After arriving late in San Miguel de Allende, we just spent the last hours in the hostel, and had a good talk with the only person sharing his dorm with us - Nicholas - but more about him later. In the morning, we started exploring the city even though we did not have a concrete goal to see. The first insight that popped up in front of my eyes was a lot of whiiittee. White old people everywhere. I don't mind them, but the amount was ridiculous. The reason is, San Miguel is the domicil of hundreds of American guys enjoying their pension there. That is also why many people were able to speak proper English and there were many high-standard restaurants and bars. After some time and the start to search for Carajillo, we ended up going to a bar that was actually called Carajillo, which promised to offer the drink, obviously. Even though we had already realized, that because of the amount of American well-off people, we were not the main target group of many locations, we were still surprised by how the situation was in Carajillo. Someone brought us to our table, dressed in a suit, while another was already waiting to tell us about some offers and plenty well-dressed other waiters were just waiting for anyone to twitch. Only after two guys popped up at our table to live-mix our drinks, did we realize, that we should have asked for the prices before shouting for our most-loved drink Carajillo before even sitting. Still, the ambiance on the rooftop, all the motivated staff, and a fabulous Carajillo were well worth the experience, and in the end, the price was affordable for the level of service with around 150$ per drink - so you might give it a shot as well.
Afterwards, we headed for Guadalupe a district where we were promised to see plenty of murals in the street. On our way we got Vegan Tacos filled with Cauliflower, which were tasty but three to four times the price of usual tacos. In Canción India we found many different and beautiful murals and the way to go there is just very nice.
Next stop was Fabrique de la art which is an art gallery that is worth a short visit and we especially liked the antiques. The gallery was followed by the Mercado de Artesanías which is a tiny street lower than the usual street level (probably also an earlier river) filled with market stands offering many different colorful products (many classified as souvenirs in my opinion), but also pewter art - very cute, well worth the 10 minutes walkthrough.
The next impression of San Miguel was green. Walking up the hill a bit we ended up at Parque Benito Juárez where this weekend a plant and flower fair was taking place. Many sellers placed along the paths through the park made the park shine even greener than it already is. From tiny cacti to huge palms everything was buyable.
After another planless food search, we ended up at an expensive rooftop restaurant from which the view was... okayish... but for the prices, the service was not appropriate - charging us huge amounts for table water and for an additional pide to be added to my veggie dip. But at least we saw the sun down there, even though it could have been at least 40€ cheaper. At least I was able to convince Samantha to go afterwards to a cheap sports bar (La choperia) to watch one game of the NFL conference championships, where she even got another dish since the one at the restaurant was not enough.
On our way back to the hostel we decided to get dropped at La Comida by our Uber driver, which is basically a huge supermarket in Walmart style and turned out to be my personal highlight of the day. Since in the Mexican cities you only find tiny shops selling drinks and snacks, Oxxo and 7eleven which are basically European fuel stations without fuel and only in one spot a meat, fish, and veggie Mercado, this was the first experience of a proper supermarket there. And it was blowing me away. I have never seen such a calming, well-organized, clean supermarket. Felt more like a vacation in there for my German sense of structure, when my eyes were popping out and I was "jumping around like a chicken" (quote Sam) to analyze everything. Personal highlight: A whole fridge wall with eggs.
Back in the hostel, we played Uno with the hostel owner Daniela, who was running the hostel alone at this time 24/7, and Nicholas. After the two girls went to bed I had an amazing talk with Nicholas for the next two or three hours about his bike trip through Mexico, his time as an Ex-soldier and current seasonal fisherman, loving father of an 11-year-old son, and free-time ultra sports lover and tiny house builder. Apart from all of these already very interesting facets of him, he also is from Alaska (never met someone from there) which brought us to topics about practicality during traveling and in general lifestyles in contrast to e.g. fashion and its sense as well as his impression of cities as a jungle coming from a small town based on an island in the Gulf of Alaska, which is only reachable by plane. Inspiring and eye-opening insights, that satisfied me to talk about and led to a late ending of the night, which was worth it - thanks, Nicholas.
On the next day, I decided to stay in the hostel, cook some lunch (obviously, eggs accompanied by a salad), have some more talks, and write for my blog since San Miguel was not motivating me to leave and I felt a bit laid-back this day. After an intense goodbye of this small, chill hostel (Lool Beh Hostal Boutique) and the few people who were there at the time we went for our bus to the capital - la Ciudad de México also known as CDMX or just México, which leads to some confusions in the beginning.
Additional recommendations, that looked promising or were recommended:
- Meraki Buffet (Cheap, local buffet place with amazing reviews)
- Chocolates y Churros (Should be the best churro place in town if not even the state)
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