Sean’s dad picked us up from Barbara Porter’s place in Centro the morning after the Dia del Los Muertos festivities and we went to the Tuesday market and breakfast of barbacoa tacos with consume, and some shopping. This was absolutely a locals place and we loved it. Fresh produce, butchers, tortillas, clothes, kitchen items, toys – this place had it all. Great experience.
After the market, we went to the local arts complex called Fabrica La Aurora. The weather was glorious – sunny, warm but not humid, and with a soft breeze – so it was lovely to be outside exploring the different galleries and shops along with the natural vegetation and hardscapes. Oh, and looking at ALL the creative Catrinas (skeletons) for the festival from the day before.
Next on our list to check out was the very high-end Rosewood hotel. We’d heard the Tamarind margaritas were delicious and that the rooftop views couldn’t be beat so of course we had to make a stop. We walked throughout the pristine grounds, enjoyed the beverages and even had a light lunch of a Sinoaloan-style shrimp cocktail and a fig pizza.
And since it was vacation, we spent he afternoon relaxing on the terrace back at Barbara Porter’s place. We found a nearby restaurant for dinner called Kookabura and sat on the roof with views of the cathedral. This city is ALL about the rooftops – more so than any other place I’ve been!
We found a local bar for a nightcap and it was beautiful. This is what was considered a “dive” on the web for the area. Haha! The margarita was also one fo the best I’ve ever had – they use key limes more frequently than Persian limes here and the flavors are a lot brighter as a result. 
Wednesday morning was really our only morning without an agenda so I slept in until about 10am! I do not remember the last time I did that. Sean got us breakfast tortas from a local shop and we walked down the street to the beautiful local park to eat them. Lovely.
We then wandered around Centro, going into various shops to buy some souvenirs, and checking out local galleries.
These huge papier-mache puppets called Mojigangas are everywhere in San Miguel and are used for festivals, weddings – all sorts of celebrations. Sean signed up us to paint our own mojiganguitas and we had a lot of fun doing it. We got to practice our Spanish quite a bit as our teacher spoke only a little English so we had to work together to understand each other – but it worked!! 🙂 And we got very unique items to bring home to remember this experience.
We stopped at another lookout point on our way to dinner at Terrazzo, a Mexican restaurant overlooking the city. We had such a great time at the restaurant, sipping on tamarind margaritas and eating molcajetes, shrimp cocktail, and carne asada with rajas and frijoles while watching the sun set over the city with the mountains in the distance.
