top of page

Atención: Interactions. This Is a Two-Way Street (Apparently)

  • hace 1 hora
  • 2 Min. de lectura

By Lisa Babincsak



If you want to understand San Miguel's emotional landscape, don't go to therapy.


Drive.


Specifically, drive through Centro on a cobblestone street that's somehow both narrower than your car and—according to every map and local signage—a legal two-way. You'll learn a lot about yourself. Like how much patience you actually have. And whether you believe in a higher power—because you're about to need one.


There are streets here that require mutual trust, divine intervention, and at least one good backup camera. You inch forward hoping no one is coming, because if they are, you're both about to play the most nerve-wracking game of chicken ever invented. You make eye contact through windshields. Someone has to blink first. Someone has to reverse into oncoming traffic with one tire on the sidewalk.


I used to like driving.


Then I moved here.


Take Cuesta de Loreto, for example. It's steep, blind, and officially two-way, because San Miguel doesn't believe in logic—just vibes.


One afternoon I was inching down, foot on the brake, praying, when I reached the bottom—only to find that Salida a QuerĆ©taro was completely blocked by the Locos Parade.


Music. Dancers. Full floats. Zero exit.


I was stuck at the bottom of a slope with nowhere to go and no traction to reverse uphill.


A police officer appeared. Then eight random men. Everyone started shouting suggestions in Spanish I suddenly couldn't understand. My tires spun. My dignity evaporated.


Next thing I know, I'm standing in front of my own car, feet braced against a wall, helping push myself backwards. My arms were shaking. I looked up—three more cars had now come down behind me. Also stuck.


It was a full-on cobblestone crisis.


This wasn't unusual.


There are dozens of streets like this here. Streets designed for donkeys that now host SUVs.


Streets with potholes that feel personal.


And yet we all keep driving.


Because in San Miguel, it's not just the architecture that's colonial—it's the traffic planning.


We've paved over donkey paths and called them streets. We've painted lines as if intention creates infrastructure.


It doesn't.


But we believe it anyway. So, we inch ahead, reversing when we must, trusting strangers to help push when we can't.


That's San Miguel.


Regards,

Lisa

Lisa BabincsakĀ is a San Miguel–based writer, interior designer, and real estate agent. Her deeper work tracks how we lost our humanity and maps the path for return.

textured-white-paper-Long-correct-version.jpg
Logo Atencion News.Website red only atencion.png

ADVERTISE
WITH US!

textured-white-paper.jpg
Logo Atencion News.Website (1).png

ATENCIÓN NEWS TEAM

camieinmx@gmail.com

Tel: +52-1-415-114-9007

ADVERTISING & P.R.
amy.grothlin@gmail.com
WA: +52 415 149 56 74

textured-white-paper.jpg

Sign up here by including your e-mail to receive each issue by e-mail

Thanks!

textured-white-paper.jpg

Atención News San Miguel de Allende, edited every month
Publisher: Camie Fenton
Graphic Design: eledesign.com.mx
Sales & PR: Amy G. Rothlin
 amy.grothlin@gmail.com
Web Design: schultzz.co

 

THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THE ATENCIÓN NEWS SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE ARE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHORS

bottom of page