I have other things to say about packing, but I thought I’d start here. San Miguel is nestled in a valley and extends up the steep surrounding hills. The streets are paved with stones, rounded stones, I guess, cobble stones, but there’s nothing regular about them. In the center of town there are narrow flagstone sidewalks on major streets, but as you get away from the center, there are fewer sidewalks and now I’m going to tell you about these and why you needn’t bring your blades or boards. It’s very steep. And the further you get from the center and toward our casita and beyond our casita, it gets steeper.

As you get further from the center and beyond our casita, where it is quite clean and is swept regularly, it becomes…uh, less clean. Between the cobblestones are stones, dust, ash, broken glass, degrading plastic bottles, odd items of unidentifiable clothing. Who says plastic doesn’t degrade? You can see it in all stages on the outskirts of town.

Jim, Morgan, and I climbed up the hill from our casita to the Botanical Gardens on the edge of town. Itwas a bit farther than I anticipated and we, stupidly enough, turned down a taxi drive part way there. The Botanical Garden is a canyon that runs along the edge of town and became a conservation area when they built the dam. Looking into this spectacular canyon, you see waterfalls and descending pools of water below, sprinklings of wildflowers and along the paths are spreads of magnificent cacti. Wait till you seethe photos 😉

Yesterday after going to both downtown downhill markets, Morgan and I climbed up to a vista market. The view of the city, from the opposite hillside is remarkable. And all the callejons or alleys, aim for the parrochia (church) so the views down these streets are inviting, picturesque, shaded with trees overhanging the stone fences and spilling over stone walls. I’d bought enough “jewels” and such in the downtown markets that there was no need to buy anything but cerveza for the evening. But we decided to climb up a callejons stairway even above this vista. It required a few rests along the way, but we met a lovely not-young gringo/Mexican couple who lived up off the stairway so we stopped and chatted with them, and we saw a guy walking his motorcycle down this endless stone alley staircase. At the top was a field where you could see everything. I mean, the apex of it all. So we split a beer, on top of the world, identifying the chimneys of our casita, the jungle of Betse’s hacienda, the arches, a couple of the houses that Jim looked at with his realtor, before heading down.

And on the way down, we see a landfill pit, which we gingerly skirt and find the magical looking stairway that we think will take us directly to our casita, at right angles to the one we climbed. Wheew. At the top, the stairway is landfill trash, I think, that they just filled in with concrete so the shampoo bottles, old shoes, broken glass and disintegrated god-knows-what won’t spill down the hill. Eventually, walking down, taking some curves, picking our way through concreted garbage collage, we get to the stairway that we can view from our street, lined with bougainvillea and looking so magical and at the bottom is our big wooden door, which we unlock and arrive at our cool clean stone and tile stairway, that opens on to our patio/deck which surrounds our landlords courtyard below and we’re home. Jim has fixed dinner on the grill.