On the Road Again

ruins recently excavated near San Miguel de Allende

I often lament to friends and family my not traveling as much as I say I would like. Well, I haven’t booked a flight to Buenos Aires yet, but I did take some baby steps in the past few weeks by driving around Central and Western Mexico with a friend. We stopped in Lagos de Moreno, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Patzcuaro, and Morelia on the first leg, then Mascota, Talpa, and Tapalpa on the second.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” more than one person asked when they heard of my plan. Holdups and random acts of violence permeate the news from Mexico.

My experience, however, was as pleasant as it has always been here: friendly locals who smiled at us as we walked around their town snapping photos; well-mannered kids stepping off narrow sidewalks to give space to us elders; new arrivals at restaurants saying “Buen provecho” as they passed our table.

But the bad press must have left its mark somewhere in my subconscious because I felt apprehensive when I pulled off a back road in Michoacan to look at my map and a big-wheeled pickup with two men in it stopped behind me. One of them got out and approached my open window.

"Are you all right?” he asked in accent-free English. “Can I help you?” He then gave me what turned out to be perfect directions to the little town I was looking for, returned to his truck, and, along with his passenger, gave me a cheery wave as they went on their way.

Capula, the pueblo I was looking for, remains one of my favorites. Famous for its “brownware,” i.e. brown clay tableware, hand painted and glazed, Capula’s finest artisans are pointillists whose intricate fish and birds vibrate with color. Fabulous prices (around $20 USD for a plate beautiful enough to hang on a wall + matching salsa bowl) meant I could load up on gifts for friends as well as refresh my own stock at home in San Pancho.

It was fun to walk around Tzintzuntzan again, too. Pronounced “tseen-TSOON-tsan” it means Place of the Hummingbirds and is a pre-Hispanic town that specializes in straw goods. My husband Marsh bought a straw hat there years ago and always wore it to the Vallarta airport when picking up houseguests.

“I was angling for a comment on my hat,” he used to confess when someone commented on it, ”just so I could tell you where it comes from and say “tseen-TSOON-tsan.”

I always succumb to the charms of colonial beauties Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, captured in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0MIWRTHCE I thought, and still think, that I would have chosen Guanajuato as my new hometown if the pull of the ocean weren’t so strong. The University of Guanajuato is a big plus for me. Known for its arts programs, it attracts over 15,000 students and gives the city a youthful vitality and a rich cultural life that includes the fabled international Cervantino festival every October. I went one year and loved it.

Note to self: talk up the Cervantino festival among friends and go again this year. Return to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead, too. And to Mexico City to experience the renowned anthropology museum. And to Tulum to swim in the surreally turquoise water.

Get out there, as the old cruise line ad used to say.