Hidden Gems Of San Miguel de Allende



Roger Funston


 
© Copyright 2026 by Roger Funston



 Mask of Payoso (clown). Photo by the author.
Mask of  Payoso (clown). Photo by the author.
 
When most North Americans think of Mexico, they think beach resorts, Mexico City, pyramids… and cartels. But Mexico is a large, culturally and biological diverse country not easily catagorized, much the same as the United States. One must use common sense to avoid known areas of gangs and crime anywhere in the world.

My wife and I have visited San Miguel de Allende four times and will shortly leave for our fifth trip. A UNESCO World Heritage site, San Miguel de Allende is famous for its baroque and neo-classical Spanish colonial architecture. The buildings have colorful fasades, often with ornate stone carvings and heavy wooden doors, some from the 18th century. Cobblestone streets and intimate courtyards with elaborate fountains are commonplace.

The tourist books extol the many wonderful sights to see: Parroquia de Archangel Miguel, Sanctuario de Atotonilco, La Gruta Spa, Biblioteca Pública, Museo de la Esquina, Galleria de Atotonilco and Mercado Ignacio Ramirez, to name a few. We have visited all these and many other wonderful destinations.

But there are some fascinating destinations not in the tourist books. I want to share my experience at two wonderful places: Museo de la Mascara (Mask Museum) and Rancho Via Orgánica.

Museo de la Máscara

"Is this the place?" The Uber driver has dropped us off in a residential neighborhood on a hill in San Miguel de Allende. No signage, just a heavy wooden door. We ring the bell. “Hola, estamos aquí para el recorrido”. (We are here for the tour). We hear a buzz and push the door open.

We enter a cavernous courtyard with a fountain. It has a terracota clay base decorated with folk art figurines. The back is dark blue tile, There are two terracotta clay bowls, one half way up, the other near the top. The fountain sits on a cobblestone floor surrounded by plants. There is a mural of a dancing señora in a red flowery dress. A cylindrical ceramic piece depicts an indigenous family. Several masks sit on indented shelves in the walls with glass covers.

We climb the stairs, open the door and enter a room where a group of 20 are gathered. Greeted by a 70 something Norte Americano man wearing an LL Bean plaid shirt, vest and casual slacks. He gives a 30 minute lecture on indigenous tribes and how the museum came to be. He is engaging and humorous, passionately sharing with anyone who listens. Admission is a hundred pesos ($5) donation.

The house and museum were built on bare ground in 1997. After his world travels in a corporate job, he decided to move to San Miguel de Allende to pursue his passion. With no academic credentials, he spent 26 years in the field with an archeologist. He learned about indigenous cultures, who have kept and passed on their traditions through generations. He acquired indigenous masks used in ceremonies, becoming an expert and university lecturer.

There are sixty-four languages recognized in the Mexican Constitution, concentrated in southern part of Mexico. These tribes were never conquered by the Conquistadores because they live mostly in remote mountainous areas or deserts.

Indigenous owners of the masks often refused to part with them as they were inherited from their great-grandfathers. They sometimes offer a less cherished mask, the ones displayed in the museum.

The actual museum spans three rooms. We spend time examining each of the amazing masks. Several catch my eye. One with a toothy open mouth, black dye under eyes and nose, gray hair and beard. Another with white eyes, red-tipped, smiling with tufts of brown hair and beard. A third with red cheeks, eye holes, bushy eyebrows and beard.

A map on the wall shows the location of every indigenous tribe.

A streaming video show masks worn during ceremonies, rooted in pre-Hispanic traditions. Masks are used in ritual dances that transform the dancer into a spirit, ancestor or deity, praying for community welfare and prosperity. The masks often appear as jaguars, serpents, deer or coyotes, the devil, mocking Spaniards or satirical figures, clowns or old men.

Indigenous tribes in Mexico struggle to balance their traditions while simultaneously facing the challenges of minorities living in the modern world: poverty, lack of access to health, education, housing and systematic discrimination, impacting their cultural survival.

I’m thinking these thoughts while at the same time enthralled by the colorful variety, shapes and creativity of masks in this off-the-tourist route hidden gem. Still in the museum after most have left, the owner invites me into a room with masks for sale. The first mask that catches my eye is $20,000 (dollars). Time to move on. Then I see it. The curator’s catalogue labels it Payoso (clown). It was made by the Totonac tribe in the State of Vera Cruz. It’s pink-colored, smiling, with black irises, holes instead of eyebrows and a blue and red face paint. It now adorns my living room wall.

indigenous culture
celebrated with ornate masks
link past and future

Rancho Vía Orgánica

In 2000, Señora Rosana Alvarez, a fourth-generation resident of San Miguel de Allende was tired of traveling back and forth between San Miguel and the US. She and her American-born husband had been selling Mexican folk art in the US for years. She decided to stay put. She opened an organic grocery, visited farms, learned about organic farming and caught the sustainable agriculture bug.

A chance meeting with the President of Sustainable Farms Association, Minnesota-based non-profit, encouraged her to set up a sustainable farm, including the funding to get started. In 2006, Rosanna bought a few hundred acres of semi-arid land near San Miguel de Allende.

Fast forward 20 years. Rancho Vía Orgánica is fully functional, with acres of covered vegetable beds grown without pesticides, free range cows, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, raised without hormones.

Every building has gutters to collect rainwater. Human and animal waste is composted, enriching nutrient deficient desert soil. Equipment runs on solar power. Interns, students and graduates of agricultural colleges, mostly young women, learn by doing. They are treated like family, later returning to their own family farms to implement what they have learned.

We were the only diners at the restaurant, serving food grown and prepared onsite, including rabbit burgers, commonly eaten in Mexico. We didn’t have the heart to order it after seeing the cute bunnies on the tour. Señora Alvarez pulled up a chair to chat with us, the kind of friendliness you come to expect in Mexico.

Rosanna’s latest ambitious initiative- the billion agave project, a ground-breaking approach for rehabilitating semi-arid lands. Agave plants and nitrogen-fixing trees are planted, needing little or no irrigation, essential in a low rainfall area. Agave leaves are pruned, crushed, placed in containers in anerobic condions. Thirty days later, this material becomes animal feed, good for up to 30 months if properly stored. Overgrazing impacts reduced. Soil health and water retention improved.

So exciting to see this type of community grass roots project take off.

starting with an small egg
hatching and growing
determination
by an inspiring woman
making a difference

On your next trip to Mexico, visit the amazing interior colonial cities: Guanajuato, Querétaro and Puebla for a totally different Mexican experience. Practice your Spanish because few speak English.



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