Ruminations of an Expatriate

Yesterday morning I had breakfast at the Villa Las Margaritas with four other gringos in celebration of the seventy some birthday of Dorothy, a hard boiled Texan expatriate who has resided in Mexico for many years and who evokes in me thoughts of Ann Richards and Molly Ivins.

The breakfast was very good, but the colonial mansion in which the hotel and restaurant is housed, at the corner of Lucio and Carillo, is truly astounding.

The restaurant is located in a two-story interior courtyard/atrium, with hotel rooms surrounding on both the lower and upper levels.

The second floor balcony which provides access to rooms, and is accessed by the sweeping staircase shown above, is supported by thick, artfully done columns which extend to arches (I think they would be considered Roman arches) which support the roof structure.

If you’re in Xalapa try out the Villa Las Margaritas. Though not offered yesterday, due to technical difficulties, there is normally a Sunday brunch.

It is really a wonderfully beautiful place with good food and service. A room can be had for as little as $700. pesos per night.

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There is a great trattoria type restaurant in the neighborhood which recently moved from a rather sterile, commercial type building, a couple of blocks South of my apartment, to a really nice colonial home a couple of blocks North of here (on the Northwest corner of the intersection of Azueta and Victoria, for you locals).

The food and service are very good, there is a good wine selection, there is jazz on Fridays, and the woman who owns the place lives across the typical colonial interior courtyard from the restaurant, so her kids hang out in the restaurant and courtyard.

Another really nice feature, which I have never previously encountered in  a restaurant, was a fellow who arrived to entertain the restaurant’s young patrons with juggling and story telling. The children and I were enthralled.

The proprietor has removed the plaster from the walls at this corner as an esthetic effect, but it shows the typical historical construction here.

The older buildings here, as in Merida, are constructed of unreinforced mortared stone. Newer buildings are generally reinforced concrete columns and beams, with the area between the columns filled with concrete block or brick. The walls are typically plastered and the floors and roofs are generally of reinforced concrete, often with an additional roof covering of tiles or various types of membranes.

If you’re in the neighborhood do yourself a favor and stop into Tavola for a bite and libation.

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The American Heritage Dictionary informs us that an epiphyte is “A plant, such as a tropical orchid or a staghorn fern, that grows on another plant upon which it depends for mechanical support but not for nutrients. Also called aerophyte , air plant .”

Epiphytes, especially orchids and ferns, are pervasive in trees hereabouts. This specimen, an orchid I think, apparently wasn’t able to find a tree so attached itself to a mortar patch on this building wall.

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Downtown Xalapa is adorned with red, white, and green flags, banners, and tinsel hanging from building and across the principle streets. Red, white, and green, for those who don’t know, are the colors of the Mexican flag.

The photo above shows the adornments to the city’s main cathedral and, in the distance, city hall.

September 16 is a day of celebration, which actually begins the night before, to commemorate Father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 issuance of his famous El Grito, or call to arms against the Spanish colonialists, from a balcony in Dolores, a town which now carries his name. Within a couple of weeks Guanajuato became the site of the opening battle of Mexico’s ten year war of independence, with the successful rebel attack on the Alhondiga de Granadies.

Each year on Independence Day the President of the Republic rings Hidalgo’s bell, now located in the National Palace, and reenacts issuance of El Grito de Dolores.