The "San"s: Miguel de Allende and Blas

Vintage: Friday, November 14, 2008

11:30am

San Blas. Definitely not the sort of Pirate Village I'd envisioned, but homey nonetheless. I'm Staying at a little beachside compound run by a world-class longboarder known around these parts as "Pompy"…don't ask me why. My fellow campers are the relaxed, peace-loving sort that you might expect to be hanging around a place called "Stoner's Surf Camp." The high Aussie concentration accounts for the 'round-the-clock beer consumption and general wit that characterizes my Stoner's experience thus far.

Of course, hanging out with such laid-back folk makes the slow, costly process of writing semester projects seem that much heavier, but I actually had a very successful writing blitz late yesterday which opened the evening up to hours of rather entertaining conversation.
As it stands, my budget precludes the purchase of copious amounts of alcohol, but I had fun watching the rest partake in the famous Aussie pastime of beer consumption. I realized that while Americans (in my opinion) usually get more boring as they get drunk, the people of Oz get much more entertaining as the drinks march on. Perhaps that explains their international drunkard stereotype.

Well, this trip has been quite the working vacation. The duality of sleeping in a hammock by the sea or a dry fountain on the streets at night and cracking open the laptop in a nice café in the morning has been pretty pleasing to me. I started off in Queretaro; arriving at midnight, I was wondering where to go but was quickly invited by a nice lady to crash in an empty bed 

at her house for the night (sounded sketch, but turned out fine).

In the morning, I shot over to a place called San Miguel de Allende. Recommended by various and sundry compatriots, what I found was a pretty little city chock full of middle/advanced-aged Americans. It feels like all the people who want to retire in luxury but can't quite swing it in the states go there. Weird, weird culture…not really one that I support. But the surfeit of gringos also meant the highest concentration of free Wi-Fi in the entire Republic which was good for me, so I decided that I couldn't be too critical. I split my nights in San Miguel between the streets and a quiet hostel (called Alcatraz…I finally learned that in addition to a prison and an overused movie plot device an alcatraz is a seabird. Go figure) Alcatraz's hot shower was incredibly welcome when I arrived.  Due to high food prices I survived on tamales and atoles (not sure what it is…but I think it's sort of a drink made out of flavored corn syrup. Lemme tell ya, that stuff fills you up. It would be worth the return trip just to have another cookie-flavored atol. Wow.) in the city's small downtown market. Verdict: Worthwhile, if you can pardon the people who've been living there for six years and still can't speak Spanish.

On Wednesday, I made a dash to reach San Blas, but fell short in Tepic, an hour and a half away, and was stranded for the night. Having been in a state of semi-sleep during 8 hours of buses, I wasn't too ready to sleep despite the late hour, so I dodged cops until the wee hours of the morning writing a bit more (gotta hit that daily quota {which doesn't actually exist}). I napped near a church until the cold woke me up. Then I boarded the 5am bus to San Blas. Aboard the bus I met a Canadian who also slept on Tepic's empty streets. World traveler since 18 (now 

27) and a seeker of vibrations and extremely vague spiritual things, he was something of an oddity to me. I couldn't understand how someone could be so strongly set on something so undefined and ephemeral, but that's what's "in" these days with the druggie globetrotter set. Enough magic mushrooms and things get really spiritual really fast.

In San Blas I've continued my half-merrymaker/half-student ways (reminds me of final exam time at school). And as usual I've done a lot of walking. On a sheer-cliffed hill above the town is an abandoned church ("immortalized" in the poem The Bells of San Blas by Longfello

w who, oddly enough, never saw the church. There were no bells) and the hull of an old Spani

sh fort, looking reservedly down on the coastline. Going on the hunch from my friend in CVA, I thought the fort was to protect from pirates, but the sign said it was constructed to ward of Russian forces? Whoa, didn't see that on coming. Merits a bit more research I should say. I didn't know the Russians even had  a navy in the pre-soviet era. And can you imagine a Russian pirate? He would be awesome.

Speaking of imagination, there is also a part of the hill around which a veritable hoard of 50-60 vultures constantly hover. I walked up to the point and stood there, totally surrounded by scores of circling vultures--those things are huge! And then I thought about how scary it would be if, wherever you went, you always had 50 vultures gliding silently around and above you. Can you imagine a Russian pirate setting foot upon the shore, covered in a shroud of pure vulture. The peasants would freak out.

Anyway, here I am. Alive and quite well, encouragingly past the halfway mark on my writing work, and experiencing the best of satellite Australian community. Not a bad way to pass the time. Verdict: awakened by the sunrise every morning, fix a huge pot of Oaxacan coffee and sit under the palapas watching the steam rise from your cup as your friends slowly wake up and drift over the the coffee pot. sit for a couple hours talking slowly as the sand heats up and the waves grow to surfing perfection. San Blas gets a hearty nod.