Week #13: San Miguel de Allende y Queretaro

Wow, we visited only two cities this week! That must either be a sign that we're slowing down in our retirement or that they were very interesting cities. We're approaching our travels with no set itinerary as we don't like feeling as though we have to be somewhere by a certain day. This approach also gives us the flexibility to stay in a particular place longer or leave sooner than planned.    

Ginny's been keeping a pretty detailed budget of our spending habits since we hit the road which I thought could be interesting to share. So here's a summary of our January expenses:

Van expenses (vehicle insurance/gas/tolls)    $1,315 

Medical                                                            $212

Eating Out                                                        $723

Accommodation (Airbnb/camping)                $200

Groceries                                                          $421

Cell Phone                                                        $49

Misc                                                                  $118

Total                                                                $3,038

So that averages out to about $100/day which I think is pretty reasonable and certainly way less than we were spending when we were living and working in LA. As we've left the sleepy beach towns and been in cities more recently, we've definitely been eating out a lot more. Having said that, it's still ridiculously inexpensive to eat out here. Hopefully we can keep our monthly spend to this or even less!  

After our visit to Guanajuato, we drove to San Miguel de Allende (SMA) which is a well known Mexican city and also an old silver mining city (similar to Guanajuato). It's also firmly on the gringo trail similar to Ajijic but is much fancier and upmarket. The gringo effect in SMA is really noticeable and goes well beyond just seeing foreigners walking throughout the city - businesses cater extensively to foreigners, there are fancy houses and hotels throughout the city and the cost of many things are considerably higher than less touristic nearby cities. Of course there also are benefits to all the gringos such as job creation, good food options and lots of services and activities oriented towards tourists. All things considered, I definitely prefer the less touristic cities as they feel more authentic and I find it easier to connect with the locals in these places.    

While I wasn't the biggest fan of SMA, it certainly is a very beautiful city and there are a number of great food options. It's a great city to walk around and the central square with the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel church is truly a sight to see (see photo below). The church looks like a pink wedding cake and is visible from many spots throughout town due to its height and overall prominence. We had a number of great meals in SMA but the burritos that we had at this little walk-up spot called Mama Mela took the cake without question. Not only were they some of the tastiest burritos that I have ever had but the chef (Humberto) was incredibly friendly and gave us a whole list of places that we should visit on our van travels. One of my burritos (yes, I had two!) was with huitlacoche which is a fungus that grows on corn and is considered a superfood in Mexico. It's jet black and a little slimy but I thought it was delicious! See photos below of some of our meals and sights we saw wandering the streets and alleyways of SMA.  

We moved on to the city of Queretaro after being in SMA and have really loved it here. I would say it's right up there with Guanajuato for best cities that we've visited so far. Queretaro is a city of nearly one million and is home to a number of universities so the city has a real youthful spirit to it. We visited three different museums our first day in town and not a single one of them charged admission (see images below for some of their artwork). We also discovered a new Mexican specialty while strolling the streets which is called a gordita (yes, little fatty in English). It's a corn pancake that is fried on the griddle and then stuffed with fillings of your choice - delicious! We also discovered another local specialty which is a torta de chilaquile which is the popular chilaquile dish put into a sandwich and voila - it's a torta de chilaquile! While all these things are super tasty, they're not the healthiest dishes so we've gotten into the habit of eating lots of fresh vegetables and fruits which is in great abundance throughout Mexico. While exploring the city the other day, we stumbled upon this massive aqueduct and also saw these hilarious walk/don't walk signals (see photos below). It's these kinds of random discoveries that makes traveling so fun and engaging.