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Parade in San Miguel de Allende
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Celebrations, both civic and religious, are important in the life of San Miguel de Allende as in the rest of Mexico. As one of the key sites in the Mexican Independence movement that began in 1810, San Miguel de Allende takes the birthday of Ignacio de Allende, one of the founders of the revolution, seriously. The town was even renamed for him, being originally San Miguel de Grande. Dating back to the 1500's, San Miguel became a thriving commercial city during the heyday of the mining activity that began in the 1600's. Its location made it a convenient staging area for the distribution of the product of the mines of Guanajauto and other colonial cities in the central Mexico highlands. The wealth created by this industry led to the construction of beautiful homes and buildings and churches in the centro that mostly still stand today, albeit the skyline is marred by power lines and satelite dishes and modern day traffic struggles to navigate the narrow and steep roads that were designed for horses, burros and carriages. Today the colonial buildings are being used as hotels, shops, banks, and government offices.
To celebrate Allende's birthday, the town stages a several hour long parade along one of the major streets that marks one side of the jardin, which is what they call the main plaza. One of the idiosyncracies of SMA is that many of the major streets change names every few blocks. The parade route comes down San Francisco which changes its name to Plaza Principal right along the jardin and then becomes Canal Street, which is named after one of the wealthy founding families, not a canal. There is an effort underway to make more of the streets around the jardin into pedestrial walkways but at this time this street is usually open to traffic. On parade day, the local dignataries view the parade from the balconies of the civic buildings and the rest of us scramble for the best viewing positions along the curb or the steps leading up to the jardin.
The parade consists of police and military groups, including some trucks and tanks, and representative groups from local schools who march in their uniforms. Occasionally there is music from a drum and bugle corp. It seemed like every child between 8 and 16 marched by with solemn expressions on their faces and their uniforms starched and pressed to perfection. Later concerts by the Navy Band and fireworks rounded out the celebration. More thumbnails ...
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