I’ve made it to my second destination on my Mexico travel route: San Miguel de Allende. So far I’ve just been walking around aimlessly, which is what I like to do the first day of a trip to get my bearings about a place. My initial impressions are…wow look at all the gringos! Yes there are alot of Americans (and I guess Canadians too)  here. Many are retired and live here. There are some wonderful old churches and a lot of colorful old buildings with rusty iron hanging lanterns. The streets are narrow and cobbled similar to those in Guanajuato, but perhaps a little more irregular. I’ve managed to trip several times already. It’s difficult to take decent pictures of anything at this time of day though, as the streets are quite crowded with pedestrians and cars, plus the sun is directly overhead, so I guess I’ll have to get up early in the morning. I’d like to visit a few art galleries while I’m here as there are many. I’m only here for a couple of days so I better get going and see what I can see.

Well so much for visiting the Valenciana silver mines today. I started to feel a little ill around noon. I knew I had been pressing my luck when I ordered a pastry with my espresso for breakfast this morning. Perhaps I thought that because I was on vacation my body would cut me some slack. Not happening. That pastry had to be baked with mantequilla (butter), key ingredient being Leche (milk) which spells allergic reaction from hell in any language. I started to feel dizzy with pain behind the eyes. I didn´t throw up though and actually feel better now after lying down for a couple of hours. Luckily I have one more day here in Guanajuato so all is not perdido. Visiting the mines early tomorrow morning will be better anyways and then perhaps I can catch a play at one of the theaters in the afternoon.

One thing I love about this town are the mini plazas at the corner of streets dotted with trees and lined with park benches. They are everywhere urging one to just sit down, relax and enjoy the scenery. Another reason I might add which may be contributing to the obesity of Guanajuato pigeons. There are just too many Mexicans hanging out at these plazas with nothing better to do then sit on these benches and throw their crumbs to the pigeons. Yes I admit I have been doing it to. An occasional toddler or stray dog will sometimes chase them around, which is in fact good, as this may be the only exercise they ever get.

The fattest pigeons in the world must live right here in Guanajuato. I’ve never seen more well fed birds in my life. Some of them are so fat they can barely get off the ground. Yesterday I found myself sitting at the park throwing them pan dulce, when I realized that with all the panaderias in the neighborhood and the high sugar content of most of the bread, these birds are all destined for fatness, but they seem pretty happy. Yesterday I visited the home that the legendary Mexican artist Diego Rivera grew up in. It’s a large house. The bottom level had all the original furnishings and the top two levels were being used to showcase his art. Much of the art I’d never seen before. There were quite a few pieces created before he became known, and some incomplete sketches. It was awesome to see his style emerging, you could even see infuences of other artists that he was emulating prior to coming into his own style.

I did a lot of walking yesterday. Walked to the top of the town…up some crazy, narrow winding streets. Up on top I could get a bird´s eye view of Guanajuato and it´s encapsulating mountains. Pictures? yes I took many, but all will have to wait until my return to see them. At the end of the day I took a stroll outside the historic distric up to a park that has a lake behind it and fed some quacking geese. On the way back to my hostel I just happened to walk right into a parade of costumed children and marching band. The parade was headed by a devil who cracked a big whip. It was a little scary, I thought he was going to get me with his whip as the parade passed me on the narrow street. Today I shall go to the mines and a neighboring temple. Tomorrow will be my last day here, afterwards I will be heading towards San Miguel de Allende.

Estoy disfrutando la vida aqui en Guanajuato

I arrived in Guanajuato yesterday, have managed to get lost quite a few times in the mazes of narrow streets and tunnels, but always manage to find my way back to my hotel somehow. I’m staying smack in the middle of the Zona Historica, steps away from Jardin de la Union which is where all the action is. Today I visited the mummy museum. I must say I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I did get yelled at of course for trying to take pictures of the mummies. I noticed they didn’t yell at the group of high school students clicking away, they had to pick on the gringa. Oh well…I managed to steal a few snaps anyways…shhh. I´ll be here for a few more days before I head towards San Miguel de Allende. I’m totally enamored by the colorful crumbling architecture and can´t seem to take enough pictures. My only complaint is that it is quite noisy here on the weekends and I think I need to find ear plugs or I’ll never get any sleep.

Well I must take a mini siesta now. I’m a bit tired from crawling all around the city all day. Will post more news as my journey progresses.

We are getting hit severely by wildfires here in Southern California between Los Angeles and San Diego. I believe there are currently 11 fires in progress. There are evacuations in progress in the east counties and the smell of smoke outside is terrible. We’ve been urged to close all windows and stay indoors or evacuate to Qualcomm stadium if we are in the path of the fire. Power is out in several areas. We’ve been asked to turn off all cell phones. Large animals: horses, and livestock from the inland counties are being evacuated to Del Mar Fairgrounds. I’m concerned for the animals at the Wild Animal Park, where and how will they evacuate them if they need to? Ash has begun to fall all around. What makes this scary is that with the air so dry and the Santa Ana winds so fierce it doesn’t take much to ignite dry brush, so I’m worried about more fires to come. This feels like the Cedar fire of 2003 all over again.