Party to the heavens in San Miguel, literally!

 

Mardi Gras, Super Bowl, and the 4^th of July all start on the same day in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In late September the city celebrates its patron saint, the Archangel Michael, with a seven-day festival that reaches its apex on the weekend and packs the small mountain town with a jubilant crowd.

Normally, the population of San Miguel is near 70,000. When we arrived, on Saturday September 28, there may have been that many people lining a single street watching what seemed to be a never-ending parade. The electric feeling of this shindig was highly infectious because everything was music, dancing, fireworks, and more fireworks - and then there were the church bells.

Several beautiful and long standing churches, one dating back to 1564, grace the old city. Most have bells, which swung freely during the celebration. One of particular note is the architectural marvel, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel.

Seated in the El Chorro neighborhood, La Parroquia is opposite of the Jardin (or Main Garden) in the center of town. With its Neo-gothic façade flanked by two tall towers, this parish church tolled its gigantic 17^th century bells, along with the other abbeys, throughout the festival day and well into the night. Staying just a few blocks away, we also heard them clearly throughout the festival day and well into the night.

That evening each clang from the cloisters seemed to be followed by a massive aerial explosion and vice versa. It was as if a sort of competition was being waged between man and the divine. But around midnight the weather changed and that’s when the battle really started.

Across the mountaintops came a fast moving storm monster, which swooped into town without warning and dumped goo gobs of cold rain along with rapid-fire lighting strikes. Who knows, maybe the Almighty had had enough of the racket coming from this highland town; so game over, right?  Not a chance. With each streaking bolt and thunderous burst from the heavy weather, there followed an explosion of fireworks and the eruptions of church bells. What’s not to love about this place?

On Monday morning, this swollen festival town returned to its normal charming size and self. It was as if a giant plug had been pulled; the pedestrian packed streets were now drained and replaced with the quiet business of the everyday. Once again, life and the living took up the normal and hummed along on the near 500 year old narrow cobblestone lanes. Make no mistake though; San Miguel de Allende is no one-trick pony. This city has a rich and vibrant culture of art and music, which is accentuated by the cosmopolitan air of some 8,000 to 12,000 foreign residents. Still, with its upscale restaurants, grand hotels, and effervescent nightlife, San Miguel does not come across as pretentious. And with the annual archangel clambake, how could it?

Reptiles, Art, and Money - or is it just Guanajuato?

Some bar, Guanajuato, Mexico - This was our first trip to Mexico and we used the beautiful San Miguel de Allende as our base for the week. From there, the city of Guanajuato was about an hour and ten minute drive Northwest. So, at 9 am we were picked-up by our guide/driver, Dhali, and for the next few hours we enjoyed the many quirky stories about the beautiful and mysterious “Hill of Frogs.”

Guanajuato’s nickname has a number of variations (Hill of Frogs, Mountain of Frogs, Place of Frogs) and said to have been named so because of the shape of the mountain it sits upon. It also happens, Guanajuato sits upon silver mines that are reported to have produce 30% of the world’s sliver for the last 250 years. Seems kissing this frog really did produce a prince.

The eccentricities of the place started as soon as we entered the city - through what use to be part of the underground sewer system. This intricate scheme of tunnels was originally crated to control the serious flooding that plagued the town until construction of a dam in the 1960s solved the problem. Today the well-lit subterranean byways serve to relieve the city of automobile traffic.




Our short visit started at the statue of El Pipila, a local hero in the Mexican War of Independence. From that spot a spectacular panorama of Guanajuato presented itself to our view. Next, we ventured into the city to visit the birthplace of perhaps its most famous resident, Diego Rivera.

Born Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez, the rest of the world simply calls the artistic genius Diego Rivera. His childhood home has been converted into a museum containing works spanning his brilliant artistic career and, as we learned from our guide Dhali, stories of his colorful life.

In 1933, Rivera (a long-time communist) was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller (a titan of capitalism) to paint a mural for Rockefeller Center. What could possible go wrong?

According to Dhali, when Rivera started the mural, Man At The Crossroads, Rockefeller kept an eye on him but as events would show, not close enough. No one was aware of the final images Rivera painted on the mural until it was unveiled. That’s when Rockefeller and others saw the father of Communism Vladimir Lenin staring down from the painting. Naturally, Rockefeller and the American public went nuts. So, the mural was covered with drapery and later it was destroyed. Of course, Rivera was furious but the blow may have been softened a bit after he received full payment of $21,000.



 
Our tour ended at the majestic Juarez Theatre. Opened in 1903, after only 31 years of construction, the beauty of the neoclassical façade crowned with eight Greek muses was certainly matched by the elegant décor inside. And again, our guide Dhali provided some very interesting details.

On each side of the stage there were three levels of box seats. Back in the theater’s heyday, Dhali said, well-dressed and attractive “ladies of the evening” would occupy these seats at the behest of theater management. The women were placed there so they could flirt, wave, and make eyes at all the gentlemen. I guess it was their form of pre-game and halftime entertainment. But I don’t imagine the wives in the audience liked it much, nor the husbands when they got home.