Five mission towns dot the Sierra Gorda in eastern Querétaro State. We visited the most accessible of them, Jalpan, a little more than four hours drive from San Miguel de Allende, over some serious mountain ridges.



The town (full name: Jalpan de Serra, about which more later) is the commercial center for this part of the Sierra Gorda, the big city for hundreds of tiny pueblas. A real working Mexican town, it's visited by relatively few tourists.

We spent a night in the Hotel Inn Misión Jalpan, right on the central plaza, the yellow building in the photo below.



Ordinarily, we try to stay at hotels at some remove from town centers because they can be noisy, but being a Thursday night, we figured it would be fairly quiet, and besides the tree-shaded plaza looked inviting and peaceful.

We wanted to visit the well-regarded museum—the terra-cotta building just beyond the hotel—but a sign said it was closed for renovation for the next month. (We seem to run into that situation frequently. Recently, museums in Guadalajara, Mérida and Campeche have all been "closed for renovation" when we arrived. Forces us to become more accepting in our way of thinking: "Not to worry. We'll see it the next time we come here. Unless it's closed again. Which it could be. ¿Quién sabe?")

Jalpan is important to us expatriates from California because it is where Father Junipero Serra founded his first mission. (Hence, Jalpan de Serra.) Actually he founded five of them in the Sierra Gorda before going to California to build the famous string of missions along the Pacific Coast. Because of its historical significance, Jalpan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Father Serra is Honored in Jalpan with a statue.



Of additional interest to Californians is the bell-shaped structure next to Father Serra's statue. It is one of the "Mission Bells" that mark El Camino Real (The Royal Highway) that runs up the California coast. Anyone who grew up in California fondly remembers these bells.

All five of Serra's Sierra Gorda missions have been restored. The Jalpan Mission has a beautiful baroque façade.



Sculptures of important religious figures reside in niches; among them, the ubiquitous Virgen de Guadalupe, the Madonna of Mexico.



Some of the walls appear to be constructed of beautifully dressed stone blocks, but they're not—it's trompe l'oeil.



The yellow nylon lines dropping across the window are bell ropes, hanging right outside where anyone could pull them. I watched a young woman walk over and ring the bell to announce mass. Can you imagine the mischief American teenagers would do in this situation? I can. Fifty years ago I would have been out there at three in the morning ringing for all I was worth.

The Misión Jalpan is not a museum. (Well, neither is the Jalpan Museum, come to think of it.) The mission is an active church, serving the spiritual needs of hundreds of parishioners.

The exterior of the church belongs to the State, which renovated it in its bid for UNESCO recognition. The interior belongs to the faithful. Anymore, these appear to be mostly the elderly. Young people head for the cities or the U. S., attracted to more lucrative, more secular lives.

Visiting Tequisquiapan in the off-season has disadvantages. For example, getting dinner can be a challenge. At one of the nicer restaurants, La Valentina, we stood in the middle of the room while the lone waiter studiously polished plates and set them out, obviously hoping we'd go away.

We moved on to a place called K'puchinos Restaurante-Bar. It was popular and crowded, but serviced again by a single, frazzled waiter. A glance at the professionally produced, laminated plastic menu full of unrealistic photos of meals told us we were in a Mexican Denny's.

(Apparently franchise restaurants have reached Mexico, and people are flocking to them. They have no idea what they're doing to themselves.)

Finally we took a chance on a modest, four-table restaurant called El Regocijo—Alta Cocina Mexicana. I didn't for a minute believe the claim to "haute cuisine," but the place looked clean, and while yet again there was only one waiter, he at least showed interest in actually waiting on us.

The food was reasonably good and it came quickly. I ordered a new dish—Filete Tabasco—which turned out to be steak served with refried beans and fried bananas. I suspect Filete Tabasco is supposed to contain fried plantains, but obviously the cook didn't have any, so I got bananas instead. Sssswwwweeeet!

While visiting Tequisquiapan, we stayed at the Hotel Las Delicias, an elegant resort with three huge pools, scores of lounge chairs set on beautiful lawns, a dining room, a kitchen for guests, a rec room, a bar, a snack bar—you name it. We knew it was elegant because it was expensive. I think we were the only guests staying there, midweek in the off season.

Jean hauls her new baskets to our hotel.

The hotel grounds were immaculate. Our room would have been OK at half the price. We got settled, then prepared to return to the front desk to get toilet paper when the desk clerk rushed breathlessly in with two rolls. They apparently have a policy of not leaving TP in the rooms because somebody might steal it. Guests could walk off with a hundred rolls and they'd still make a fat profit.

At the same time, the clerk brought us a remote for the TV, which they also don't keep in the room because somebody...

The main pool and surrounding lawn looked inviting.

Watch your step.

It would have been even more inviting if the pool contained some... uh... water.

Well, at least breakfast was included. We showed up at 9 AM and asked where it would be served. The manager looked panic-stricken and rushed off to the kitchen to see if there were something he could rustle up—there being no cook on the premises. I'm sure it would have been delicious if there had been any... um... food.

Hotel Las Delicias has the potential to be a great hotel, if they could get a handle on that water and food thing. Then perhaps, they might even attract some... you know... guests.

If you decide to visit Tequisquiapan, try the Hotel Reloj. "Internet in every room." And judging from their parking lot, people actually stay there.

Unlike the decaying Tequisquiapan in Guanajuato, the one in Querétaro is a substantial, vibrant community. Like San Miguel, its signature image is the church.



What puts Tequisquiapan on the map are thermal springs. People come here to "take the waters." City dwellers from Mexico City, San Luis Potosí and Querétaro come to this resort town to relax and play. A surprising number of water parks with corkscrew water slides are scattered across the surrounding countryside.

Hotels in town cater to adults with soak pools and margarita-toting attendants. Tequisquiapan even has a conference center "with internet in every room." Whoopee. (If I ever see the inside of a conference center again, it'll be too soon.)

Many of the hotels are large, to handle large crowds of weekenders. I'm told the town is jammed during vacation periods.

We arrived on a February Wednesday—Ash Wednesday—and found we had the place to ourselves. Expecting a crush of tourists, and gangs of street hawkers toadying up to us, we were delighted to find the place peaceful. Well, almost deserted, really.



Restaurants and shops selling wicker furniture lined the arcades, but with few customers, proprietors took it easy. Residents ignored the few tourists in town. They had more important things to do. Like march.


Even after living here for four years, I'm often surprised by the importance Mexicans put on holidays. As a lapsed Episcopalian, Ash Wednesday isn't even on my radar anymore. But in Tequisquiapan, celebrating this holiday was the thing. Streets were decorated.



Indian dancers performed in the plaza.



That night, a large crowd lined up to attend services.



The only commercial activity was at a stall alongside the church, where a woman sold cheap toys.



We were lucky to happen across Tequisquiapan at a time when we could see the actual town instead of crowds of tourists like ourselves. It's worth a visit for a day, but if we return, it won't be during high season and weekends. We could see that those hotels were set up to handle a lot of people. A lot. And unless you've been around Mexicans at play, unless you're ready to really party, like us you'll be happier visiting on a Wednesday.

In Europe, Japan, the U. S., you hire a graphic designer to create your look: a clever logo, professionally rendered lettering, perfectly coordinated color schemes. The result looks about as interesting as a Form 1040: slick but no soul.

Mexicans expect individuality in the looks of the small businesses they patronize. An amateurish storefront is no deterrent. Actually it's an asset, because you're assured that you're dealing with a low-overhead, proprietor-run business. You're transacting with the owner, not some bored minimum-wage teenager. And a Mexican small-business owner probably spends more time thinking about taking pride in his work than tailoring his "look" for that all-important under-30 demographic.

For this reason, you see a lot of lemonade-stand-grade signage, some of it quite delightful. Take Herreria "Rameriz" for example.



A herreria is an ironworking shop, a smithy. This is a sign to emphasize these services. I assume the figure represents Sr. Ramirez. To his right there's an oxyacetyline torch, to his left, an arc welder, and a hammer and anvil. A fancy railing illustrates the type of work he does, as does a muffler.

Sr. Ramirez is a stickler for detail. The oxygen and acetyline bottles are the correct colors, the arc welder is properly grounded to the railing he's working on, and he's holding an electrode in his left hand, a welder's mask in his right. Safety first; the mark of a true professional.

The sign painter wasn't as careful: notice how he changed the style of the letter "E" in the middle of a word. I think this just adds to the charm.

But the best part is the figure of Sr. Ramirez himself.



His shirt is smeared with soot, as is his face and arms. His pants are wrinkled. This is a guy that's not afraid to get his hands dirty. Best of all, his shirt is riding up over his ample tummy, exposing his belly button.

This image leaves no doubt that Sr. Ramirez is a serious ironworker. Nor can anyone doubt that he has a playful nature and the humility to poke fun at himself. He's no humorless techie; he's not a egotistical artist. As far as I'm concerned, his sign is all the reference he needs.

The weather is heatin' up pretty good. It's going to break 90º today. About time, too. It's the third week of February already. Time to think about cooling off.

Strung out along the Delores Highway are a number of warm springs that have been developed into resorts. La Gruta (The Grotto) is arguably the best of them. It's a great place to go for lunch and a swim and maybe a siesta in the shade of a palm tree.

Warm waters from deep underground fill a series of pools. Since these are springs, the water is changed frequently, so there is no need for chlorine. Grandma can play in the water without worrying that she might be exposing her granddaughter to powerful oxidants.



The various pools are surrounded by tropical gardens planted atop stone-walled terraces. Chairs and umbrellas dot grassy lawns. A modest restaurant provides food—and piña coladas. Yesterday we spent a relaxing afternoon here in the warm winter sunshine.



In the middle of the week, La Gruta is uncrowded, peaceful. An old man floats in the water, sound asleep. He really knows how to relax.



One feature of this resort is a tunnel that leads to a domed room. My friend Paul Latoures reacts with disappointment to a sign telling him he can't smoke while in the tunnel. In the pool it's OK, Paul. In the tunnel—well, sorry.



Intrepid Paul enters the tunnel leading away into the darkness.

(I've noticed that Mexicans often whitewash stone walls. And tree trunks. They're really into painting natural objects—another cultural mystery.)



The darkness grows. A room appears out of the gloom, the roof supported by a strangely lit column.



The temperature and humidity rises. The lens fogs up. My glasses fog up. I can't see what's ahead. I snap off a photo. Light pours in from a hole in the roof. I decide to retreat to save my camera from the dampness.



Turning around to make my way back, I see light at the end of the tunnel. Banana trees are a welcome sight.



Back outside, people are playing in the sun. I feel reborn. Why did they build this tunnel? It's not really all that pleasant.

Paul tells me that years ago, on night visits, he would hear moaning from the tunnel. Could it have been ghosts? Probably not. There's a more pedestrian explanation, don't you think?



There's a lot of old hippies living in San Miguel. Apparently some are still embracing the free living of the '60s, because the management found it necessary to erect this sign.



Yep. "Every person should use a bathing suit." You sure wouldn't need to say that in Sun CIty, would you?

I love running across examples of Mexican economy and ingenuity. Take this jeep:



Say you lose your gas cap. You accidentally leave it at the gas station. Or somebody steals it. Or maybe you run into that perennial problem; vibrations from topes and cobblestones make it fall off. What would you do?

Well, what I'd do is go down to Grand Auto and fork over five bucks for a new cap. I mean, a tank of gas costs $20-$40. What's a five-dollar gas cap in the scheme of things? A minor inconvenience at best. If I can afford a car, I should be able to afford a minor repair.

But then I would be guilty of that wasteful Norteamericano mentality that says, "If it's broken, replace it with a new one."

The other night, I read a guideline issued to all Hewlett-Packard field technicians to the effect that if it takes more than 20 minutes to fix a printer, they should just quit and replace it. Otherwise, they're wasting the company's money.

That kind of thinking is incomprehensible to Mexicans. The idea in this country is that anything can be repaired, and it should be repaired as cheaply as possible. High marks are awarded for managing to fix something without actual expenditure of cash. The gas cap on this jeep is a quintessential example of a zero-cost repair.



Mexicans know that plastic coke bottles have an infinite number of uses when cut in two: for mixing paint colors, starting plants, as safety caps on rebar stubs, driveway markers, water pumps—and now, as we can see, as replacement gas caps. An ideal solution: no cost, high-value recycling, and one less piece of roadside litter.

The first time I visited San Miguel, I took a two-week immersion course in conversational Spanish. Upon graduation, I found that couldn't even understand three-year-olds. It was then I realized that if I was going to become fluent, I would have to sign up for the long haul.

Two years later, I met my friend Michele who was in fact, quite fluent. I asked her how she did it. She said that she had been living in Mexico now for twelve years, and that every week, she took a one-hour Spanish lesson—even to this day.

This was an epiphany. I didn't have to be in any hurry. I was going to be living in Mexico for a long time. Learning Spanish didn't need to be a goal; it could be an ongoing part of life.

So I began taking lessons for one hour a week, and today I can get along in Spanish reasonably well, although I would hardly call myself fluent yet.

One of my Spanish teachers was the unforgettable Cristina.



At first sight, Cristina frightened me. Her stern expression, her rigid posture, her no-nonsense straw hat squarely jammed on her head, she reminded me of a drill sargeant.

She asked me to say a few words in Spanish. "Hable algo en español." Nervously, I mumbled something.

She said, "You have bad habits! You must not study Spanish on your own. You need a teacher to correct you!"

Sheesh. I could see that I wasn't going to be allowed to slide. But progress up to then had been slow. I figured maybe she was just what I needed.

Over some weeks we ground through verb conjugations and struggled with the difference between por and para. Cristina was tough, but I grew to enjoy her visits. I became more relaxed in her company, and often talked with her about cultural differences between our countries and current events in Mexico.

December 12, Guadalupe Day was approaching and during one lesson I chose that subject for discussion.

Knowing I was dealing with a liberal, educated person, I began with the notion that Guadalupe was derived from the native goddess Tonantzin.

Cristina replied, "Well, if you wanna believe that..."

Oops.

Being no fool, I quickly covered by asking her, "Christina, would you please tell me the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe?"

She spent the next ten minutes reciting the story of the Virgin appearing to the peasant Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoazin, of how the bishop wouldn't believe his story, of how Guadalupe showed him bushes bearing roses of Seville (impossible in Mexico in 1531) which he gathered in his cloak to show the bishop, and the miracle of the image of the Virgin appearing on the inside of Juan Diego's cloak, which today hangs in the cathedral in Mexico City.

As Cristina's story drew to a close, tears were streaming down her face. I was so moved. I'd never been in the presence of so profound an expression of faith.

Cristina taught me more than just Spanish. She introduced me to the powerful beliefs of many of, maybe most of the Mexican people. I may not share their faith. But thanks to her, I now see that I have to understand and respect the power of their faith or I won't really know Mexico.

Tourists with the time and inclination to venture out into the Bahio beyond San Miguel may discover the spa town of Tequisquiapán (Teh-kees-kee-ah-PAN), in the state of Querétaro. Reputedly it's a place where wealthy Mexico City residents of go for weekend getaways—sort of a Mexican Sonoma, right down to the wine and cheese tasting.

This post is not about that place.

It's about another Tequisquiapán, this one in the state of Guanajuato. An entirely different kettle of goats.



Tequisquiapán, Qro. has a beautiful church and plaza, fine hotels and restaurants and restorative hot springs. Tequisquiapán, Gto. has more poverty than you'll ever want to see.



The town square is the nicest place in town, but that's not saying much. Bordering the basketball court cum soccer field is general store; to its left is a place that sells cement—and judging from appearances, not much of that.

Opposite the general store stands the church...



... or what's left of it. Looks like some deferred maintenance here. See where the Cholos have tagged it? The hick kids who live here have picked a totally uncool name. Cholos indeed. That went out with Cheech and Chong.

Ruined churches in small villages often are still used for services, but not this one. The floor of the sanctuary is heaped with rubble from the collapsed roof. There's no place to sit.



The chapel's last link to the mother church is a fading image of La Virgen de Guadeloupe, now sharing wall space with an old advertisement and more graffiti.

It never was much of a place. Tequisquiapán has been going downhill for the last fifty years. Back in the '30s, a railroad came through here. Railway maintenance workers lived in blocky company-built houses.



These are the most durable buildings in town. My friend Paul Latoures asked a woman if she owned or rented this house. She told him the railroad had "loaned" it to her. Translation: Her family (and her pig) are squatting there.

Hers is one of a row of identical houses lined up along what once was the railroad right-of-way. The tracks and cross ties are long gone, but the raised roadbed remains, providing a superbly-built unpaved road leading to Adjuntos del Rio. Some might call it a road from nowhere to nowhere.

The woman is one of the lucky ones. Many people here live in more modest houses.



No electricity, no water, no sewer, no washline. That's laundry hanging on the bush to the left. Cooking is done on open brush fires. This kind of living is not much better than camping.

Departure of the railroad left residents with two options: Go north to the U. S. or fall back on subsistence farming. They did both.



Everyone here raises animals. Chickens scuttle across the road. Flocks of sheep and goats wander through town. Boys gather dried cornstalks for fodder, hauling them out of the fields on horse carts. Lose the red baseball hat, the stylish haircut and the rubber tires and this could be a scene right out of the 19th century.

The most direct route to this place is a feeder road from the Delores Highway. Several years ago a flood of the Rio Lata which runs through the middle of town, carried away the bridge connecting the two halves of Tequisquiapán. The state replaced it with a suspension bridge for pedestrians, I guess on the principle that most of the time, vehicular traffic can ford the river, and when it's flooded, at least people still can walk over for groceries.



There's not enough people left to justify rebuilding the highway bridge. But no highway bridge means Tequisquiapán is dying. In the modern world, if you can't drive there, it doesn't exist.



Nobody comes to live here anymore. A crumbling bus stop on the Dolores Highway marks the access road to Tequisquiapán. If you wait there, you can catch the Flecha Amarilla bus to San Miguel. Probably not a bad idea.

In Nancy and Paul's excellent blog, Countdown to Mexico, Nancy writes that "... Valentine's Day... is a big holiday here as the balloons are out in force." Boy are they ever. Globos are for sale every day in the plazas, but on Valentine's Day, the number of vendors increases by an order of magnitude.



If you look a little more closely at this guy's wares, you'll see the image of a Warner Brothers' cartoon character on some of the balloons. Yes, nothing says "I love you" like Tweety Bird.

Tweety appears frequently on shirts and signs. A polleria on Canal Street features him (her?) on the front of the building. Makes me a little queasy, Tweety and chicken breasts side-by-side. Don't get 'em mixed up...

Cartoon characters on balloons: do you think they're used by permission? I wouldn't bet on it. This is a country where today you can get a DVD of Apocalypto for thirty pesos ($2.70); that is if you don't mind an occasional silhouette of a theatergoer's head wandering across the image.

But today isn't about intellectual property. Today is for romance, and nobody does it better than Mexicans. When evening falls, embracing couples inhabit the shadows, somehow simultaneously steamy and innocent. On park benches, they become intertwined in ways I can only marvel at.

I noticed that mostly women are buying balloons. Cute. Men are buying flowers, wheeling out the big guns. Valentine's is indeed a big holiday here, and maybe an even bigger night.

In December, I saw a small exhibit of Post-Revolutionary ceramics at the Cabañas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara. I was totally charmed by them, and I learned at the Institute that this kind of (folk?) art flowered in Mexico only recently.

During the Colonial Period (1521-1810), Mexican artists drew heavily on Spanish subjects and styles. I usually find such work to be dark and passionless.



Indigenous artists were trained in the European style and received commissions from Spanish nobles, who had no interest in Mayan or Aztec art forms. This painting of St. Joseph, and the portrait of a nobleman, below, seem to me to have little to do with anything that is Mexican.



After the Mexican Revolutionary Period (1910-1920) came an explosion of nationalism and revival of Mexican culture. The great muralists, like Diego Rivera, created works that reflected an optimistic view of the national character, and incorporated ideas from the lives of the Mexican people and their indigenous ancestors.

The ceramics at the Cabañas were examples of high craft, incorporating the playfulness and color of Mexico.



I was particularly struck by how these 20th-Century artists echoed the work of their Mayan forebears.




The works depicted in the pair of images above were created a thousand years apart; likewise, the pair below. But to me at least, they couldn't be anything but Mexican. If the effects of aging weren't there, I might find it hard to know which of them were created in the 20th Century.




I was completely captivated by the Post-Revolutionary ceramics at the Cabañas. For more images, check out this Flickr photoset.

Did you live in a community with no public library? Did you get your books from a roving library—a Bookmobile? Instead of going to the library, did literature came to you?

Well, yesterday I discovered that here in San Miguel, if you can't go to church, the church will come to you.



It's the Chapelmobile.

Now, it seems to me that the Chapelmobile would draw little interest here. We have 29 churches in San Miguel, 28 of them Catholic. Last time I counted, anyway. All this for maybe 80,000 people. I'm sure the existing churches handle the spiritual needs of our residents.

Maybe this itinerant ministry is just passing through on its way to small settlements in the countryside. Even then, almost every village seems to have its little church.

There are places in Mexico where very few people live, that can't even be called villages. These people live off the land, with shacks in tiny clusters without power or paved roads. Being that Mexico is a very religious country, I'm sure there's a demand for services in these small places.

So I guess there's a real need for the Chapelmobile.

Last November I posted about our visit to a furniture-making workshop in the tiny town of Adjuntos del Rio. There, I met men who make mesquite furniture using grossly unsafe power tools, shaking their hands which are knobby because of missing fingers. Also employed there was a developmentally disabled woman named Julieta (Hoo-lee-EH-tah, gringos). Struck by her appearance, I asked her if I could take her picture. She agreed if 1) I wasn't going to sell it, and 2) I would give her a copy.

Julieta's Portrait

The odd blue light in her left eye suggests she has a mind that sees things we don't. Missing half her teeth, she clearly hasn't received a lot of care. But for all her disabilities, her face is untroubled. Her world is a benign one.

Her place consists of a banco (workbench) where she sands furniture, and a recamera (bedroom), a small, windowless closet in the workshop where she keeps her few possessions and sleeps. She says she has no parents. The woman who runs the furniture workshop gives her food and a place to stay. The workmen accept her as part of their family, treating her with respect and providing her with security.

Julieta is a straightforward person. She speaks without guile; she projects a kind of fierce innocence.

—§—

Almost three months had passed since I took her picture. My friend Paul Latoures visited the workshop several times in the interim. Each time, Julieta asked him about her photograph. When would she get it? She remembered my promise even if I didn't. Apparently, posing for me was a highlight in her circumscribed life.

Today I returned with Paul to Adjuntos del Rio to give Julieta her portrait. Paul had a camera ready to record the moment. I tried to hand her the picture, but she pushed it away! Then it dawned on me. Julieta thought she was posing for Paul and that I was ruining the shot by shoving the picture into her hand. She was taking her posing responsibilities very seriously.

Julieta Rejects Her Photograph

Reluctant at first even to look at the photo, eventually she began to accept it. She said she didn't think her face was beautiful; we assured her otherwise. Finally she took the frame out of my hands, and scuttled back to her room.

Maybe She'll Accept It After All.

Julieta was overwhelmed. I don't think she has had many special days like this one. She was shy, confused and reluctant. She needed to get off by herself to admire her gift. Her "family," the woodworkers, laughed and applauded, sharing her happiness.

Up north, I ran into people like Julieta in OSH, industriously dusting shelves. I saw them on buses, on their way to work or returning to their group homes. They receive special education and live comfortable, subsidized lives.

Julieta doesn't have any of that stuff. But she is surrounded by people who care for her. She has work that gives her purpose. And she has a couple of Gringo friends who like to visit her.

Spring has arrived in San Miguel de Allende. (Read this and weep, Midwesterners.)

I know it has arrived because the annual Calendaria Plant Sale has come to town. Every year, in the first week of February, dozens of nursery plant vendors come to town and set up their stalls. The weather usually cooperates by shaking of the worst off the winter chill (although it's not doing so well this year).



My spirits pick up during the sale. I get out in the sunshine and wander up and down the rows, meeting friends and buying plants. But it's a tough life for the vendors. They're true nomads. They sleep in their trucks and eat on camp stoves. They shiver in the early mornings. Some even bring their dogs for companionship.



I always am on the lookout for unusual plants—at least unusual to me. This blooming succulent caught my eye.



I asked the vendor, "¿Qué es esa planta?"

He said, "Doscientos pesos."

(Sigh.)

Then he began a high-pressure sales pitch that left me no opportunity to explain that I didn't want to know what the plant cost; I just wanted to know what kind of plant it was. So I don't know what it is, but it sure would be nice if it cost more like cientos pesos.

Some vendors buy their plants from wholesalers. Others grow their own. It's not unusual to find starts grown in milk or beverage cans. These growers sweep up pine needle duff from the forest floor to use as a growing medium. None of that effete sterilized potting mix for them.



It's fun to learn a few more Mexican names for plants. The name of this sedum translates to Baby Jesus' Little Fingers. Yours for a buck.



You also can buy compost, potting soil (adobe), fertilizer and pots.



Young men and boys with wheelbarrows follow you around to help you transport your purchases. When they don't have customers, they transport each other.



This vendor is dangerous. I'm avoiding him this year. In the past, he has extracted considerable money from my wallet, and I'm not taking it anymore.



He specializes in desert plants, and unfortunately, so do I. Every year he has some rarities or specimens that are almost impossible to resist. This year he has a yucca that looks older than Methuselah. Only $6,000 pesos. Gulp.

The Good John says, "You should save that money for your granddaughters' college educations."

The Bad John says, "You're gonna totally frost Terry when you beat her out for that yucca."

A couple of years ago, when our house was new and relatively plant-free, I bought a few cacti from him. He asked me if there was anything else he had that I wanted.

I said, "Gee, I'd like everything, ha, ha."

With a dead serious look on his face, he said, "$20,000 pesos."

Uh oh.

What started as a joke suddenly turned into a negotiation. I mean, $2,000 was a helluva good price for his entire stock. But jeez, that's a lot of money.

I looked at his plants. Cactus: small ones, big ones, gigantic ones, common ones, rare ones. Succulents in bloom. Pachypodiums. Venerable yuccas. Huge bottle palms. Rosas del desierto. Weird plants—stuff I've never seen before.

I was over the edge. An offer was on the table. A counteroffer was crying out to be made. I made it. Twenty minutes later, I was the owner of a roof garden full of plants. Jean was totally pissed off.

—§—

Elementary school classes troop through the plant sale. Each kid is clutching a few pesos to buy a plant for her mother. Chia pets are big sellers.



Also popular are tiny cacti and succulents salted with miniscule artificial flowers. I always wondered who bought these things.



I think the average sale per kid runs about $5 pesos. Vendors cooperate by offering deep discounts.



Shopping done, it's time for lunch. For the field trip, a loading zone curb serves as a cafeteria.



They're so darn cute, aren't they? You can never go wrong photographing little kids.

San Miguel de Allende wants to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So it can't be looking like a sh*thole. At least in the historic central portion of the city.

UNESCO doesn't care if there's a Costco out in the 'burbs, or if effluent from the slaughterhouse runs down an open sewer into the presa (reservoir). What they do care about is that the downtown looks the way it did in the 18th century—tough to do with all those utility lines overhead.

This view is looking north on Aldama Street from near my doorway toward San Miguel's signature church, the Parroquoia. You can just make it out through the tangle of wires.



UNESCO said the overhead wires have gotta go. So the city went out and bought a bunch of orange plastic tubes, which they're burying underneath the cobblestone streets. They'll run the power lines and phone lines and TV cable lines through the tubes, and then they'll remove all the ugly overhead lines and power poles.



Much of the work is being done by hand. Nobody has invented an automatic cobblestone paving machine, so a skilled mason does it, one rock at a time. He's setting cobblestones in concrete (not authentic) for durability, so he needs a concrete mixer. That would be the man to the left in the photo, who is mixing sand and cement with his shovel.



Street-building has advanced since the days of the Aztecs. We do have a few machines, to reduce the amount of backbreaking manual labor. Here, labor is being saved by using a loader to transport laborers to a new worksite, half a block up the street.



The scene on my street is chaotic. A recent rainstorm has turned it into a morass of greasy mud. Heaps of dirt are moved from place to place, seemingly randomly. Tubes are buried, the street gets repaved, and then dug up again.



So it's confidence-inspiring to see that the project leadership is on the job. Despite appearances, everything is under control. Here, three bosses are evaluating this mason's macarena.



But despite their best efforts there are mishaps. Below we see a dump truck sliding sideways into a partly filled ditch. Several hours of digging and a push from one of the loaders will be needed to extricate it.



Back in the USA, occupational safety regulations and liability laws protect workers and the public. Not so in Mexico. Hence, we have a situation where residents must walk planks. Above, a homeowner teeters across a ditch with his garbage can. Below, a scary ramp leads from a doorway to a heap of loose dirt. Ladies, try crossing that in heels.



Every few days, water mains and sewer lines get broken. Here's one that has been patched, after leaking for maybe a week.



Remember that backhoe? It ran into a telephone pole, snapping it off. You can see the leaning pole below, held up only by the wires. People unconcernedly walked under it for days. No sense of caution, of risk. It's all in God's hands.



Whoops! Looks like they wiped out all the telephone lines in my block. The technico hasn't been able to get things working for three days now.



The process of putting our utilities underground is painful. But anyone who moves to Mexico expecting a smoothly-running infrastructure is headed for disappointment. Successful expats learn first to accept Mexico's shortcomings, and in time, to even love them. They are part of the whole package that makes living in Mexico an adventure.

Besides, if this job was being handled efficiently and quickly, we wouldn't have anything to bitch about at our morning coffee klatch.

In the end, our city may become even more beautiful. My friend, Anamaria, painted her vision of Aldama street.



She captures the warm colors of colonial houses lining the cobblestone street, the public fountain at the end of Aldama with the rear of the Parroquoia rising above it. Anamaria exercised artistic license, by omitting the network of overhead utility lines. We're all hoping her vision becomes reality.

On Mexican highways you see lots of white signs. Some are useful. This one tells you to slow down. It lets you know the speed limit so you can deprive the traffic cop of that excuse for pulling you over. (Don't worry. He'll find something.)



Of course, nobody actually obeys speed limits in Mexico. Wealthy aristocrats in Lexuses see them as suggestions that don't apply to their caste. For campesinos in smoking '59 GMC pickup trucks, speed limits are mere aspirations.

To deter speeders, the authorities sometimes resort to threats.



Obey the speed limit or we'll put in speed bumps. Ah, topes. You'll go over dozens of them on any trip. Speed bumps on steroids, someone called them. You'll leave your running gear in a tangled heap on the road behind you if you don't see one coming and slow down for it.

A lot of signs give advice, like "Don't drive when tired."



"Use your seat belt."



"Drive carefully. Your family is waiting for you."



Oh puh-leez! Whose idea was that one? Like it never occurred to me that my family might miss me. Like I even think about them when I'm trying to pass that Flecha Amarilla bus. Thanks for reminding me.

(OK. I'm probably judging a little harshly due to my lack of acculturation. Families are very important in Mexico, and maybe this sign does a good job of tweaking consciences. Or not.)

Mexico is trying to reduce littering just like other countries. Many signs say "No Tire Basura" (No littering), but Spanish is a language of many syllables, the more the better.



This sign says "No Littering" in fourteen syllables, but nevertheless manages to leave a loophole: It prohibits throwing garbage in the right of way, but if you've got a good arm...

I found the sign below posted just over the line of the State of Yucatan. It appears to imply that those slobs from Campeche don't give a damn about their highways, but Yucatecans do.



If you're not willing to follow "no littering" regulations, and you can't be shamed into complying, then maybe you'll consider this more philosophical argument:



Yes. A clean highway is a safe highway. If you keep the litter off it, then all you have to worry about is the goats, and cattle and tricicladeros and the broken down truck in the fast lane and the bloated dog carcasses and the giant tire-eating potholes and the goddamn topes...

Uh... Sorry about that.

Up until now, the highway signs we've discussed have offered a small amount of useful information (such as speed limits) and a lot of gratuitous advice. Note that none of them tell you where you are or how far it is to where you're going, or if you should turn left at the next intersection for the road to Jalpa. We don't have those kinds of signs in Mexico.

But we have signs about signs. Like this one.



Observe the signage.



Obey the signs.



Observe and obey the signs. (A twofer, that one.)



Observe and preserve the signs. Everybody is getting sick of the signs. Better ask people to take it easy on them.



Yeah. Don't mistreat 'em. Or they'll sulk.



Don't destroy them either. (You need a sign to tell people this?)



Ah. I see. The signs are to help you take care of us. (Are you getting the impression by now that the department of highway signs is just a leetle paternalistic?)



And now we're back to the philosophical appeal. "The signs are symbols of security." Surely that'll deter spray-can-wielding cholos.

I found the mix to be roughly 50-50: fifty percent signs hectoring us about driving and fifty percent signs about signs. The latter convey no useful information. They're content-free. A waste of metal and paint and posthole digging. On the highway between Uxmal and Mérida, I saw eight in a row about obeying and not messing with the signs. You could destruya them all without effect.

How, you may ask, does a government working in the best interests of the governed wind up doing something like this?

My guess is that some Senator's nephew needed a job. So the Senator got a bill passed forming the Department of Advisory Highway Signs of the Republic of Mexico. The nephew got a fancy high-rise office with secretaries and staff and a limo and a driver, and then he set out to design signs. Never having driven outside of Mexico City, he had no idea what signs were needed, so he just used his feeble imagination and the result is as you see it.

You may think I'm being snide, judgmental. Consider then the words of Carlos Hank González, formerly Mayor of Mexico City and Governor of the State of Mexico. He said this for publication: "Show me a politician who is poor, and I'll show you a poor politician." Carlos Hank González was a public servant all of his life. He received no inheritance; only his government salary. He is a billionaire.

Here's one last sign which, when I first saw it, bent my mind:



"Don't Leave Rocks On The Pavement." Uh... Oookay...

Why do you even have to say that? Who would put rocks on the pavement?

I saw those signs for a couple of years before they made sense.

When in the U. S., we have a breakdown and block a lane, we put out flares. In Mexico, any breakdown blocks a lane because highways have no shoulders. Those drivers most likely to experience breakdowns are unlikely to have flares: they can't afford them, just like they can't afford to maintain their vehicles. Moreover, the lane may be blocked for quite a while because most people can't afford a tow, so repairs have to be effected in situ. To divert traffic, drivers collect big rocks and arrange them on the pavement in a "V" pattern behind the stalled vehicle. Plus maybe a couple to block the wheels, because the parking brake hasn't worked since 1983.

These rocks are dangerous. You hit one of them at 60 and you're gonna be blocking a lane yourself. So of course, any responsible driver would remove his rocks after he got the car running, right?

Not always. Every so often, I've had to swerve at the last minute to avoid a "V" of rocks just sitting there, no stalled vehicle anywhere near. So I guess those signs are necessary. We can only hope they're more effective than the "No Littering" ones.

I once saw sign that said "Don't build fires on the roadway." Because people build bonfires for those nighttime stalls. Fires, of course, at into the macadam, making huge potholes. Causing more breakdowns.

Cheap public transportation in San Miguel is provided by a fleet of buses.



Everybody hates them. Well, the people who depend on them don't hate them. But people who drive, take taxis or walk hate them, because they're noisy, smelly and add immeasureably to the congestion in our narrow cobblestone streets. There's nothing like walking up Hernandas Macias and suddenly having a bus brush your shoulder (giving you a mild heart attack) followed by a few lungsful of diesel fumes.

The drivers seem to have a proprietary connection with the buses they work in twelve hours a day. You see their vehicles parked overnight in residential areas where the drivers live. Sometimes you run across a driver lying underneath his bus making repairs. And many buses are personalized to suit the whims of the driver. Such as this one:



A Christian, this driver wants you to know that God gives you double. Kind of reminds me of the bathroom graffiti I saw as an undergrad at UC Berkeley (to be sung to the tune of the old Pepsi-Cola jingle):

Christianity hits the spot,
Twelve apostles, that's a lot!
Jesus Christ and a Virgin, too.
Christianity is the one for you.

I apologize. The Devil made me do that.

Speaking of the Devil, I just love this bus:



Yes, he's the Bandit of Love. Don't believe him? Look closely. Those are two bullet holes in the windshield on the driver's side.

Just in case you miss the point he's making, he included a couple of pictoral decals:



Obviously he's a man of discernment and refinement.

Why don't we give San Francisco Muni drivers the freedom to express themselves like this? Loosen up, people!