visit to Dolores Hidalgo
Tuesday Feb. 11
Esteban our driver arrived as requested at 9.30 a.m., to take us out of the city to the small town of Dolores Hidalgo and then to the Galeria of Atotonilco, a folk art museum recommended by Alberto in Mexico City. The ride was an endurance test; San Miguel’s streets are cobbled and so the ride is always slow and very bumpy, plus there are high concrete speed bumps everywhere even though you can’t go more than 10 mph on the cobbles. (I asked Esteban about that and he talked about the number of young men killed on motorcycles, so maybe it’s to slow them down?) But the highway outside the city is being ripped up, so the entire way was dirt road with construction equipment and men with scarves over their noses and mouths working on something or other.
However, it’s such a luxury to be in a nice car driven by a nice man who will wait while you wander and be there when you want to set off again. I could get used to that.
Mexico is a lesson in the power and glory of the Catholic church. It’s so strange to come into a dusty little town like Dolores Hidalgo, with mostly humble one-story houses lining dusty streets, and then walk into a cathedral so enormous and glittering, so packed with gold, statues, chandeliers, sculptures, paintings et al, it could be in a tourist city in Italy or France. A disconnect. There was one later in Anontonilco too, an even smaller town, a slightly smaller church but still filled with impressive stuff. Jim pointed out both churches have wooden floors, which are rare in Mexico; they are intended to make barefoot peasants aware that here was something special.
We visited the museum in DH; it’s the town where the revolution against the Spaniards began in 1810, when local priest Hidalgo gave a cry that incited the fight. There are many statues everywhere to him and other freedom fighters. Mexicans love statues.
The Galeria we thought was a museum but it’s a store-museum; that is, full of wonderful things to look at by local artists, all for sale. An American couple started a collection of folk art, built a spectacular house and the Galeria that has helped the careers of many Mexican artists. The wife of the couple is Susan Page, who founded the Writers’ Conference and is now running it again after a hiatus.
We bumped back to Jim’s, where I said goodbye to my dear friends and loaded my stuff into Esteban’s car; he drove me to the hotel where I picked up my conference material and took my books to the bookstore. In line in front of me there was the Canadian writer couple Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds, San Miguel and Conference mainstays. The lobby was buzzing with writing keeners. I remembered my time attending in 2020, how exciting it was.
On the way to my billet, we stopped at a vast grocery store – bigger and more impressive than any I’ve seen in Canada – for me to use the bank machine and buy a bottle of Mexican wine. I suspected my hostess might not have alcohol, and I was right. We got lost getting here but found it, a gated community in the north of the city, a half hour walk to the hotel. Linda is an older American woman who has lived in Mexico for over 25 years. She showed me my big bright room where at last I can really unpack and get organized. And then – O heaven – I had a quick swim in the pool right outside her door. We had dinner together and talked about our children and grandchildren and of course touched on American politics, as everyone does. We are 100% on the same page.
Tomorrow it all begins with a plenary session at 9 a.m., a book discussion at 10.45, a faculty lunch at 12.30, an agent panel at 2.15, a reception at 5, and a keynote speaker – John Irving – at 6.30. I might be tired by then.
Pix: Dolores Hidalgo is famous for its ceramics. If only I could bring some of these pots home! The plain little church there, with its plain little altar. Jim contemplating another tableau; the Mexicans, like the Spaniards, like their religious iconography graphic and bloody. Two shots of the folk art museum. Susan Page’s extraordinary ultra-modern house next door. A view of the city tucked into the mountains.
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