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We arrived in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico on
Thursday, September 5, 2019, but it still hasn’t sunk in that we actually live
here now. Our furniture, rather badly
beaten up by the various movers, is here along with the rest of our belongings
and we are unpacking as fast as we can.
Buying a refrigerator and washer and dryer was an adventure of its own
since our rental house is brand new and didn’t have those appliances. It is not uncommon in Mexico for homes to not
have major appliances.
Well, the appliances were delivered and it turns out that
the refrigerator will not fit through the door to the maid’s room which we are
using as a pantry. The kitchen has a
closed-in space for a refrigerator, but it is tiny. We wanted a bigger unit but it never occurred
to us that we needed to measure the doorway.
We sent the fridge back and returned to the store where we bought it. The very nice salesman refunded our money and
then helped us find an equally good unit that WILL fit. Thank goodness.
Here are a few observations based on about 10 days of being
in Mexico:
Driving – Many of
the highways have two lanes with wide paved shoulders. Generally, you drive at least half way on the
shoulder so cars coming from behind you can pass. You also have to move over so that cars
coming at you can pass vehicles on their side of the road. Sometimes there are four vehicles abreast on
the two-lane road. Exciting.
In our small city of SMA, there are no stop lights or stop
signs. There are roundabouts, called gloriettas,
which offer more excitement. This may
change due to the building boom and big increase in population recently. There has been an announcement that there
will be traffic lights installed around various places on the outskirts of the
city
Don’t believe the GPS about speed limits. The GPS said the limit was 110 kph when the
road signs said 60. Trying not to call
attention to ourselves in order to avoid policemen looking for mordida
(bribes), we tried sticking to the posted limits, but we were the only vehicle
doing so. We gave up and just tried to
stay with the traffic flow.
The GPS and Google Maps were useless in trying to get around
in Queretaro, the closest big city, a little over an hour away on one of those
two-lane highways. We drove around
totally lost for a very long time before finally getting to our destinations of
Home Depot and Costco. Then we ended up
buying our appliances in SMA at the local department store.
Food – Wonderful
fruit and vegetables, fresh and inexpensive.
It is necessary to disinfect everything because of possible
contamination from natural fertilizers and often less than sanitary
transportation and handling. Even the
locals disinfect everything. The
restaurants in town are very good about sanitizing everything and we have had
no tummy troubles so far.
Water – You can’t
drink tap water. It has large amounts of
fluoride and arsenic due to the lowering of the water table and the need to
drill deeper and deeper. Lots of
agricultural use has depleted the aquifers.
Even though we would rather not use bottled water, it is the only
choice.
Security – SMA
has traditionally been one of the safest places in Mexico with no cartel
activity and relative low crime rates. That has changed in the last 6 months or
so, most likely since the national government cracked down on the rampant theft
of gasoline from Pemex, the national gas company. Whole communities in the area made a
living by tapping into pipelines, stealing the gas, then selling it to service
stations and others. With that source of
income dried up, people have turned to other types of crime including home
robberies, muggings and extortion of businesses. The national government sent in troops and
things seem to have settled down a bit, but we are glad our house has an alarm
system. Although our community is not gated, there is a private security
force which patrols at night. We hope
that will be sufficient to protect us.
Dogs – Many
people keep large, unfriendly dogs for security purposes. As we walk around our neighborhood, we hear
them barking and growling behind walls and gates. They are also on rooftops since houses are
connected and a burglar could go from one house to another. There are also a lot of unsupervised dogs on
the loose. On our way here from Laredo,
we stopped to get some coffee and give our little doggie a break. The moment we let her out of the car, she was
attacked by a big, vicious dog. It tried to get her throat, but I kicked it as
hard as I could and it backed off. Dog
attacks are not uncommon, unfortunately.
More observations later.
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