ONE MONTH REPORT – SMA

We arrived at Los Labradores, San Miguel de Allende, Gto, on June 12, 4 weeks ago today!

Our small 2 br. 2 ba, villa, or casita, #201, is one of several hundred houses of different sizes and configurations.  Some are attached with a common wall, others are free-standing with lush gardens.  In the middle of the community are a hotel, an auditorium, a café, swimming pools, a clay tennis court, offices, and other amenities.  Cielito Lindo is a separate residential facility that has assisted living and memory care and some of those services can be purchased a la carte at home if needed.

We have been to San Miguel numerous times usually in our RV although we rented a house in town one time and a couple of airbnb’s at other times.  San Miguel is a very popular tourist destination, not unlike Santa Fe in the U.S. except larger and a large population of Mexican families plus the ex-pats from Canada, the U.S. and a few other countries such as Germany.

We leased the villa for a year and have received our temporary resident visa which allows us to travel anytime, anywhere, for a year and then we decide to renew for another 3 years, or not.  It is also possible to get permanent residence status which is now easier than previously as long as you meet certain requirements for immigration.

The weather is great, cool nights, warm days, some rain and we are in the central highlands, at 6000’ about 3 hours northwest of Mexico City.  A day’s drive west puts us on the beach at Troncones, just north of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo.  In previous years we stayed in Bucerias and Los de Marcos, both on the coast north of Puerto Vallarta.  Our hope is to do some more internal trips, especially to the Yucatan .It is easy to fly internally instead of driving and then rent a car for a few days in a different place,

As we are setting up here we are learning how to navigate various services and finding some additional furnishings. We have the benefit and pleasure of a weekly housekeeper, Lupita;  a gardener who comes a couple of times a week, Angel; and the newest addition, Ellie, a cook, who will come once a week and prepare some meals of our choice for later consumption.  We are also taking Spanish lessons, again, and our teacher, a delightful Mexican woman, Patty Tello, is a former professor and Spanish teacher at Oklahoma University.  Her husband, Carlos, is an award-winning muralist, and they built a beautiful home here in the community a couple of years ago, a two-story, 4 br, 4 ba house with a small studio in the back garden.

We have most of our groceries delivered from La Comer although there are various markets with fresh produce, home baked pastries and other goodies too numerous to mention.  Amazon MX is almost as good as Amazon U.S. and we have a U.S. mailing address where mail is picked up regularly in Laredo, TX and then delivered by courier to a box we have here with a small business called Connexion.  Because of a large ex-pat community in San Miguel and here in Los Labradores, there are active networks and forums for frequent communication and connections.  We are 8 miles north of the city in a rural environment.

Medical and healthcare personnel and facilities are highly rated with specialists similar to those in the U.S. readily available upon referral from our PCP here in the community. Dental care in Mexico is as good as the U.S. and much less expensive.

We have plans on the drawing board to get back to the U.S, at least a couple of times this year, a summer trip later to Nantucket and a possible, probable Christmas trip to OKC.  We are close to receiving our first guests at the end of this month.  We would welcome a visit if you’re traveling this way. If we cannot accommodate you and you want room service, there are some first-class hotels in the city and a multi-story hotel here in our little community.  Hasta Luego!