Museo de la Máscara

Only the masks for sale can be photographed.

As we exchanged suggestions of sights worth seeing with fellow travellers in San Miguel de Allende, the Museo de la Máscara (Mask Museum) was typically included on the list of must-see venues.

The Mask Museum, unlike the nearby Toy Museum, is not housed in a public building. Rather, the Mask Museum is a private collection housed in a Bed & Breakfast called Casa de la Cuesta at Cuesta de San José 32. We called ahead (415.154.4324) to express our desire to visit the museum. Bill, the B&B owner and mask collector, answered the phone and warmly welcomed us to visit the next morning. 

Every mask has been in a ceremony.

About 15 people showed up for Bill's introduction to the museum. Bill talked for about a half hour telling us how he started collecting masks. Initially, he was a student accompanying more seasoned collectors as they went to country villages to buy masks. Bill then became more fluent in Spanish and culturally attuned. He traveled himself and learned of the ceremonial and personal connections of masks. In fact, all of the masks in Bill's extensive collection have been involved in some ceremonial event.  

Bill and his wife Heidi have lived in SMA for 28 years and built their seven room B&B and the mask museum that contains 600 masks. There is also a shop where masks and local artworks are for sale. Mask prices start at $85 USD and go up to ~$1,000 USD. Credit cards are accepted but cash, either US dollars or Mexican pesos, will net you a discount.

After our tour of the Mask Museum, we accepted an invitation to return the next day for a talk by Heidi about the altars constructed for Day of the Dead.

In a warm and caring way, Heidi explained that the Day of the Dead ceremony began long before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s. It was originally a 2 - 3 month celebration to beckon those souls who had departed to return and enjoy once again the company of those they left behind. Heidi noted that the scent of marigold flowers was used to help the departed find their way back to loved ones.

Additionally, altars are constructed to make the returning souls warmly welcomed. Altars are personal, reflecting the earthly pleasures or characteristics of the departed. Thus, altars may contain a bottle of a favorite tequila or a skeleton-like image of the departed holding a golf club or a cigarette dangling from the mouth. Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) can also be a solemn, privately marked occasion for a family.

The Spanish co-opted this native Indian custom and compressed/aligned the ceremony to be held on the Christian All Souls Day and All Saints Day. General commercialization has since subsumed the holiday into a raucous event of parades, face-painting and skeleton Catrinas adorned, displayed and configured in all sorts of imaginative poses.

Just for the record: La Catrina is officially a skeleton dressed in a beautiful long dress and a broad-brimmed hat, usually decorated with colored ostrich feathers. La Catrina was popularized by the painter Diego Rivera to make fun of wealthy Europeans. The not-so-subtle reminder was that regardless of one's status in life, everyone dies.

Día de los Muertos Pre-espectáculo

La Catrina Contest

This weekend before the celebration of Day of the Dead on November 1 and 2 provided us what can only be called the Día de los Muertos Pre-espectáculo (Day of the Dead Pre-show).

Catrina Family

The city has been in full swing preparing for Día de los Muertos.  Images of Catrinas are appearing with more frequency around town, marigold flowers border restaurant doorways, stages have been erected for evening musical entertainment near El Jardin and, of course, a La Catrina contest was conducted at Plaza Civica.

Stylized Catrina Face Painting

We have yet to appreciate the cultural impact of this Día de los Metros cele- bration. We attended a talk on October 31 regarding the altars that are erected in homes to honor those who have passed. We  will be taking a guided Día de los Muertos tour on November 1 through the catacombs and city cemetery.

Until, then we see the celebration in its more animated forms in the painted faces of celebrants and costumed Catrinas.

Jardin Botanico

Today we took a guided tour in English of El Charco del Ingenio, which is a 170 acres nature preserve in the northeast corner of San Miguel de Allende.

Getting there is Half the Journey

Free Van Service

We are pretty sturdy walkers and considered walking to El Charco. However, the actual entrance was not entirely apparent on our map. Hmmm. Fortunately, Helen discovered on the English language version of the garden's website that a free shuttle van departed at 9:30 am from Calle de Mesones in front of Plaza Cívica. The same shuttle van departs from the garden at 1:00 pm and returns its passengers to the plaza.

As the van worked its way up the ever increasingly steep cobblestone roads to the garden's entrance, we were very glad we discovered this free shuttle service.

The Tour

Norman

We were the only people who showed up that morning for the standing 2 1/2 hour guided walking tour given on Tuesday and Thursdays. Our guide Norman, an expat who has lived in San Miguel de Allende for eight years, was personable and had a knowledge that covered both the garden's flora and it winged inhabitants.

As birds landed nearby or butterflies flurried before us, Norman was quick to identify the species and added a bit of extra commentary.

Given the wide variety of plant life in the botanical garden, Norman spent a good deal of the tour discussing flowering plants, cacti and the many succulents, especially the broad leaf agave, that call the garden home.

Cacti vs Succulent

Agave

But first, let's resolve the "great cacti vs. succulent" battle! Okay, there is no battle, but there is general confusion or, in our case, a general ignorance on the difference between cacti and succulents.

"All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti," stated Norm at the start of our tour.

Cacti

After touring the garden and its wide variety of cacti and agaves, we achieved a greater appreciation for Norman's observation.

Succulents, we learned, are plants that store water in juicy leaves, stems or roots in order to withstand periodic drought. 

So cacti and agave are both succulents. But for a succulent to be cacti it must have areoles. Areoles are small, round, cushion-like mounds of flesh where spines, hair, leaves, flowers, and more grow from the cactus. Agaves do not have areoles so "ipso facto columbo," they are not cacti. Simple.  Right?

However, becoming cacti savvy observers was not the highlight of our discoveries. Learning the reproduction cycle of an agave was our big "we

Seed Pods (left) - Flower Spike (right)
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didn't know that" experience.

The entire life span of an agave (up to ~80 years) is spent maturing and storing enough energy to produce an enormous flower spike that looks like a giant asparagus stalk. For plants grown to make mescal (tequila), the plants are harvested before this tall spine (that takes about 10 months to mature) forms in the central part of the plant.

At the garden there were agave plants in various stages of the reproductive cycle. At its reproductive peak, a 12 foot or higher flower spike extends from the plant's base. Flowers form, seed pods burst open and winds help dispersed the seeds. Once the seed pods are spent, the plant dies.

Other Stuff

We also learned of the cochineal insect that lives on the paddle of cactus plants. For centuries indigenous people created a deep red dye from the insects. The Spanish recognized the export value of this dye and cornered the world-wide red dye market until the introduction of synthetic dyes in the late 19th century.

Another Spanish remnant found is the park is the stone aqueduct constructed by the Spanish to drive

 Dam and Las Colonias Reservoir

a water wheel for milling grains. Only fragments of the aqueduct and the water wheel's stone brackets remain today. A 1580 map of the area clearly shows the water wheel and mill were indeed operational in this location.

Another more visible remnant of the past is the large dam and Las Colonias reservoir  built in 1902. The dam and metal sluice pipes were installed to generate electricity for La Aurora textile factory.  La Aurora long ago ceased being a textile mill and is now an upscale arts center.

We enjoyed our visit to El Charco and recommend a visit if your visit to San Miguel de Allende allows you sufficient time to savor this wonderful central Mexican botanical garden.

Guanajuato

We booked a tour with Discovery Tours to visit the city of Guanajuato. An hour to the west of San Miguel, Guanajuato is the capital of the Mexican state Guanajuato. We were the only ones on the tour today so we had a wonderful personal day tour with an equally wonderful and knowledgeable guide, Dalí.

History

El Pípila in Guanajuato

El Pípila in San Miguel

The city of Guanajuato has several claims to fame. It is the geographic center of Mexico and is deeply steeped in the history of Mexico's War of Independence from Spain. In 1810 insurgents overwhelmed the Spanish soldiers and loyalists who had barricaded themselves in the town's granary. El Pípila, a miner from the local silver mine, rushed the granary doors while carrying a stone slab on his back to protect himself from Spanish musket balls. He carried tar and a torch to successfully burn the doors open.

A huge statue of El Pípila dominates the heights over Guanajuato. In San Miguel de Allende (SMA) there is another statue commemorating his act of bravery in a traffic circle near our local hypermarket, La Comer.  

Tunnels

In Spanish colonial days, the Spanish extracted the abundant deposits of silver from the surrounding hills. They built Guanajuato in a narrow valley beneath the mine with a river splitting the city. Over time, dams were built to expand city space. These dams, however, broke several times in the late 1770's. 

Town fathers responded in two ways. Huge stone walls facing the river were built as protection from unleashed waters giving some streets a canyon like feeling. In 1883, the expertise of the nearby mineworkers was employed to build tunnels to divert river water. Tunnels continued to be built and built and built.

By the 1960's, any lingering flood concerns were gone and the tunnels were converted to underground roads. Since the roads on the surface are extremely short and narrow (barely wide enough for one car to pass in some instances) the underground roads provide easier and faster transportation through and across town.

You can see an 8 second video of our drive through one of these tunnels at the end of this post.

Our Tour

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Our tour hit the city's highlights. We started with a panoramic view of the colorful city from a vista point where the statue of El Pípila overlooks the city. We then drove down into the center of town, parked the van, and began our tour on foot.

The Diego Rivera Home/Museum was filled with many pieces of Rivera's different phases. One pencil sketch was of a Russian woman with whom he had a son who died when he was four years old. An oil portrait done in pointillism was of a daughter he had with another woman.

Dalí in Front of Mural

However, the most spectacular piece was a 50-foot long mural of many people in a park. Each person was identifiable, including many political figures, and next to Catrina, the skeleton, Diego as a child. Frieda Kahlo, his artist wife, appears right behind him.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was spectacularly covered in gold leaf everywhere we looked, including the huge pipe organ on the second floor in the back of the church. Many chandeliers also contributed to an atmosphere of wealth and opulence.

On the way out we were able to speak with the bell ringer. We asked if there was a pattern to how the bells were rung to tell the time. No, he replied, he just rang the bell as many times as the spirit moved him!

See our video at the end of this post.

The Don Quixote Iconographic Museum was filled with many different types of pieces of art that were all winners of the annual Don Quixote art contest. There is also a small theater inside for performing artists.

We enjoyed a marvelous lunch in an outdoor café of the Hotel Santa Fe and then returned home.