I spent the last day in Guanajuato planning for our visit to Mexico City. I had logged in and looked at tickets and there were ones available to tour Casa Azul and the main museum for Diego Rivera the day we arrived in Guanajuato so I figured I would be fine. Two days later when I started planning, not a ticket could be found until Feb 24th. So I started to look at some other options since this is a definite stop for us on this trip. I found a site called Viator, which is apparently a Tripadvisor company, and found a couple of options. Tickets were more expensive than on the official site, but they included other items, like coffee and churro tastings, boat rides, etc. So I picked one that included the Casa Azul and the studio where Frida and Diego did their work. Several hours later it was cancelled due to no availalble tickets. So I tried again and it turned out with a different tour group, we got three tours, one of the house, one of the studio and another of the Casa Rojo. Score!!!.
While I was on the reservation process, I reserved an AirBnB for us in the city [Since Mexico City (Cuidad de Mexico or CDMX) is HUGE with over 20 million residents; driving legendary and is restricted (need a tourist pass); and parking is limited]. I went back to the Viator site and looked up painting classes since Kathy has wanted to take lessons for a long time. A class popped up and the instructor had great reviews. I figured we could get her a couple of classes. I thought it was in CMDX, but after checking the address, it was in San Miguel de Allende, 130 miles to the northwest. I was able to book her a two day class and that is how we ended up in San Miguel de Allende.
I found a great campground that doubles as a tennis club, and is in the middle of the city. Hanz, the owner confirmed he had space, so we navigated to his compound. I say compound because what we are finding in Mexico is that almost all properties in these old cities are built right on the sidewalk, but when doors are opened, there is a breezeway into an open inner courtyard. These were present in other cities, but here in San Miguel the streets are narrow and are wall to wall buildings, all with thick doors locking out the people in the street. As we walked along the streets, I could not stop looking through the shops and doors that revealed the inner beauty of the city.
Kathy took her class and simply loved it. I wish we had thought of this earlier and just planned a week or two in one spot so she could really immerse herself in learning how to paint. The instructor started her in oil painting and helped her to understand the layering that is involved in the oil paining process. After the first day Kathy had two paintings started with the base colors, and they are really impressive. She could not wait to get back the second day, and had almost as much fun. We will have to look for some more opportunities for her along the way.
The second day we decided to stop for some beverages and an early dinner so on the walk back from painting class we dipped in to this nice restaurant (tons of those in San Miguel) and asked for the roof top. Three floors up, climbing stairs inside a tree filled courtyard, we got to see a great view of the western city at sunset. Again, these cities hide their inner beauty. Here is an example of the courtyard of the second floor of the restaurant. Wouldn’t it be awesome to live in one of these places?
I had the creme de alote soup and Kathy had some grilled shrimp tacos. I also had a Caipirinha, the official drink of Brazil, which is a drink similar to a margarita except it is made with muddled limes, raw sugar and a liquor made from sugar cane, called cachaca. I used to drink those a lot in Germany, and that drink had been imported by the Germans that holiday in Brazil. It was delicious.
We made our way back to the campground to let the pups out of Howie and to take them on a walk. We ran in to some fellow travelers, Steve and his wife, from Canada. They have been coming to Mexico every winter for the past 18 years and love the place. He mentioned his land rover was parked over to the side, and I jumped in to talk to him about it. Apparently he was tinkering with SketchUp (the google CAD program) and designed a living area for a Land Rover that was modeled after the VW Westfalia interior. I asked if I could take a look. My then Kathy had beelined away from the nerd talk as I followed Steve to the beauty.
It turns our Steve owns an engineering firm in Canada and was able to build it in his garage with a lot of help from his contractors. He said it took him 1.5 years on SketchUp designing, then found a 15 year old defender 130 truck in Germany that he could import (Canada allows 15 years old while USA requires 25). He drove the truck around for 2 years in Canada and then it took him 1.5 years to build the cabin. It is a work of art. he has 240 AH of Li batteries, a 1500W inverter, an induction cooktop, a portable toilet and even an indoor shower if needed. He said he updated his Defender to have 3 fuel tanks and has 2200KM of range (1300 miles). It has more living room in it than our camper, but it is a pop top and the bed comes out to take over the living area when deployed. It is smaller than Howie, but probably half the weight and skinny. Here is a link to the build. Needless to say, I am in love with that platform. Watch out FJ, you might be a candidate. LOL.
Anyway, we finished up our stay in San Miguel de Allende. It is definitely a place we want to come back to and would love to rent a place with one of those great courtyards. Now we are off to CDMX for a 10 night stay. Mexico is amazing and for all of you that are unsure of travel down here…. do it. You won’t regret it. Oh, and I connected with one of the Overlanding legends, Graham Bell of A2A Expedition, and he and his bride are living in Mexico a couple hours SE of here, so we are planning to meet up with them to say hello, hang out, and learn a bit more about travel. If you haven’t read his books, you should. They are witty, funny, and filled with the adventure I love.
Here are some pictures of San Miguel de Allende and a map of our travel to get there.
