14th Sept. 2016
Sitting drinking coffee and eating breakfast taking in this view is just one of the many pleasures of travelling. Having already Skyped Steve to catch up on his good news, it is also good to know the goings on at home even though we are miles away. Tempting as it would be to laze on the sun loungers here on the roof terrace we feel we must move on to see what else San Miguel de Allende has to offer.
We head in a different direction away from the centre of town to a park marked on the map and find it full of locals. An exercise class which involved waving fans to music is happening on the basketball court. Spread around are many different exercise apparatus but all are empty and we are not tempted. Whilst I take photos, I hear Dave talking in English and turn to see he has been caught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Once the pleasantries are over and the religious talk begins we make our leave.
Heading back into town we again avoid a local hazard of water pouring onto the pavement and spot it comes from a flat roof above. These delightful little piggies up high are the overflow pipes causing the water flow direct into our path. We do stop and take time to admire all the bright colours of the buildings which are fab.
The local bull ring is open this time as we head pass so we just had to go in and investigate. It reminds us of Ronda in Spain but on a smaller scale. No one stops us so we wander freely about admiring the architecture, whilst the locals erect marquees in the arena and nod “hola” to us. What a find, again Janet and Dave strike it lucky.
There is one elusive church we try again to find but are again thwarted by being unable to find the entrance even though we can see the magnificent pink tower over the wall. We think it may be accessible through a different church where a service was in progress so we could not enter. We had to be happy just looking at the outside. The heat seemed all too much for one local hiding behind his hat.
We did get distracted by the local market with the usual stalls but on a much smaller scale than Mexico City. The paths then lead us into the local artisan market and although I was tempted by some colourful cushion covers that would look good in our new house (when we find one!!) I am not ready to carry them around for the next three months. As Dave says I can buy what I like but I have to carry it 🙁
The streets are full of open doors leading to all manner of shops selling many odd items including day of the death figures and we even saw a fish foot spa! These many open doors also lead to small family run restaurants/cafes and it was one of these where we stopped for a light lunch of soup (still not 100% but we are on the mend). The soup and drinks cost less than our two teas in the one and only Starbucks in town.
It was only a short ride in a distinctive local green taxi before catching a bus to our next destination, Guanajuato which was again on a Primera Plus bus. This time there were individual TV screens with a selection of films, music and documentaries to chose from. However as the journey was only just over the hour we did not have time to investigate and anyway Dave was busy sorting out photos as we have already taken 600 photos in six days.
As already mentioned our hotel is slightly out of town so we took the easy option of a taxi for the four mile trip across town, £2 well spent! Our hotel is about a 20 minute walk from the centre and according to my phone app would take 19 minutes to drive in the rush hour traffic. We decide to leave exploring town until tomorrow and just walk in the area around our hotel. One surprise was to find cows on a small patch of grass a little further down the road which explained the strange ‘deposits’ on nearby pavements.
The town is much bigger than San Miguel and busier but we are looking forward to investigating tomorrow as this is a place our Tassie friends, Chris and Graham spent a while learning Spanish and they enthused about it. Once we had checked out the kilo laundry (much cheaper to pay by weight than by item) for tomorrow, we settled into a quaint French restaurant and were the first guests of the evening. This was another good find with good wholesome meat and veg on the menu. We needed a proper meal as we were starving from two days of just soup and fruit. We were not sure about the two ladies who arrived with their laptops and proceeded to either tap away or to talk on the phone – really??