta is unique and somewhat difficult to describe. It will take more photos than usual to give you any real feel for the place. So for those of you who are interested. . . . . . . . . .

The grounds are large, approximately the size of a small city block. Those grounds are divided roughly in half with the front half devoted to the office building, motel units, pool, and large front lawn. The back half is devoted to the campers like me with each camping spot provided with its own water and electrical hookup. I do use the water for everything except drinking. I purchase drinking water.













The top photo is of the front gate. That is really all that is visible from the street. The next photo shows the drive up past the office building toward the motel units. There are five separate motel buildings, each with from two to six rooms. Lastly, you see some photos of some of the plantings at the end of the front lawn and in front of the motel units.











The top photos are of my pool next to the office building. The table with the yellow chairs on the shaded patio next to the pool and appended to the office building is the location from where I catch the strongest wifi signal and write to you. You can also see my soft drink vending machine there next to my table. I use the possessive pronoun “my” because nobody else is ever at the pool or on this little patio even though there are a very few Mexicans staying in the motel complex. The help works diligently to keep it all spic and span just for me. The last photo is of the patio and door to the office as seen across the pool just to orient you.

So then in back of all that is the camping area.











I have tried to provide photos here that give you some feel for how large—and how deserted—the camping area is. The first photos are a couple of my campsite. The next photo is the back of the motel units as seen from my campsite. Then I have simply posted up a couple of random photos of the camp ground.







A few feet from my campsite is the bathroom and shower building, bathroom door (caballeros) on the left and the door to the little shower on the right. Caballeros means “gentlemen,” but its second meaning is “knights,” which is the ancient origin of the word. (A little language trivia for you.) The ladies' rooms are on the other side of this same building. The outside of this building may make it seem a bit problematic, but in fact the facilities inside are quite nice. There is next a picture of the bathroom sinks and then a picture of the shower. These rooms both have skylights, and I am very fond of that. I have this bathroom and this shower all to myself. I can sing The ABC Song at the top of my lungs while washing my hands at one of the bathroom sinks if so moved.



I posted this picture separately because it is so amazing to me. This is the water heater for my bathroom and shower. This is some indication of the constantly warm, constantly dry climate. The water heater simply sits outside.

I am living here until July 7, when I am moving to more spartan, cheaper facilities, which are nearer downtown and which are quite as charming in their own way. Weber RV Park & Tennis Courts. That place is deep in an old neighborhood and much closer to the real México that I seek. Wait until you see those pictures!