The old mining town of Mineral de Pozos, located in the state of Guanajuato, is a five-and-a-half hour drive from Guadalajara but works well as a delightful day trip from nearby, ever-charming, San Miguel de Allende.
Our friend Nathan Mayfield, who lives in San Miguel, had invited us to visit Mineral de Pozos, which, he said, had been as rich and trendy as Paris, France about 100 years ago, after which it turned into a ghost town.
After driving to Nathan’s house and dining, we wandered the cobblestone streets of San Miguel by night, soaking up the charm of its quaint fountains, its sidewalks the width of your shoulders and its steep, crooked calles with shadowy nooks at every bend.
I couldn’t resist remarking that if I were wandering the alleyways of New York City, I’d be terrified of what might be lurking in those deep shadows, whereas in San Miguel de Allende, the play of darkness and light was a joy to behold. “Around here, all the streets are safe, even the darkest,” said Nathan.
This, I thought, was ironic, since the number of foreigners visiting San Miguel has been steadily dropping ever since the U.S. government put Mexico on its list of “dangerous or unstable countries” right along with Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Although, in my opinion, most parts of Mexico are just as safe (and in some cases safer) than most parts of the United States, the black list is taking its toll, as we noticed when we tried to visit San Miguel’s leading English-language bookstores only to discover that both have recently been forced to close their doors.
The next day we drove to Mineral de Pozos, which is located 43 kilometers northeast of San Miguel, as the crow flies. It took us about fifty minutes to get to this quiet, clean little town, which we drove straight through, because the pozos (vertical mine shafts or pits) for which it is named, are out in the countryside just west of the town itself.
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