Trip to San Miguel de Allende & Guanaguato

Reed and Danielle Piepgrass are visiting us from Calgary for a few weeks.  They are considering  moving here so are staying with us while they explore the area.  Brian is away working but we decided that I would drive them to see another part of the interior of Mexico.  It was about a 5 hour drive on the Quota highway (toll road) through rolling hills of well cultivated and irrigated landscape.  

The colonial town of San Miguel de Allende has a well preserved historic centre dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.  It supposedly looks much like it did 250 years ago, with many of the buildings converted into stores, restaurants and hotels.  Today the charming town attracts artists, writers and language students.  

  

The doors were amazing!

 Hidden behind many of these interesting doors are colourful courtyards

 

And of course...the people are always fascinating to me.  

The nearby town (about 2 hours drive) of Guanaguato is an old silver mining town.  At the height of production, one of the local mines produced 2/3 of the world's silver.  The brightly coloured houses are built on the steep hillsides over the mines, but many of the roads are inside tunnels.  Outside, the city is dotted with beautiful plazas.

 

Poinsettias are still blooming in the plazas.   

 

On the way home we stopped at one of the roadside stands selling strawberries - complete with the wicker baskets.

I love this truck that we discovered at another stop.  

Raspberries

The hills overlooking Lake Chapala and nearby are dotted with greenhouses made of a white fabric supported by metal arched frames.  From our house we can see across the lake to these large patches of white.  Inside are a variety of berries:  raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and cranberries.  The soil and climate here are ideal for berry growing, and we arrived just in time for the 8 month harvesting season from October to May.

With a little research, I learned the history of the berries in this area:

Many of you north of the border purchase small pristine plastic boxes of red raspberries in your local grocery stores.  One of the most respected US berry-growing companies came to Lakeside 10 or 15 years ago to experiment with a new crop at Lake Chapala...raspberries.  

Neat rectangular fields near Jocotepec were planted with raspberry roots that had been in cold storage to simulate a winter dormant season.  To protect the growing canes, they covered each field with plastic fastened to arched supports.  

The experimental fields, irrigated with clean water, were a huge success; the company planted more raspberry roots, and then blackberry and strawberry plants until white plastic Quonset huts popped up like dandelions around the west end of the lake.  This area is now one of the berry-growing industry's important micro-climate; top quality berries are picked and exported year-round for the tables of US consumers.  

The other day we drove around the west end of Lake Chapala through the town of Jocotepec (about 10 km west of us), and then along the south shore where the berry farms are prolific.  We stopped to see the production up close.

The workers had just hung up their buckets and were heading home when we stopped.  Yes...they all got into this small pickup truck.  I think I counted 13 men.  

Crates and boxes were stacked nearby, ready to ship the raspberries to the popular North American market.  You may recognize the Driscoll's label.  It is one of the largest producers in this area, but there are also many others.  

Of course we stopped at one of the many fruit stands to replenish our supply at home.  I always have fresh raspberries in the fridge but I still marvel at their abundance and low cost.  The photo above is a 125 gram container, but on the street here they are sold in larger plastic containers (about 4x more) which cost less than a dollar!

Buen Provecho!  - Bon Appetit!  

El Diario del Frasco

My calling in the Ajijic Branch is counselor in Relief Society.  For my first monthly activity I planned an event titled "Journal Jar" in English, but with a bit of help from locals, came up with the title "El Diara del Frasco".  

The purpose was to help them come up with ideas for writing a journal or life memoirs.  I started by having each woman share a childhood experience.  Then I shared some thoughts and examples from life histories of my own family.  From there, they went to sit at the tables around the room.  They cut up the starter prompts which I had translated into Spanish (isn't Google great!?) and stuffed them into the jars they had brought.  Then they pulled out a prompt and began to write.  

As they were leaving, several ladies told me they had enjoyed the activity.  I appreciated their support and politeness.  However, at church on Sunday, one lady (probably in her sixties), told me that she had been writing all week and has completed half of her life story.  She is excited to share it with her children.  That kind of feedback makes the effort worthwhile.