On the bus ride out of San Miguel this morning we made a brief stop at the old railroad terminal--then crossed the tracks to join the back road to Guanajuato.
This reminded me that the remains of Jack Kerouac's old running buddy, Neal Cassady, were found nearby the tracks in 1968, apparently the victim of an accident, suicide, or otherwise untimely death.
Cassady was Kerouac's inspiration for Dean Moriarty, the anti-hero of his seminal Beat Generation novel On the Road.
Today I fell from the lap of luxury into the rock bottom of grungy hostelries when I relocated from the very excellent value Posada de las Monjas ($42 per night) in San Miguel to an extremely divey $12.50 room in the Hotel Granaditas in downtown Guanjuato--described by the Lonely Planet as "best of the cheapies" in the area.
My edition of the LP is 8-9 years old. . .but this place is a dump!
In all fairness, though, I was looking for something a little cheaper to "average out" my daily budget after a couple days in expensive San Miguel.
The entire ordeal reminds me that Mexico isn't as cheap as it used to be. Yes, it's nominally cheaper than in the States, but I've found that my budget projections for lodging have fallen quite a bit short of the reality of 2011.
Strangely enough, I've seen that lodging in the capital is perhaps cheaper than in the provinces. Maybe that's because DF is saturated with hotels, and that glut of hotels runs the entire dive-to-five-star price spectrum.
The Granaditas seems to be run by Jehovah's Witnesses, judging by the piles of The Watchtower at the reception desk.
Again, this is a reminder to me of last Saturday night when I was out and about in Queretaro and made acquaintence with several JWs who were approaching people--me included--with tracts and invitations to their Sunday morning service. Turns out the JWs were in the midst of their annual convention.
Jehovah's Witnesses around town were easily recognizable by their sharp, conservative dress and their "Hello my name is. . ." name tag lanyards.
Also well dressed and approaching strangers were salespersons of Herbalife, Inc. I met a few of them, too. Each one showed me a "before" picture: sometimes overweight, now these folks were walking/talking cheerful promoters of a product "that really changed my life." And one young lady wasn't shy about telling me how many thousands of dollars she makes pushing the product.
Back to San Miguel, though: yes, it's really expensive, so apparently the influx Americans and Europeans is driving up local costs considerably (?).
The cheapest hotel I could find was in the 300 peso range, and in some cases that was without private bath. I paid 520 pesos ($42) for my room in Las Monjas, which was by far the most luxurious place I've stayed in Mexico so far. My room was very nice, and for a bonus it had one of the best views of the hilly old town available.
There is a mini real estate boom happening in the old town with For Sale signs everywhere. Long popular with Euro/American artists and other creative types, San Miguel's old town has many art galleries and expensive antique shops. Craft stores and touristy gift shops dot the Centro a-plenty.
And yet apparently the local expatriate community doesn't support bookstores. Both local bookshops, listed in Lonely Planet and described as "very good" and with a great selection of English language titles, either went out of business in the past eight years, or moved somewhere I couldn't find in my two days there.
An older boomer gentleman informed me: "The best place to find books is the Thursday sale at the Bibliotech." He was referring to an American lending library which I visited yesterday afternoon.
Showing posts with label San Miguel de Allende. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Miguel de Allende. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Taking the Slow Way to Guanajuato via San Miguel
Queretaro was so exciting this past weekend--with a major arts festival featuring international and local performers on stage and buskers everywhere else--that I ended up staying the whole weekend.
As a city of about 200,000 it seems that all of Queretaro's citizens plus a large number of Mexican tourists were out in force on Saturday and Sunday. The street life is so vibrant that you almost can't go wrong with a camera. Just point, keep on clicking, and something good is bound to turn up.
The street food in town was also cheap, filling, and delicious. And to top things off, I found a great value hotel room in the refurbished Hotel Hidalgo: just a little over $30 for an excellent room with a big cable TV in an old colonial courtyard building.
I don't remember much about my last visit here (circa 1998), but it seems to me that Queretaro has gone through a major sprucing up of its plazas and parks since then. This year it has impressed me as a lot more "happening" than back then.
Today I write from San Miguel de Allende, another fine old colonial town but much smaller than Queretaro.
San Miguel has become something of an American colony with boomer retirees buying real estate and living here full or part time. In the central square it's strange but true to see yankees come close to outnumbering the locals in the afternoon.
Tony Cohan, an author from California, first visited San Miguel with his wife in the mid-1980s. They fell in love with the place, bought a fixer-upper house in the old town for $60,000, and proceeded to make a life here for the next 25 years.
Cohan's books (On Mexican Time and Mexican Days) about their experiences in Mexico make for some very warm reading. It must be interesting to have witnessed all that has changed in this lovely little town since Cohan moved here. It reminds me of the changes I saw from 1989 to 2001 in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Another author I've been checking out of late is a Generation Y Mexican-American, Daniel Hernandez from Los Angeles.
He first visited Mexico City in 2002 in a quest to fine his roots, and he has since made a semi-permanent home there as a writer and journalist.
His book Down and Delirious in Mexico City is just as captivating as David Lida's book but focuses more on the youth subcultures of the DF and the wider Mexican scene. He points out that more than half the population of the DF is between 14 and 34 years old.
Sometime in the mid '00s the youth scene in Mexico City exploded internationally as it drew many expatriates from Europe, the U.S., and other parts of Latin America, and Hernandez was there--participating and documenting it through his blog and as a contributer to Mexican and American publications.
Tomorrow I'm off to Guanajuato, and I hope to be back in the capital on Friday night.
As a city of about 200,000 it seems that all of Queretaro's citizens plus a large number of Mexican tourists were out in force on Saturday and Sunday. The street life is so vibrant that you almost can't go wrong with a camera. Just point, keep on clicking, and something good is bound to turn up.
The street food in town was also cheap, filling, and delicious. And to top things off, I found a great value hotel room in the refurbished Hotel Hidalgo: just a little over $30 for an excellent room with a big cable TV in an old colonial courtyard building.
I don't remember much about my last visit here (circa 1998), but it seems to me that Queretaro has gone through a major sprucing up of its plazas and parks since then. This year it has impressed me as a lot more "happening" than back then.
Today I write from San Miguel de Allende, another fine old colonial town but much smaller than Queretaro.
San Miguel has become something of an American colony with boomer retirees buying real estate and living here full or part time. In the central square it's strange but true to see yankees come close to outnumbering the locals in the afternoon.
Tony Cohan, an author from California, first visited San Miguel with his wife in the mid-1980s. They fell in love with the place, bought a fixer-upper house in the old town for $60,000, and proceeded to make a life here for the next 25 years.
Cohan's books (On Mexican Time and Mexican Days) about their experiences in Mexico make for some very warm reading. It must be interesting to have witnessed all that has changed in this lovely little town since Cohan moved here. It reminds me of the changes I saw from 1989 to 2001 in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Another author I've been checking out of late is a Generation Y Mexican-American, Daniel Hernandez from Los Angeles.
He first visited Mexico City in 2002 in a quest to fine his roots, and he has since made a semi-permanent home there as a writer and journalist.
His book Down and Delirious in Mexico City is just as captivating as David Lida's book but focuses more on the youth subcultures of the DF and the wider Mexican scene. He points out that more than half the population of the DF is between 14 and 34 years old.
Sometime in the mid '00s the youth scene in Mexico City exploded internationally as it drew many expatriates from Europe, the U.S., and other parts of Latin America, and Hernandez was there--participating and documenting it through his blog and as a contributer to Mexican and American publications.
Tomorrow I'm off to Guanajuato, and I hope to be back in the capital on Friday night.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday & Saturday in Queretaro
I'm keeping my fingers crossed now that I appear to have found a decent high speed internet shop in Queretaro, about a three hour bus ride northwest of the DF.
After puttering around near my Zocalo hotel on Wednesday--and taking a couple hundred photos of the vibrant street life in the area--I found myself held over in the big city for another day to take care of some housekeeping (laundry, to be precise).
With Thursday afternoon at my disposal, I decided to make the return trek out to Coyoacan to take photos and check out the museums.
It was another long walk from the metro stop to Frida's Blue House, and there was a long line of tourists at the ticket counter, so I continued my way back to Trotsky's house.
The admission, at 55 pesos--which includes a 15 peso "permit" to take photos--was reasonable, and I can confirm that history buffs would enjoy a visit to this museum since apparently nothing has been drastically changed since 1940 when the Soviet exile and mortal enemy of Stalin was knocked off in his study by a mysterious Spanish NKVD assassin.
I made full use of my photo permit.
Back at Frida's house I found I had to give it a miss for another day because of a temporary cash shortage. At 120 pesos (including photo permit), the admission charge was a bit steep for me, and the museum didn't accept credit/debit cards.
Friday morning I managed to tear myself away from the comforts of the capital and set out for Queretaro--a town I visited once before.
Queretaro is a well-kept colonial city with many pedestrian walkways and the usual high number of strolling musicians. Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende are both but a short bus trip away, and I'll probably head there tomorrow.
After puttering around near my Zocalo hotel on Wednesday--and taking a couple hundred photos of the vibrant street life in the area--I found myself held over in the big city for another day to take care of some housekeeping (laundry, to be precise).
With Thursday afternoon at my disposal, I decided to make the return trek out to Coyoacan to take photos and check out the museums.
It was another long walk from the metro stop to Frida's Blue House, and there was a long line of tourists at the ticket counter, so I continued my way back to Trotsky's house.
The admission, at 55 pesos--which includes a 15 peso "permit" to take photos--was reasonable, and I can confirm that history buffs would enjoy a visit to this museum since apparently nothing has been drastically changed since 1940 when the Soviet exile and mortal enemy of Stalin was knocked off in his study by a mysterious Spanish NKVD assassin.
I made full use of my photo permit.
Back at Frida's house I found I had to give it a miss for another day because of a temporary cash shortage. At 120 pesos (including photo permit), the admission charge was a bit steep for me, and the museum didn't accept credit/debit cards.
Friday morning I managed to tear myself away from the comforts of the capital and set out for Queretaro--a town I visited once before.
Queretaro is a well-kept colonial city with many pedestrian walkways and the usual high number of strolling musicians. Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende are both but a short bus trip away, and I'll probably head there tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)