Tailor shops, key makers, produce markets and tiny family-run restaurants intermingle closely with schools, doctors' offices and private residences. Church bells toll and children laugh and play soccer in the streets until long after dark. Although plenty of taxis whiz through the town at all hours, the car is not king here. On Sunday nights, townspeople crowd the large, downtown plaza with its whitewashed flamboyant trees, gazebo, tall clock tower and cooling view of the sea. They come to giggle and flirt, to listen to salsa music and to dance.
Parents show off their children, carefully groomed and dressed-up.
Older folks sit on one of the many cool, stone benches chatting softly in Mayan and keeping a sharp eye on the scene. San Miguel is a food lover's paradise too. Stores sell fresh yogurt laced with walnuts, crystallized limes and sour orange juice squeezed while you wait. On Avenida 30, five blocks from the waterfront, the smell of chicken, cooked over mesquite-fired grills, fills the air. On Avenida 25, at El Mercado, San Miguel's traditional inner-city market, you'll find stall after stall of fresh fruits and vegetables, colorfully arranged and inexpensive enough to make a vegetarian's heart sing for joy.