Return to El Charco

A collage of our experience in El Charco

El Charco Ingenio

This week we paid a return visit to one of our favorite places in San Miguel de Allende, El Charco Ingenio-- the Botanical Garden.

What a wonderful place! Our guide on a recent tour, Lorie Topinka, told us that the garden is only about twenty years old: very young for a botanical garden.

Despite that, the garden has grown and matured to become a remarkably beautiful and unique place, with hundreds of varieties of cacti, dessert plants such as mesquit and acacia, and wild flowers galore.



Centered around a hundred year old reservoir, the garden and preserve provides a habitat for many migratory waterfowl. It also includes a very, very deep, vertigo inducing gorge.

San Miguel is semi-arid and averages about 22 inches of rain annually, mostly during the period from June to October.  This year has been unusually wet, with the rainy season extending into November.

Thus the garden is a lot greener than usual, and some of the cacti and annuals are actually re-flowering. With Lorie as our guide, we explored parts of the garden we had not seen before and thoroughly enjoyed our two hour walk. Joining us for the walk were Mart & Bob Larson & their long time friend, Carol Reedy, who lives in Mexico City but came for a visit this week.

Celebrating Thanksgiving, a Birthday & our 43rd Anniversary

Larry, Sue, Carol, Bob & Mart at the Rosewood

This year, Thanksgiving coincided with our 43rd Wedding Anniversary. It was also Carol's birthday.  With no functioning oven, it was impossible to attempt to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, even if we had known how to find a turkey here in Mexico.

Still, we had a wonderfully celebratory day.  After our inspiring tour and walk in El Charco, we all came back to our house, rested, cleaned up and then headed out to the Rosewood Hotel--possibly the nicest hotel in San Miguel--for cocktails and sunset viewing.

Sunset at the Rosewood

 It was a mild evening, with just enough clouds to make the sunset interesting.  We talked and lingered for a couple of hours.  After awhile, Sue and I decided to order a round of Cuarenta y Tres (43) on the rocks for everyone, explaining how we had been introduced to this delicious banana liquor when we were young newlyweds in Spain in 1975.  It seemed only natural to celebrate our 43rd anniversary by introducing our friends to this tasty liquor.

View of SM from the Rosewood Terrace

Finishing our time at the Rosewood, Carol wanted to treat us all to dinner at one of her favorite San Miguel eateries, La Fenicia--a Lebanese restaurant.

Perhaps because it was Thanksgiving, we were the only clients in the restaurant--so we felt free to talk and laugh as loud as we wanted.  The food was wonderful, rivaling any Lebanese restaurants we have been to in the States or elsewhere.

 

 

Toy Museum

Pancho Villa & other revolutionarios are heros

Friday morning, we said goodbye to Carol, but we are looking forward to seeing her when we are in Mexico City the week of December 8th--she has promised to be our own private tour guide to the city she loves the best.

In the afternoon, we decided to visit the Toy Museum, or the Museo la Esquina, based on recommendations from some friends we have met here in San Miguel.

Tiny circus

We were so very glad we did.  It is located in a 300 hundred year old house, that has been beautifully restored and renovated to accommodate the extraordinary collection of Mexican handmade toys, the fruit of fifty years of collecting by a local teacher, Angelica Tijerina.

Caballeros that move with a clip-clop sound

In room after room, we marveled at the amazing craftsmanship and creativity the toy makers showed both in design and in the materials they used to make the toys.  Some were made of clay, others of straw, tin, fabric, or wood and most were intricately put together, often painted in a kind of pointillist manner.  Also, we thought about the incredible patience and love it took to make each one.

Lots of Frida dolls

With Mexico's growing prosperity and the availability of cheap imports from China and elsewhere, many of these toys are no longer made (we see a lot of cheap, plastic toys in the tiendas).  The knowledge, skill and patience to make them is probably a thing of the past.  We hope not--perhaps people in the countryside retain the skills and desire.


We took some photos of the house and toys--but as is so often the case, they really don't do justice to the reality.

Every day there seems to be something new and wonderful to discover and experience here in San Miguel--there's not enough time or energy to see and do everything!