Why we are not moving to San Miguel de Allende after all - Marge

Here we are in San Miguel de Allende. We left Puerto Vallarta and the broken stove and various issues in our dust and drove up here to the central highlands a couple of days ago.

We are not moving to San Miguel after all. Had been so sure we would! All the wonderful descriptions! And the stories of people arriving for a vacation and buying a house here after a few days! All the art! The culture! The beautiful streets and the wonderful plaza-the jardin-where people sit in the morning drinking coffee. We pictured ourselves drinking coffee there too! Not sure what happened but the town we read about is not the town we found! First of all, the air is bad, the exhaust from the many buses is so bad you don't want to inhale. It's astonishingly bad! Nearly unbearable. Also, there were fires outside the town when we arrived, with flames right up to the road in places, and I believe they're still burning. There's an air inversion, trapping the smoke from the fires and the bus exhaust and the car exhaust and all the rest in place above San Miguel. The sky is hazy. There's no horizon!

The strangest thing, never mentioned in all I read about San Miguel, is that the town is all alone! It's in the middle of the most enormous, arid wasteland! Like the driest parts of eastern Washington, with no towns nearby (except Guanajuato 30 miles away) and no villages or settlements only the high plains stretching as far as the eye can see, as you drive, all a kind of beige with blackish vegetation and a few different kinds of cacti to add interest. I had no idea how isolated the town is! You have to really want to go there! And the altitude--over a mile high. The air is thin and you have to be conscious of breathing (either the bad respiratory effects of my recent influenza or the altitude--or possibly just nervousness about the altitude).

Also, there are too many people! The sidewalks are narrow and crowded and every few steps you have to step down into the street to let someone go by. Everywhere there are crowds to push through, while trying not to breathe deeply. The streets are crowded too. You can leave your car at home but even in a taxi or a bus, getting anywhere takes a long time. There is too much traffic and no place to park. There are expensive shops full of expensive goods for expats, and galleries with expensive art. There are classes to take (some that sounded very interesting to me!) but many are priced in dollars, and cost way too much for people living on Social Security and a pension! There are charming restaurants where you want to take a picture of your food and post it to Facebook, but we haven't gone to them--too hard to get there. We have just been eating at local restaurants or at our Airbnb rental. Both of us had influenza and neither of us is completely well. That doesn't help, of course.

Since we have decided not to live here we are cutting our stay in San Miguel short. Leaving soon for Ajijic. Maybe we will live there? I hope so!