The overnight travel was long. Gruelling in the way that medium-tough tasks can be when you're too tired to be efficient or all there. LAX is a nightmare of a place, huge lines, rude people, an all but total lack of signage. Terrible. But we got through and out and had an uneventful flight to Leon. I had a row of 3 seats to myself, and Cathy got stuck by a window inside a giant of a mom and her sneezy son who slept all over her.
The shuttle into San Miguel was also easy. My first ever experience of someone waiting outside the gate in an airport holding a sign with my name on it. It took us all the way to the hacienda on Correo in San Miguel. High wooden double doors press up against the narrow sidewalk lining the cobblestone street. Katie, the intern for our friend Derek's company, opened the huge wooden gate to us and led us inside. Hacienda indeed.
Inside the gate, an arched entryway holds the small Renault of the absent owners. Narrow double wooden doors on the left lead into the main house. Straight back, a bricked path between the house and the wall opposite, covered in planters whose donkey eared cedum cascade to the ground, leads through a beautiful lush garden, past a small man-made pond, to an open area of the courtyard, fronting the casita. It's a two-story structure with an iron spiral staircase leading to a set of double doors on the second floor.
Upstairs, inside, the quarters are small, simple, and immaculate. Floor and ceiling are tiled and bricked, the ceiling occasionally giving way to a thick carved glass brick serving as skylight. Bedroom, kitchen/dining area, bathroom. We'd be comfortable there for the week.
After a nap, I grabbed a Modelo and headed for the roof of the main house. Derek would arrive soon and I needed to let him in. The view up top was amazing, looking out over the rolling terrain of other rooftops of the city. Like this one, most have some sort of patio and seating and garden on the roof. In the distance, beyond the numerous church domes and spores, the city gives way to arid plans and then to hills jutting up from the valley floor. The bright colors of the buildings sit in contrast to the hazy, cloud-streaked sky and the dim hills beyond.
It's nice to be somewhere again. It's been too long since I last left the US, and even though I've not gone too far, it feels good to be gone.
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