Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991 TAG: 9104070232
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D/5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT V. CAMUTO FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
DATELINE: SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO LENGTH: Long
They have all come to this Spanish colonial mountain town and turned it into a kind of south-of-the-border Santa Fe.
San Miguel and Santa Fe, often compared, are victims of the same overused adjectives: "quaint," "picturesque," "arty." They share a cadre of regular visitors with tastes for cappucino and native cultures.
But San Miguel remains rooted in the Old World. There are no chain hotels, no New Age crystal shops, no made-to-look-old modern architecture.
About four hours and a few dollars by train or first-class bus north of Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende lies in the heart of Mexico's hill country - a town of centuries-old stone and stucco haciendas, of manicured public squares, narrow cobblestone streets, and impressive courtyards draped in clinging vines and bougainvillea.
San Miguel de Allende, named for a local parish priest and military captain martyred in the fight for Mexican independence, was a backwater a half century ago. What changed it for good was the opening of an arts and language institute 52 years ago in a vacant palace.
Artists from Mexico and the world have been coming ever since. And with them came more arts schools and galleries, more language institutes and tutors. San Miguel has one of Mexico's few public libraries, a renowned orchid garden and a historic monument designation that's prevented any new building in the center of town.
San Miguel's renaissance also has brought an incredible bounty of restaurants, late-night jazz, a discotheque fashioned from an old cockfighting ring, scores of boutiques, T'ai Chi classes, a nine-hole golf course and even a plastic surgery clinic.
Yet make no mistake about this - San Miguel still operates on native time - at a distinctly small town Mexican pace. Siestas are long and sacred. Traffic through town, whether it's by the rickety green taxis, on foot, horseback or burro, is slowed by the complete absence of pavement.
Mornings take their time and ought to be savored. For most of the morning, the storefront doors and windows stay shuttered - it will be hours before the old beggar women stake out their stoops.
Old and bent men - their straw hats as faceted as their faces - rythmically sweep walks with their stick brooms. All along the hillsides and through town is the chatter of chickens and the yakking of the ubiquitous terrace-dwelling parakeets.
More than 6,000 feet high with a mild climate (warm days and cool to cold evenings), San Miguel has ample sights and activities for tourists.
But San Miguel's essence can't be gotten by guided tour. It has to be lived, open to chance.
San Miguel is, above all, a social town. A place where loitering is, for some, part of life's daily rhythm. For others, it's an art form.
Evenings twice a week, the town gathers for Paseo in the main square in front of the big pink Gothic church, La Parroquia. While the elders sit on benches the teen-agers in groups walk round and round performing a mating dance not unlike the one seen in American shopping malls.
Twice a week - on market days - bedsheets in candy colors are hung over more than a mile of winding streets to shade the stalls and sellers hawking everything from produce to boom box radios, basketball shoes to sacred candles. And the great Mexican social pastime (one misunderstood by many Americans as mere commerce) begins: the haggling.
On weekends, the bars and music clubs run all night. So, it seems, does the "happy hour."
Most everyone passes through the endearingly dilapidated La Fragua (which translates as the forge or blacksmith's shop). Those in the know drink and dance but don't eat here: the local ranchers fresh from the market with money to spend, the men who've been thrown out of the house after an afternoon argument with the spouse, the young and sandaled gringos and gringas who've sold their Toyotas for enough cash to live in Mexico for awhile.
The writers hold court over croissants and Italian coffee at the cafe La Dolce Vita, and convene for a roving bilingual series of weekly literary readings announced in the weekly local English-language newspaper, Atencion San Miguel.
The artists and the artistically inclined flock to cocktail reception/art openings at the Bellas Artes School - home of a giant courtyard mural depicting a vaquero roping a giant vampire bat.
When it is not socializing, San Miguel is resting. Or it is eating.
One of the best restaurant towns in Mexico, San Miguel offers French-Mex, Swiss-Mex, Spanish paella and, yes, even Mexican-Mexican food.
A meal for two runs anywhere from $5 (beer included) at one of several good family-run lunch places to $50-$100 (with wine) for a splurge at the French and formal Sierra Nevada. Most restaurants fall in somewhere in the range of $25 for two for dinner.
Nearly three years ago, San Miguel's cultural revolution seemed complete with the debut of a Tex-Mex restaurant.
Owned and run by a couple of restaurateurs in their late 20s from Austin, Casa Mexas has broadened the local cuisine vocabulary with chimichangas, and (OK, not exactly Tex-Mex) barbecued ribs.
Inside the front door a bumper sticker from Austin's Lone Star Cafe assures: "Bubba Likes It." Also just inside the door is a manuscript drop box for the literary magazine, the San Miguel Review.
What comes to mind is the image of a would-be Hemingway fresh out of the University of Texas - seeking courage from a few Coronas and fajitas - before making the final changes in the story that will set the world (or at least his circle of friends) on fire.
At first Mexicans shied away from Casa Mexas; now locals comprise about half the clientele. The irony is quintessential San Miguel.
San Miguel's 50,000 or so native Mexicans have watched the transformation of their town, mostly with amusement and sometimes with annoyance.
Every Mexican here grumbles about inflation and their inability to compete with American dollars. Yet at the same time they are glad for the prosperity and eager to get the higher prices.
By Mexican standards San Miguel is pricey. By American standards, it can be a great bargain, with a clean but rustic double room costing as little as $20 a night. Deluxe accommodations can run over $100.
Tell a San Miguel native that you have just come to San Miguel and he will shake his head and tell how everything is becoming so expensive, "muy caro." He will recount his troubles and those of his country.
But tell him you are leaving for Guanajuato or another part of Mexico and he will suddenly pump up with pride. He will recite for you San Miguel's directory of sophistication: the excellent restaurants the museums, the artists' studios, the entertainment.
by CNB