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 The family in Aguascalientes saw us off at the bus station, and we had to go to Leon to catch the bus for San Miguel de Allende (double L sounds like Y, so Allende is A-Yen-day. Unless you’re in Argengentina, where it’s Ashenday).

The drive from Leon was fascinating. What incredible country. Georgeous — and a little frightening in its barren, high desert beauty. Cactus (lots of cactus), short trees with needle leaves, brown grass when there was any grass at all, mountains in the background. Gorgeous. Every once in a while there would be a lone stone, cement or cinderblock house with maybe a few cows about. Mile after mile of this. One can only imagine crossing this 100 years ago or more.

The bus station at San Miguel de Allende is tiny. No lobby or anything that the others have had. San Miguel (hereafter known as SMA) supposedly has a very large foreign (mostly U.S.) population. It certainly didn’t look it on the taxi ride into town. It seemed very much the tiny Mexican village parching in the hot sun. But the closer we got to town, the more new construction we saw, the fancier the hotels became, etc. I expect the prices here to be higher than what we’ve been seeing, thanks to all the ex-pats.

We only had time for a walk into the Center and a quick bite to eat so I’m not going to relate anything about SMA with this post, other than to say that the walk took about 20 minutes and that’s probably what it will take us to get to our school.

What I am going to tell you about is our “room”. In Guanajuato, we spent $30 a night. I knew that this week in SMA was going to be the last time Sherry and I would see each other for a couple of weeks, and I didn’t want to do the whole trip on the cheap (although we did quite nicely on the cheap, thank you very much). So this “room” cost twice as much. To be accurate, rooms anywhere near the Center cost twice as much anyway, as a rule. We’re paying $400 U.S. for 6 nights, which is about $66 U.S. per night. Still not bad by rates at home. And this time we hit the jackpot.

 I knew it was called the “Penthouse”, but you can never tell about how something is listed. They often don’t look like the pictures (and to be fair, it’s difficult for an amateur to take a picture of a room). This place is on the top floor, has a wraparound deck (complete with table, hammock and mood lighting) and a drop dead view of the city. And once it got dark, wow again. And the inside is just as charming because it’s almost wall to wall windows with the same view. A bedroom and combination living room and kitchen, but big. The whole place is really tastefully done. Elegant. Plus, cable tv, with lots of channels — the best part of that is that there are English language movies with Spanish subtitles, and we LOVE that. And best of all, wi-fi that seems to work. Hurray. Let’s hope that lasts.

Tomorrow is a holiday in Mexico, and we hope that SMA has some goings-on. We’ll let you know.

Tags:   immersion · Immersion school · Immersion Schools · Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · Mexico · San Miguel de Allende · SMA · Spanish · speak Spanish · Travel Spanish1 Comment