Layne posted our problem child on Facebook. A California woman living in San Miguel de Allende about three hours north of our moochdock in Mexico City, contacted Layne saying her little Sassy needed a companion. Would we oblige?
You bet! We said goodbye to Omar and Angelica after a lovely week at their home and they too had fallen slightly in love with our foundling.
They too have a jealous dog, just like Rusty so there was no room in their home for little Squirt, the dog we needed to get housed!
We got on the road and chose the toll route about $25 in all to get to Andrea’s house as soon as possible.
It was a fast drive on a road where sixty miles an hour was easy to hold, so few potholes were there.
I took one stretch at the fastest I’ve gone in Mexico, 78mph. Usually I tool along around fifty or fifty five worrying about sudden holes or lumps in the way.
We made good time and we’re at the gated community around lunch time. I was pretty sure she would love Squirt. I had a talk with him and told him to give it his best shot, things were looking good. He listened.
Sassy, the fluffy white ball hit it off with sleek strong Squirt, who was five days ago a street dog lost in Mexico. Now he was going to get a home in a gated community with a woman who loves and understands dogs. It was perfect.
Andrea and Layne hit it off and chatted while Rusty and I went for a walk. The objects of the exercise were oblivious to all but each other.
There was a problem, Andrea is house sitting a friends dog and can’t take Squirt until June 2nd. So we have ten days to burn touring the mountain communities around San Miguel. We can handle that and knowing he has a loving home makes us happy. Squirt did not want to leave and I had to physically pick him up to take him away from Sassy. Rusty is mad as a wet hen having to share his home with that other dog. Great: ten days of two gloomy dogs.
Up first we drove the ten miles to the city center and struggled to follow Google maps tortuous route to the campground in the city center.
It took a lot of circling and figuring to find the unmarked gate to the campground. Almost unmarked.
The park is a dusty space with a few vans still parked long after winter season is over. The manager pointed out dogs must be on a leash which is not usual in Mexico. And with Squirt not familiar with a leash we decided we need to leave after one night.
San Miguel de Allende is one of the top destinations for foreigners coming to Mexico to visit or to live. It has all the shopping restaurants social gatherings and high prices you can imagine.
From Wikipedia:
San Miguel de Allende, a colonial-era city in Mexico’s central highlands, is known for its baroque Spanish architecture, thriving arts scene and cultural festivals. In the city’s historic, cobblestoned center lies the neo-Gothic church Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, whose dramatic pink towers rise above the main plaza, El Jardín. The Templo de San Francisco church nearby has an 18th-century churrigueresque facade.
About 150,000 people live in this city set at 6200 feet among the mountains. It was founded in 1541 and named for a Spanish friar Juan de Miguel. Then in the 19th century the name was changed to San Miguel de Allende. Ignacio Allende was born in the city in 1769 and was executed 42 years later as a traitor to Spain as Mexico fought a war for independence.
It’s typical of Mexico managing to amalgamate two sides of the country’s history into one city and by means of perfect compromise have them make sense. The Spanish Empire and the Catholic Church face off against anti-church revolutionaries and they manage to name the same city for both of them.
It was not easy squeezing the Promaster through these steers but it’s a challenge I enjoy. At 21 feet long sometimes it takes “backing and forthing” to follow Google Map’s blue line, especially when people park too close to the corner.
On one street I found myself inching past a car stopped in the narrowest section of street and all she had to do was toll forward five feet and all would have been well. I glared down into the parked car and saw the driver busy mixing baby formula and oblivious to the lack of space. Had we slipped even slightly sideways on the cobbles she’d have got some new racing stripes on her car and then she’d have noticed! I locked the front wheel differential and up we went.
The campground was closed when we stopped outside and Layne got out to find some one to open the locked gate. Meanwhile a big truck stopped behind me. I had to move on. The circuit through the streets was excessively tight but I made it back and Layne was waiting beside an open door.
The kid below greeted us in English with a cheery hello and I got her picture such that it reminded me of a classic.
Henri Cartier Bresson in 1954 caught a French kid marching home with two bottles of wine. I thought I did good!
Oh and Andrea, Squirt's new Mom gave us a heads up when we mentioned a desire to go shopping at Costco and Walmart in the town of Celaya an hour south of San Miguel de Allende. It appears the narco wars are heating up there in a town known for it’s resident population of Jalisco Nueva Generation cartel. It seems they are in a turf war with the Santa Rosa da Lima cartel and the government’s sending in troops and National Guard to break it up. From what I read eleven people are dead so far.
We saw military and police columns all along the freeway which corroborated Andrea’s warning. Scary eh? But like I always say you only get caught up in it if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This isn’t a country of random mass shootings and avoiding the war in Celaya is easy! Don’t go there when you have been warned.
New Crocs will just have to wait. Drat!
It was a busy spot but we got there before the big rush.
