Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Meals for when you’re staying longer than a few days

Having already raved about our four favorite restaurants in the historic center of Guanajuato, thought we would share some other photos of meals for you to ponder if you are staying more than a few days. As we set up headquarters there for a month, we sampled a number of places.

When we wanted a fresh and light change of pace, we headed to the new location of Delica Mitsu on Del Tecolote. The bowls were ample and good, but the Japanese bento-style assortment beckoned us several times. We’d each go to the glass case and point to the five things we wanted plated for our lunch. No alcoholic beverages are available, but loved being able to get an intensely flavored iced jamaica (hibiscus) tea without sugar.

Another unexpected spot was Habibti Felafel. The interior was welcoming, but we ordered falafel to-go, the best falafel we have ever tasted, to eat wrapped in lettuce on our rooftop patio. Centro Bharati on Plaza Baratillo was the place I finally found a rustic loaf of multigrain bread to my liking. On weekends, a chef offers a pop-up to-go fresh paella stand in a doorway on Calle del Truco. Hard to beat the price by the kilo.

Any bar on the Jardin de la Union offers great people-watching, but you are mainly watching tourists and vendors trying to hawk things to you and other tourists while listening to the same mariachi songs over and over. It’s a festive atmosphere best enjoyed in small doses. Heading down the street, La Santurrona Gastropub has only a few outside tables adjacent to the Church of San Francisco. If you are lucky enough to snag one, you can escape the vendors and watch a continual parade of locals out for afternoon or evening strolls. The fries are tasty, and my sandwich overflowed with grilled vegetables.

Having developed a little gelato habit in Italy this summer, we dropped by Estacion Gelato to satisfy our cravings. The Mister was partial to the affogata (sort of an espresso float) with a scoop of canela gelato.

Am throwing in a few other photos from places worth trying, but where we had a dish or two that talked us out of enthusiastically recommending them.

 

Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: A few more snapshots

Having trouble leaving Guanajuato behind. Random images keep popping up on my computer. Here are a few more….

 

Attention, monarchs: Please fly south now for your winter vacation.

The migrating butterflies were extremely late and unusually reproductive this year. Migrating butterflies do not typically reproduce. Rather, they save their energy for a spring orgy in Mexico that launches the following year’s first generation of butterflies.

As October gave way to the first day of November and the hottest temperatures in history, Monarchs continued their reproductive activities–dropping eggs, hatching caterpillars and forming chrysalises up until Election Day. Scientists, citizen scientists and casual observers all wondered: what the heck is going on?

Monica Maeckle, Texas Butterfly Ranch

butterfly2The monarchs are worrying me. They are still here, yet they have so far to go. Large ones* flutter in the trees across the yard from my writer’s perch. The small new beds of milkweed along the river in the King William area are covered with them,* and caterpillars still are stripping leaves to bulk up for their conversion into flyers. They don’t seem worried at all.

caterpillarAlways have been amazed that some of these fluttering flimsy-seeming creatures fly all the way from Montreal, Canada, to Michoacán, Mexico. The caterpillar in the photo is a lucky one we spied on a friend’s patio in Queretaro last month. When he sprouts wings, he will have a much shorter journey to the monarchs’ winter haven.

But the ones on the river and outside my window need to hurry southward before a freeze heads this way. We’re not sure we can count on Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to spring from the pages of Uncle Wiggily to patch frozen wings with marshmallow cream.

In Flight Behavior, author Barbara Kingsolver weaves a tale of climate changes confusing migrating monarchs, causing them to lose their bearings and tragically roost in Appalachia one winter.

Entomologist Dr. Ovid Byron speaking to television journalist, Tina, who says, re: global warming, “Scientists of course are in disagreement about whether this is happening and whether humans have a role.”

He replies: “The Arctic is genuinely collapsing. Scientists used to call these things the canary in the mine. What they say now is, The canary is dead. We are at the top of Niagara Falls, Tina, in a canoe. There is an image for your viewers. We got here by drifting, but we cannot turn around for a lazy paddle back when you finally stop pissing around. We have arrived at the point of an audible roar. Does it strike you as a good time to debate the existence of the falls?”

Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior

*Assuming these are monarchs and not monarch mimickers? My expertise in identifying butterflies is nonexistent.

Note added August 2, 2024: Jewels of Queretaro, Mexico. Like shimmering jade pendants ringed with golden beads, they hang within hidden garden walls near the milkweed they’ve almost stripped bare. Gleaming gems get shearer by the day, revealing previews of the wings that will soon carry them away. Will they remain fluttering amongst the blossoms here, a shortcut to their wintering spot in Michoacan, or will Mother Nature insist they fly roundtrip to El Norte first?