Valentine's Day at the Jardin

Brendan and I walked downtown for our daily coconut ice cream and found ourselves in the middle of the Valentine festivities in the Jardin.  The park was lined with Valentine vendors all loaded with brightly coloured paper flowers, dolls and sparkly trinkets for the holiday. Confetti filled eggs by the hundreds were sold to children who ran around smashing them on the heads of each other as well as unassuming strangers. Best part was, it was a wee four year old who reached up behind Brendan who was sitting on a park bench and bashed him a good one. His own egg-head was just too tempting a target to resist and so he wore a glittery gold yarmulke for the rest of the day .  A Valentine war wound.  It was truly a battleground and a delight to watch the egg to head combat.

Here are my two favourite shots of the day.

This little girl took a break from selling Chiclets.

groundcover

I was in photographer's heaven with the flurry of kids racing by me, the joyful sound of crunching eggs all around. I love that Valentine's Day is a family day here, not just lovers' private time. How can you improve a rose?  Dip it in blood red glitter.  Only in Mexico.

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! 

The Secret Ladder

I returned to the botanical gardens at El Charco with Brendan and we walked my same route, this time stopping to go over and down into the canyon.  It was another lovely day, breezy and warm.  Here are some shots of the trip down down down...

El Charco

This week one of my assignments was to take an extended Artist's Date. This is to be a planned time alone to do something new or fun - just to experience the activity rather than have the focus solely on creating.  Since my entire time in San Miguel feels like one extended artist's date, I was having trouble coming up with an idea. I felt I had walked through every market, spent time wandering through the Parque Juarez and hanging out in the Jardin.  I had gone to a couple of dance classes.  I had taken myself for lunch and sketched.

I set out downtown alone with my camera yesterday morning with no agenda. The day was already warm under a cloudless sky and I made my way down to the Jardin where the city was just waking up.  I walked aimlessly around and then out of the blue, hopped into a cab and off we went to El Charco - the botanical gardens WAAAAY up the hill.  Up up up we wound our way through side streets I had yet to explore. We approached the top on the narrowest street yet, only to find a stalled truck at the top with, of course, no way to navigate around.  So back back back we went at a snail-pace in reverse. It took a good five minutes of retracing our journey until we could find a way to get turned around and then we had to take an even steeper detour to get to our destination. I smiled to myself as I got to use my new vocabulary and impress the driver.... ¡Híjole! Que lástima! (what a shame) He agreed.

I got to El Charco by noon and spent two hours walking, sitting, and photographing the incredible botanical conservation preserve. In the middle of the desert, it is truly a magical oasis.  Miles of stone-lined pathways through a cactus forest on either side of La Presa - a large reservoir that is home to waterfowl and birds.  Even our Gimli white pelicans take their winter vacation here. Hundreds of birds were here but unfortunately took flight as soon as I approached the water's edge.

The path wound down to the reservoir and followed it up to the damn. Not a soul in sight.  It was so peaceful away from the sounds of the city... only birdsong and the approaching sound of trickling water.  I remembered the video of last week when the damn looked like Niagara Falls and was surprised when I arrived to discover such a tame flow of water. By the way, these cactus "trees" are giant.  The other deciduous trees are covered with bromeliads.  I wonder if they bloom with orchid-like blossoms later in the spring.

I ventured out to the centre of the damn along a narrow concrete walkway.  As close as I'll ever come to walking on water.  It was surreal, feeling suspended there at the top of the dam. Somehow I don't think the two wire fence was built to safety code.

It felt WAY more impressive than it looks from this vantage point.  My stomach was in my throat as I held on to the wire.

my little dam walkway

I proceeded along the canyon past the "high risk area" sign determined to find the secret ladder that Joanne and I had discovered three years ago. Evidentally there had been a Pancho Villa movie shot here years ago and to get the film crew down into the canyon, they built two steel ladders which have remained there, obviously unadvertised.    (If you don't believe me, here it is from 2006 secret ladder)

I found the place where I think the ladder was, but being alone, the "Peligroso" sign scared me off. I had great plans of a solo descent, but I totally chickened out.  You have to climb down some rocks to get to the ladder and I just wasn't ready to be a hero alone.  I'll bring Brendan back with me and see if he'll be my canyon buddy. Now that I've revisited this place....Joanne, I don't know how we did it with our music and recorders.  We were determined... and crazy. 

I walked away from the canyon, through more cactus forest and found the gate that let me back into civilization. It was a half hour walk downhill through a very weathly exPat neighbourhood with high walls and elaborate keep out gates.  I turned a corner down a narrow path and immediately felt more at home with narrower streets offering friendly passersby and photo ops.

I ended ambling back through downtown.  A wonderful Artist's Date.

P.S. Someone else had a date that day, too. Only in Mexico could you stop for a taco on your way down the aisle.

Guanajuato

Last weekend, Brendan and I celebrated the sunny skies by hopping a bus and travelling an hour and a half to Guanajuato, a neighbouring city steeped in history, colour and sheer liveliness.  We arrived by noon, cabbed it downtown through underground tunnels and emerged at their Jardin in the Centro.  Founded by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, silver was discovered here a few decades later.  By the 18th century, Guanajuato and the surrounding silver mines were THE leading suppliers of silver in the world. It's also the birthplace of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo's hooligan husband. It's a magical place, now a university town with the craziest maze of the narrowest streets you can imagine.  And the entire downtown area is off limits to traffic.  Everyone parks underground in the refurbished mining tunnels and takes to stumbling along the cobblestones above.

They're very hospitable here... this sign welcomed us as we got out of the cab.

After stopping to listen to a few Sousa marches by a local band in the Jardin, we hoofed it down to the Hildago Market.... a gigantic mecca for tourists and locals where booths were overflowing with souvenirs, food stuffs, and endless tchatckas.

walking down to the market  

Hildago Market - 7 days a weeks since 1910

peck of peppers

The rest of the day was spent walking and eating sugar. Two stops at a candy store, gelati in the street and a double dose of churros had me feeling like I had just come off a high school date to the Red River Ex.

candy shop sign.  How could we resist? The sweets haven't hurt Catrina's teeth.

a maze of narrow streets.  Remember this Leslie?

a quilt in the making, methinks.

The weather was absolutely perfect - such a gift after the torrential rains of the previous week. We hopped the 6 pm bus, walked an hour from the bus station (just in case we hadn't walked enough that day) and were home in time for leftovers and trashy TV.  All in all a great day.  

I was much more prolific and inspired to take pictures when I had visited here before.  My 2006 pictures of Guanajuato are posted on Webshots.  here -  Guanajuato 2006  and here - Guanajuato Market 2006

Rain Rain...

It was a LONG week, trying to honour my Artist's Way assignment and stay off the internet and not read.  "Reading Deprivation" is supposed to create a desire to write, take in, photograph, sketch... but instead it just left me feeling very grumpy. Poor Brendan.  He endured storm clouds both inside and out.  Who knew a week without reading emails and playing my daily Facebook scrabble games would create such a monster in me.

The weather didn't help as we only went outside to go to our classes.  The empty bucket in our yard filled in 5 days - an unbelievable 8.5".  In these mountains, this also meant the dry-as-a-bone riverbed was now a raging river of biblical proportions within hours.  Someone came into our Spanish class last Thursday and announced that we should go straight home as they were closing all bridges within an hour.  I raced out in the torrential rain trying to find a cab, thinking that I would be trapped downtown and not be able to get home as we live on the other side of the river.  As it turned out, the bridges up by me never closed, although police were standing by and monitoring the situation closely.  Brendan and I walked down to go for a pizza that night and we could here the river's roar from our front door 4 blocks away.  The water had risen some 15 feet in one day and was close to breaching its banks in the lower market area of town.  One bridge apparently was taken out.  It was surreal standing and watching the rushing water where it had been a dry riverbed only a few days earlier.  It put things in perspective, me complaining about the cold and the wet and then realizing how people's homes were in danger and so many didn't have the luxury of a propane heater to cuddle around.

This is what was happening downtown Thursday Feb. 4 afternoon....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4sE7MP3dUE&feature=related

this is the canal where I walked to get my cab....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcIW6orp2bk&feature=related

A few hours before the peak

The next morning

Leslie emailed me this YouTube video of what was happening up at La Presa, the desert canyon where Joanne and I climbed down to the trickling stream a few years ago.  

La Presa, San Miguel de Allende Feb 2010

Friday, it was all a memory. People were hustling downtown, the market was in full swing and the streets were dry. The sun shone in the middle of a cloudless sky and life was back to normal.   Needless to say we've greatly welcomed the weekend.  Warm sunny days and even sunnier now that I'm back online. We took a bus to the beautiful city of Guanajuato.  I'll post pics of that soon.  We have another week of rain scheduled to start today, so I'll have time to catch up on my posts.

The Blessing of the Poodles

For me, nothing can compare to January 17, St. Anthony the Abbott Day - the day the animals go to church to get blessed.  St. Anthony, a desert hermit who acquired a pig to force him to hold fast on his virtuous path and resist temptaion is honoured on this day.  It was a favourite San Miguel memory from my last visit and I couldn't wait to return on this special day this year.

My batteries were charged (both personal and camera) as I leapt at the opportunity to capture people and their pets as they accompanied them to church for their special blessing.  It's also a time where I don't feel as intrusive taking photos of people as they seemed more than happy to pose with their loved ones.  Household pets, farm animals stood crowded in the courtyard of the Oratorio.

Bat Dog

Half-bat Dog

bunny parking

This family had with them a turtle, a budgie, two dogs and a cat

Only thing missing were Queso and Oscar.  They would have loved to have been blessed along with all the socializing that went with it.

I think some of my favourite shots I've ever taken were from that day in 2007.  You can see them at http://travel.webshots.com/album/557077187gNPmTg  

It's rainy and miserable today, so I will crank the propane heater and hunker down to Spanish homework.  Thanks for stopping by.  I understand the deep freeze is upon you back in Canada. Hope things warm up for you all at home!