A lovely Sunday Hike

There is a hiking group that meets early every Sunday morning in SMA and goes out into the campo, the country, to hike in scenic areas.  We made our first hike earlier this month and joined the "moderate" group rather than the "ambitious" group.  It's a good thing we chose the easier group because we hiked over 6 miles with some moderate gain in elevation.  It was a beautiful day and the scenery was rugged but lovely.  We started and ended near a little village called Juana Ruiz.  (Click on photos for larger versions)

 It seems that every little village, no matter how small, has a church.  We encountered this one just after starting out.  The next one we came to a little higher up in the hills is probably abandoned or seldom used.  

At one point we crossed a slow moving river.
During the rainy season, it might not be
passable.

We walked through some farmland and had to go through a number of fences.  We were very careful not to do any damage and to leave the fences just as we found them.

We also encountered some stone walls and I loved the bright colors of the lichen.

 

Some of the scenery-the lake is in the background but hard to see in the mist and haze.

Murals in Colonia Guadalupe

The Guadalupe neighborhood is famous for the murals painted by a variety of street artists.  Graffiti was a problem in the area, so an expat lady organized a program to have good artists paint murals instead.  They have become very popular with tourists and many residents, but now some residents and city officials oppose them and are painting them over.  The city is painting buildings, for free, in the Centro area in historical colors of red and ochre, which to my mind will make the streets monotonous.  I like the mixture of colors on the houses.  Guadalupe is not part of Centro, so many are hoping that at least some of the murals will be saved or that new ones will be painted when the owners of the houses give permission.  Here are some photos from our walking tour.  It is amazing how talented the artists are and even more amazing to see what can be done with cans of spray paint (some use other kinds of paint as well).

My favorite

This is painted on a huge textured door.

Revolution Day

I've been so busy with Spanish school and all sorts of other activities that I haven't had time to post anything.  Now I'm catching up.

November 20th is Revolution Day in Mexico, and there are parades all over the country.  Young people, both men and women, dress up as revolutionaries and march through the cities.  Here are some photos from the parade in San Miguel de Allende.

This soldier has plenty of bullets

Many women joined the military, but according to Wikipedia, the men
believed they should be home cooking and cleaning.

Groups of cheerleaders represented various corporate interests

Participants in youth activities marched - these kids attend a cooking workshop

Parade royalty watch from a balcony

These large puppets are very popular

What an amazing week!

The Day of the Dead (Día de Muertas or Día de los Muertas) celebrations started on Monday the 28th with a charity benefit at the home of a local couple.  The house and garden were gorgeous and filled with art, the food and drinks were delicious, and the guests were an interesting mix of mostly expats, snowbirds and locals.

Enjoying ourselves

Late lunch in the garden

On Tuesday we were treated to lunch by a fascinating man, the head of the ProMusica organization that brings world class musicians to SMA.  For a modest amount, we became patrons of ProMusica and will have 16 concerts and 8 cocktail parties to meet the artists between now and March. Then on Thursday, we had a market tour and cooking class in the morning with Chef David Jahnke, a German chef who has been living and working in Mexico for about 20 years.  We purchased food at the market and then went back to David's house where we prepared several dishes: cactus leaf salad, "Chile Relleno" stuffed poblano peppers with tomato sauce, corn tortilla huitlacotche cheese quesadillas and fried plaintain and other fruits with cinnamon sugar.  (huitlacotche is corn fungus - delicious, believe it or not)

Cactus leaf salad

Chile Relleno

Fruit dessert

Thursday was the 31st of October, Halloween, a holiday the Mexicans have adopted recently.  It is controversial because some people feel it conflicts and takes away from Day of the Dead, but the children and families we saw seemed to love it.  Kids don't go door to door asking for candy - they all converge in the Jardin, the central square, wearing a mix of Halloween and Day of the Dead costumes.  We took a large shopping bag of candy and it was gone in a few minutes - a real feeding frenzy of polite little kids.

Friday Nov 1st was All Saints Day and the start of the official Day of the Dead events.  For this holiday, doors are decorated and altars to departed relatives are set up with photos, flowers and items the deceased liked including favorite foods. 

A large altar in a courtyard

A very large display of flowers was located in Plaza Civica

There was a big business in face painting the traditional "sugar skulls" and painting stations were set up near the Jardin during the day and evening.

At 8pm there was a big parade of Catrinas and Catrins, the famous "dead" figures.  We were there in face makeup I applied along with hundreds of others walking along the cobblestone streets.  Great fun and friendly crowd.

Cynthia

Erich

Afterwards we retreated to the Rosewood Hotel, probably the fanciest in town, for a dinner under a large tent-like covering.  It was fun being at dinner with almost everyone in costume and face paint, although the temperature had dropped and it was a bit chilly sitting outdoors.

November 2nd is the official Día de Muertos.  First we attended a concert, Mozart's Requiem in D Minor,  in a very old church in Centro.  There was a large choir and orchestra and the sound filled the church.

That evening we attended an unusual concert at Los Senderos, a place just outside of town.  There is a big man-made lake and a large sculpture that lit up in different colors along with the music.  It was chilly so we joined some folks around a bonfire while listening to the music.

After all this activity, Sunday was a welcome day of rest.

Big crash

Around 10pm we heard a big crash as if something heavy had fallen on the floor.  The problem was, we couldn't find anything that had fallen.  The next morning we discovered what had happened.  Part of the decorative masonry on a second story window fell off, crashed into the window below and ended up on the ground.  The landlord sent people to make repairs which turned out to be an extremely long and dusty proposition.  First they chipped off the damaged pieces, then to prevent another incident, they drilled holes in every piece of remaining trim all over the house and screwed them into the structure.  Then they filled the holes and sanded them smooth which send tons of dust into the house.  The badly damaged pieces are being copied and there will be more dust when those finally get installed.

Progress getting settled in the house

Getting unpacked and putting the house in shape has been challenging due to having had to leave so much furniture behind, and putting up wall art is very time consuming because of the brick and concrete walls.  We have to drill holes, put in plastic anchors and then screws.  Hard to modify if things don't come out even.  At least the living room is done except for curtains.

I took the photo of the rose which Erich grew in our garden in New York.

Lest you think everything is done, here is the guest room.