Living in Mexico Part Two. Why we retired to Mexico

There are nice places to live all over the world.

Maybe you like how far the U.S. dollar goes in Mexico, Thailand, and Costa Rica.  Maybe you want more sun, and if you are going to move to an all-new place in Arizona or Florida, why not move to a better place just a bit farther away?

The first step in thinking about moving abroad is whether it is feasible in the first place. The second question is that suite of pluses and minuses that determine if you would in fact do it and where you would go. Every expatriate has a story. College classmates, husband and wife Erich Almasy and Cynthia Blanton, made their decision.

Guest Post by Erich Almasy

As a history lover, I could easily say that México represents such a vital and fascinating role in developing the Western Hemisphere that it drew me like a geographic magnet. And this is partly true. Growing up, I was enthralled by the story of Hérnan Cortés and his 800 conquistadors overwhelming an Aztec Empire, as told in a fabulist firsthand account by his sidekick Bernal Diaz Del Castillo (The Discovery and Conquest of México). Only later did I discover that Cortés and his 30,000 Tlaxcala allies initially had their asses handed to them by Moctezuma. After measles had decimated (and I use the “new” definition meaning annihilated) the Aztec troops, the Spaniards prevailed. I wept when John Wayne and Richard Widmark died in the movie The Alamo, only to read later in Forget the Alamo by Texans Bryan Burroughs, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford that the battle was all about protecting slavery in Texas after the Mexican government had banned it. Knowing nothing about the Mexican-American War, I was genuinely mortified by the atrocities committed by the United States. Ulysses S. Grant (who was there) later stated in his memoirs, “I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico.”

However, history alone does not compel one to leave one’s home country. In 1997, my employer asked me to take an “interim” post as the head of their Canadian practice. I have always worked as a management consultant and, in the previous twenty-five years, rarely found myself with a hometown client requiring no overnight travel. I had just achieved that and was enjoying the benefits of living and working in New York City. Suddenly, I was commuting weekly to Toronto, and within two years, I was asked to move there full-time. My wife Cynthia and I decided to try a foreign adventure and spent an interesting 20 years as Canucks (a slightly derogatory term like Hoosiers and Sooners but also embraced).

 Came the time for retiring. Where to go? What kind of life did we want? Not sedentary! No place requiring highways and cars. Not culturally deprived! No bland cities or empty countryside, even if beautiful. Not conservative or religious! That was prohibited by a progressive upbringing and a Harvard education. Not provincial and mildly standoffish! We had plenty of that in Canada (sorry, not sorry). The choices began to be self-limiting. Italy was one of our favorite places, but we should have bought that villa in Tuscany in 1980. Costa Rica was invigorating, but what do you talk about after six months: hallucinogenic frogs? Finally, from the most unlikeliest of places came a possibility. My wife’s Toronto hairdresser had been nagging her for years to vacation in San Miguel de Allende. He and his wife went there for a month every spring, and he raved that it’s not a beach town—but a cultural, colonial mecca in the heart of México.

This was not an easy sell. Cynthia had extremely negative memories of Cancun and Manzanillo, primarily due to surly hotel staff and a case of Rickettsial fever I contracted at one of the country’s poshest resorts. But she did her usual exhaustive research and discovered it might be worthwhile. We booked a week, and I even found that an opera was being staged during our stay. Opera?, asked the man raised by a Viennese refugee. How quaint.

The rest is history, our history. We walked everywhere, although cobblestone streets require caution. We visited museums and art galleries and stumbled upon two excellent vegetarian restaurants. This was México? Where were the tacos and mariachis? No worries, they’re around, but you must look for them. After a week in February, we were sunburnt and filled with the sound of music and good food. We had already made some new friends after we found out that when Gringos** hear you talking in a restaurant, they immediately introduce themselves and ask if you need anything.

Upon our return to dank and cold Canada, we put together the pluses and minuses and did more due diligence. We booked a return week in June to see if it had all been an illusion and found that it hadn’t. We found a part-time realtor who knew someone who knew someone (still the best way to locate a domicile here) and ended up renting a house just finishing construction. Our landlady is tough but fair and a member of a local family that has been here for centuries. She prefers long-term rentals, which we hope we are.

If I look back after five years here, the “why” has changed somewhat. We have more friends here than in any place we have ever lived. We quickly got “calling cards” printed to hand out to the visitors we met in restaurants. COVID-19 was present six months after our arrival, but everyone was masked without complaint, and the outdoor seating at most restaurants meant there was little change to our lifestyle. Most of our friends are Gringos, but we do not live in an ex-pat ghetto. Eighty percent of our neighbors are Mexican, and we host a close extended Mexican family for Thanksgiving every year. When I walk anywhere, I am greeted with “Buenos dias," which I interpret as meaning, “May you have good days.” In San Miguel, it seems a smile goes a mile (or a kilometer since we are in México). Our myriad activities keep us busier than even when we were working, and Cynthia calls this a “summer camp for old people.” Above all, our willingness to try something different meant we were accepted without question. I try not to gloat, but retirement may be the best time of my life.

**Gringos may seem negative, but I identify with it. The term’s origin story that I like is that American soldiers marching in México during The Intervention (what the locals call the Mexican-American War) sang a popular song, “Green Grow the Lilacs.” The locals converted that to “Gringos.”

 

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