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Published: January 25th 2017
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On Sunday, we went on the weekly house/garden tour that benefits the Library (founded by locals and Americans in 1954) and its literacy programs in the community. It entailed much waiting and being herded, two things I don't like! The first home was for sale. The owner had recently died after having lived there for only three months (the building of the home had taken 2.5 years) She had been a Mardi Gras Queen and quite the beauty. The home was high above the town, and not to our taste. The next home, Casa Luna, was a few blocks down a few steep street and occupied by a an art dealer. He had previously owned a wholesale fish company in Miami. The art in the home was fantastic as you can see from the photos and the house was beautiful. We decided to walk home from the tour, since the bus ride up was unpleasant (chartered city buses with hard plastic seats and much bouncing on the cobblestone streets) and the very steep streets back down made one wonder about the condition of the brakes...
We ate at the #1 restaurant in town Sunday night; Peruvian food in a beautiful
setting not too far from Parque Juarez. We didn't have reservations, so we got a less than perfect table, but it was good people watching.
We spent Sunday afternoon planning and booking the rest of our trip. We decided that it was too hard to get to the coast or to a town we haven't yet visited from here (which is why it has taken us us so long to visit San Miguel: it's not near much!) so we're staying on in San Miguel. We found a good flight out of Guadalajara in February, and just booked a house up on the steep hill above the town for a week. It will be nice to have more quiet than we have here. The neighborhood here is quiet, friendly, and very well-located, but the neighbors on one side operate a food cart in the evenings and return around 11:00pm...and clean up with much clattering and banging. There are also many barking dogs.
Yesterday day my mom and Ned arrived from Connecticut, after a day of traveling. We ate dinner here, and I made my first chicken mole!
Today we were woken at five am by very loud drumming
and marching on the street next to ours, and many explosions. Half awake, I was sure the revolution had begun! The march faded away and returned, but not as close. We got a bit more sleep before I had to get up for school...and the way to school, I stopped at a OXXO shop (like a 7-11) and asked about the march. Turns out it was the beginning of a very famous pilgrimage and there were over 15,000 people participating! I wish I had gotten up and gone out in the dark to see this!
"January 24 -Arrival of pilgrims for the peregrinación, or pilgrimage, to San Juan de los Lagos. As the pilgrims come into town, they are greeted by church bells, dances and fireworks. This pilgrimage is the largest in the western hemisphere. Some three million or more pilgrims from across Mexico will walk for many days, sleeping in the open, to converge on the small town of San Juan de los Lagos, in the state of Jalisco. Their goal is a small shrine to the Virgin Mary. Nearly 20,000 of those pilgrims will walk from San Miguel and
Waiting, waiting at the Library...
There was an excellent mariachi band to entertain us! environs, reaching the village after nine days. They create a moving city of all ages, carrying banners, singing songs, chanting, praying."
This afternoon we all took the sightseeing trolley for a 2 hour trip around the city, and then had a siesta followed an Italian dinner...
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