La Grutta y La Grotta

After being away, it brought home to me that life is short, and that my life here is even shorter, so I really wanted to jump back into San Miguel life.

I was doing Yoga for a while in SF, and it's really good for me, so I wanted to restart it here. I found a class from an ad in the local newspaper, and went for a 90 minute session Monday morning. The cool thing about yoga here is that most classes are taught in English and Spanish, so I get to improve my vocabulary (especially body parts) while also getting a good workout.

After class, Sue met me in town and we went to La Gruta, a hot springs resort just five minutes away from School. This place is more adult than Xote, but it is still pretty neat. (Sorry, I can't use the word "cool" when talking about hot springs.) They have 4 or 5 pools, which are much hotter than Xote. But the most interesting is one where you walk through a cave to get to a covered pool inside a dome. Then at some point, a stream of hot water comes gushing out of the wall, and it's the most intense hot shower you've ever experienced. After a tiring Yoga class, this was a welcome treat. We'll definitely be back.



Finally, we got the kids, and went to an awesome restaurant called La Grotta. I had a pasta with mushrooms and chorizo, which was great, and Sue had a shrimp dish with poblano chiles and mushrooms, which was outstanding. Even Laurel's chorizo and cheese pizza (nothing else) was satisfying. It was pretty reasonable too.

We finished the day by walking back to the Jardin, where they had a ceremony commemorating an event in the revolution where the "conspirators" rode from Queretaro to San Miguel (about 50 miles). About 80 horsemen dressed up in white shirts and red kerchiefs rode into town, and showed off their riding prowess. There were speeches and beauty queens and such. As soon as they finished, about 20 buses came and parked in the Jardin, doing some sort of political protest. They had banners, and some scribble-scrabble on the buses. It was definitely not an environmental protest, as the diesel buses were kept running for almost an hour.

As always, the kids had a great time running around the Jardin, and Anne from Baltimore was there with her kids and parents, so we all hung out for a while and enjoyed the spectacle.