Cañada de la Virgen Video

Here's a short video of our recent visit to Cañada de la Virgen, our newest attraction. It's a 20 mile trip from San Miguel de Allende, and it is well worth a visit.

Archeological site of Cañada de la Virgen

We recently visited the newly opened archeological site of Cañada de la Virgen located approximately 20 miles from San Miguel de Allende. We spent the morning exploring the ruins with Albert Coffee, an archeologist and tour guide that has been directly involved with the excavation of the site for several years.

If you choose to visit the park, you must know that you will need to park at the entrance and take a shuttle with a guide to a spot located about 1km from the ruins. From there, you will walk the rest of the way.

Here are some pictures that we took of the site.

Hiking Peña De Bernal and Wine Tasting, a Perfect Day-trip From San Miguel de Allende

Located about an hour-and-a-half from our bed and breakfast in San Miguel de Allende, La Pena de Bernal is one of the world’s tallest monoliths. It is 1,150 feet tall, and its peak reaches an elevation of 8,230 ft. That's about 2,000 feet higher than San Miguel. The hike from the base takes about an hour, and good shoes are a must, although on our recent trip we saw many ladies doing the hike in heels!

Earlier this winter we spent a fun-filled day hiking the monolith, eating lunch at the nearby town of San Sebastian Bernal (known simply as “Bernal” to the locals) and wine tasting at Freixenet winery.

Here’s how we spent our day (the times are approximate, as we didn’t really keep track of time.)

• 9 A.M. – We hop into our friends van and head out of town on the road to Queretaro.

• 10:30 A.M. – We reach our destination, a visitors’ parking lot at the base of the monolith, and after a quick potty pit stop, we begin our hike.

• 11:30 A.M. – After many stops along the trail to enjoy the views, we reach the highest accessible point, which is about two-thirds of the way up. The rest of the way is left to the expert mountain climbers.
  

• Noon – We begin the trek back down to the base.

• 1:00 – 1:30 P.M. – Back at the base we visit the market and buy some beer (post-hike carbo-load ;)) apple wine and candy for later.

• 1:30 to 3:00 P.M. – After a short drive to the center of town, we have lunch at a nice Italian restaurant followed by a stroll around town.

• 3:00 to 3:30 P.M. – Back in the car, we head to the Freixenet Winery.

• 4:00 to 4:50 P.M – At the winery, we join a free guided tour of the facilities. The tour is given in Spanish only.

• 5:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.– Wine tasting for 20 pesos a glass. The sparkling wines were pretty good.

• 6:00 to 7:30 P.M. – Drive back to San Miguel de Allende.

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Sabino de la Huerta - The Really Big Tree Near San Miguel de Allende

Recently, our friends told us about a huge tree located near the Allende reservoir and asked if we wanted to go check it out. We happily agreed and hopped into their 7-seater along with their two girls and their friend and headed out of town.


Just past the dam on the road to Guanajuato, we took the small road on the left and continued through an old abandoned train tunnel until we reached the little town of la Huerta, located just 12 miles from San Miguel de Allende. We parked the car and headed up a very nicely maintained cobblestone path where we saw a variety of farm animals. The cobblestones gave way to a massive system of knotty roots that seemed to weave in and out of solid rock!

We found ourselves in the shadow of one of the largest trees we had ever seen. We're talking serious girth!


The trunk was huge! It’s so big, in fact, that some say it takes 17 people to form a ring around its base. We tried it with four and didn't get very far.


We can't offer much information about the tree other than it is known as Sabino de la Huerta (the blue sign at the end of the path says so), and it is very big and beautiful. Also, according to the "interwebs," it is a bald cypress.


Continuing on past ol’ Sabino, we trekked up a hill spotting some pretty interesting flora and fauna.


We saw a variety of flowering cacti, the quintessential mother and baby burros and a few dung beetles, among other things.


Check out the following video clip of a dung beetle hard at work!



We continued up the hill until we reached the top of the ridge.


The view from this vantage point was absolutely fantastic!


The tree and the surrounding area was a very nice discovery for us, and the day turned out to be another perfect day in San Miguel de Allende!


View San Miguel de Allende to Sabino de la Huerta in a larger map