Remembrances of La Puertecita

I’m having dinner tonight at La Puertecita with its owner, Claudia Kay. She and her husband, John, were the ones who first invited me to San Miguel de Allende back in 1997 so I am particularly fond of this little hotel which Claudia has run by herself ever since John died on August 7, 2002.

I remember how in the mornings at La Puertecita I would sleep late, partially because of the fireworks that boomed over the town well past midnight every evening and partially because La Puertecita was perched on a hillside and the sun did not fall on it until almost noon. Every morning, while falling in and out of sleep, I’d hear the gardeners out on the patio and around the grounds watering the vibrant red and orange and yellow canna lilies, removing the fine white dust raised by the campesinos who moved their stock up and down the dry seco below the hotel.

Photo by David Lansing.

Photo by David Lansing.

Eventually I’d get up and order a pot of Guadalupe’s Mexican coffee, with its sweet smoky taste, and a basket of toasted bodillos and perhaps some tortillas coated with cinnamon and sugar. I’d sit at one of the white wrought iron garden tables with the tile top of blue flowers and drink my coffee and listen to the gardeners call to each other as they moved through the grounds. I’d watch the wild green parrots fly overhead and the pea hens that roosted on low branches of the trees and the birds with yellow plumage that I’d never seen before.

And always there were the cooing love doves making their soft, comforting noises. I’d drink my coffee and look around me and feel as if I was in a rarified garden. A garden of Eden. It was heaven on earth and I knew that it couldn’t possibly last.

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1 comment

  1. Sonia’s avatar

    Sounds amazing there.

    Smiles

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