Top Ten Reasons You Should Vacation in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Vacation in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico_Chispa Magazine
So many parts of the US suffered from end-game weather this winter that I felt guilty living in Mexico. I tried to hide my location on Facebook and I never talked about the gorgeous sunsets enjoyed with a glass of cold white wine on the terrace. There are more reasons than the weather to vacation, and live in San Miguel de Allende, but in honor of the last few, more-than-catastrophic months in many parts of the US, let’s start there.

  1. Weather.
    One day, years ago, when I was walking in Chicago, I tried but couldn’t blink my eyes. While I was contemplating what medical catastrophe was afoot, I realized — yes, the liquid in my eyes had frozen! Wind chill-adjusted temperatures of minus 40 can do that. This seemed normal; it built “character” (as my mother used to term the hardships of childhood). When you live in San Miguel and people say to you, “Don’t you miss the four seasons?” you will laugh. Here, you can have them all—winter, spring, summer and fall—almost every day. Cool mornings (all right, sometimes cold but seldom freezing) morph into hot afternoons that slide back into cool evenings. Your arctic gear can be donated to Goodwill. Here the days are spent in a high-altitude-induced state of climate bliss.
  1. Walking.
    San Miguel was not built for automobiles so most people walk everywhere. Not only can you get your recommended 10,000 steps daily, but navigating uneven cobblestones, apparently stimulates pressure points on the bottom of the feet which increases balance. Since many of us are heading into our dotage, that sounds good. But there is also tremendous satisfaction in walking not just for the exercise benefits, but walking to arrive someplace, like the library or the paper store. There is magic in motoring the body without benefit of a machine. And you don’t have to park.
  1. Scarcity.
    Scarcity of consumer goods does not sound like an enticement to live somewhere but it turns out that, for many of us who memorized their 16-digit credit card number due to overuse, it is. Now, when the thing you want is not available, you can give up wanting. When the thing you need is not available at any price, or it requires driving to another town (see Walking above), you become resourceful. Honestly, it is fun. Recently, I used my computer for six weeks while it was missing its “j” key. “Dear Yessica,” I wrote to my daughter, “Yust wanted to know if Yeff called you….” The accumulated result of all this scarcity is the wonderful life-changing realization that there is very little you actually need.
  1. Food.
    It is true you will not often encounter organic pearl barley risotto or carpaccio of anything delicately nestled in a galette of foie gras, all scented with lavender (although we do have lavender). It turns out you shouldn’t eat most of that fatty, pretentious food anyway; you should eat more plant proteins like—yes! Rice and beans. The food of the Mexican indigenous population from pre-hispanic times (beans) combined with that brought by the Spaniards (rice) together created a complete plant-based protein. How clever is that? Toss in any of the 152 fresh or dried chiles, said to lower cholesterol and protect against cancer, and if you do not get gastroenteritis, you will be very healthy. And, as an added benefit, thinner (see Walking above).
  1. Mañana.
    “When will you get the ______(fill in the blank) that I absolutely must have today?” I ask. (See Scarcity above). “Mañana,” she says. But, of course, mañana doesn’t mean “tomorrow” —it means “sometime in the near or far future when everything gets aligned.” Being on the receiving end of this mentality is a practice in patience (which has its own benefits) and quite annoying until you realize that as part of assimilating into Mexican culture, you can be on the giving end of the mañana. When someone, perhaps your spouse, asks you, “When are you going to _____ ?”(Fill in the blank with a task you do not want to do like finish the income taxes) you can smile and say, “Oh, si, mañana.”
  1. Spanish.
    Learning to speak Spanish as an adult is difficult. But brain science tells us that one of the things that decreases the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia (which adults of a certain age fear more than cancer) is learning a new language. So while you are searching your memory bank for the Spanish word for “spaghetti pot,” you will be satisfied knowing you are likely to maintain sparkling mental acuity until the moment of death. In the meantime, your imperfect attempts at communication will bring their own reward—some incredibly amusing errors and a glimpse inside Mexican culture.
  1. Enforced ignorance.
    If, like me, you can no longer tolerate the hue(ing) and cry(ing) of US politicians, 24/7 news commentators and the people who post their hateful opinions on the Internet, you will find it is an advantage not to understand what is going on with the Mexican government, which is as crazy as the United States is, just in a different way and in a different language.
  1. Civility.
    Politeness is as essential to Mexican life as oil is to a machine. It lubricates the gears of large families and small villages where it is a tool to keep relationships running smoothly. This predisposition to civility extends to many activities in Mexico—the requirement to greet passers-by with a cheerful buenos dias (originally “May God give you good days”) or the benediction of a buen provecho (“May your food benefit you”) to fellow diners as you pass their table in a restaurant. All guaranteed to create a sense of being both literally and figuratively blessed.
  1. Mexico.
    There are no two countries that share a border that have less in common than the United States and Mexico. And, in the case of the United States, know less about the other’s culture. Mexicans do not just talk about valuing family, respect, community—they live those values. Their work ethic and resourcefulness puts many other nations to shame. We Americans who are overstressed, over-focused on time and money, and often mean-spirited toward our fellow humans could learn a great deal from our southern neighbor about living our values.
  1. You.
    You can be a better, more satisfied person here, more patient from walking, waiting and doing without—while enjoying a life unfiltered. You have the rare opportunity to see firsthand what Wade Davis, Explorer in Residence at National Geographic Society, has said: “The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”

Photo by Tonglé Dakum

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Mavian Arocha-Rowe

Mavian Arocha-Rowe

Editor-in-Chief at Chispa Magazine
Mavian Arocha-Rowe is known as an asset to the business and communications industry and is motivating and advocating “your authenticity should be your strategy,” for all women, regardless of their season and roles. For the past 20 years she has directed magazines, plus multiple art and marketing departments as creative director and brand manager. What supersedes all of her great career moves is her role as wife and mother living in Atlanta. Challenging herself to discover and bravely pursue the calling for her life, Arocha-Rowe helps other women discover and pursue their life’s assignment. She is a passionate, and loud-laughing speaker on the topic of purposefully redeemed, and mentors young women so they can exercise a mind that is doctrinally pure, along with a heart that beats toward sanctification. She will almost never turn down Marlow’s Tavern double-tavern cheeseburger, a cooking-demonstration from Leaning Ladder, or any opportunity to head to Miami to spend time with family.
Mavian Arocha-Rowe

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Mavian Arocha-Rowe

Mavian Arocha-Rowe is known as an asset to the business and communications industry and is motivating and advocating “your authenticity should be your strategy,” for all women, regardless of their season and roles. For the past 20 years she has directed magazines, plus multiple art and marketing departments as creative director and brand manager. What supersedes all of her great career moves is her role as wife and mother living in Atlanta. Challenging herself to discover and bravely pursue the calling for her life, Arocha-Rowe helps other women discover and pursue their life’s assignment. She is a passionate, and loud-laughing speaker on the topic of purposefully redeemed, and mentors young women so they can exercise a mind that is doctrinally pure, along with a heart that beats toward sanctification. She will almost never turn down Marlow’s Tavern double-tavern cheeseburger, a cooking-demonstration from Leaning Ladder, or any opportunity to head to Miami to spend time with family.