Beyond San Miguel de Allende, Adventure and Awareness Await

Vacay.ca occasionally publishes content on destinations outside of Canada that our editors believe will be of keen interest to our audience. This article focuses on a beloved location in Mexico where cowboys and captivating scenery combine for a unique tourism experience.

Rays of sunlight slip through the wide windows as Tomas Morin sits for a breakfast prepared by his sister. He has removed his cattleman’s hat and planted his elbows on the table, folding his left fingers and palm over his right fist. With hands resting just below his chin, he appears as if he could be pondering or praying when he rhetorically asks, “How can we bring back the rain?”

At the moment, the sun has graced the dining hall of Xotolar Ranch with a painterly light that makes everything feel soothing and elegant, a Vermeer in real time — complete with women at work in the kitchen, preparing colourful portions that could pass as still-life images from a rustic, seemingly pastoral existence. The women are Morin’s sister, Maria Luisa Morin, and niece, Araceli Nunez, and they are feeding hungry guests who come from urban locations abroad, immersing ever so briefly in Mexican ranch culture: Riding horses that saunter or gallop through the hills of Guanajuato that spy onto the ritzy city of San Miguel de Allende in the distance; sampling queso ranchero, Xotolar’s cheese made daily from raw milk; and even gathering that milk in a bucket by squeezing the udders of one of the Morins’ dairy cows or opting for an activity more familiar, like making friends with the family’s playful dogs.

Before the menagerie and the adventure, though, there is breakfast. And conversation.

The food at Xotolar is the definition of Mexico: homemade with care and inspired by generations of history. Pico de gallo and other salsas burst with the freshness of cactus fruit, instead of tomatoes, and are dotted with roasted pepper that never darts on your tongue but rather coats the sides of it, allowing your palate to taste the fullness of the savoury flavours emerging from the kitchen. The guacamole tastes so luscious you almost believe the avocados were infused with silk. Chilaquiles are a staple dish in Guanajuato. More than one local will tell you that if a restaurant has good chilaquiles, the rest of the menu can be trusted. Xotolar’s chilaquiles turn out to be the best I will taste during a five-day venture to the heart of the country where the independence movement in Mexico was launched.

As delectable as the food tastes and as exhilarating as the horseback riding that follows feels, the bothersome thought persisted that Xotolar should be farming, not hosting. Tomas Morin loves welcoming guests to the ranch and showing them his way of life, knowing that the revenue from the tourist visits will help his family and their neighbours, but the idea stays with me that Xotolar should do what ranches do first and foremost: Cultivate produce and practice the husbandry of animals. Those practices are how the Morins had subsisted since the first members of their family took control of the property in the 1940s. Their grandfather spent months in a cave on the farm as he built the ranch and tamed the animals and planted the crops.

Climate change has ended that way of life. Almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, the crops are too scarce and the animals have been turned into attractions even as they continue to work.

“The seasons are not the same,” Tomas Morin says as he explains the circumstances of his life at the kitchen table made of wood so sturdy it seems it could outlast time. “Before, we would cultivate tons of corn, squash, tomatoes, peppers, and some others, but we cannot produce a lot of crops now. We harvested almost nothing in 2023.”

It’s an abrupt shift. An off-the-grid operation where solar panels provide what little electricity the ranch uses, Xotolar had achieved self-sustainability about 15 years ago, Morin says. But today the property relies on tourism almost exclusively for its income. Approximately 1,000 visitors per year arrive for full- or half-day horseback riding tours or cooking classes that take place in the hall where Morin sits next to me for breakfast. The hall was constructed in 2019 and features a commercial-quality kitchen built between wood beams and with views of the expansive ranch outside where you can spot the horses and dogs dawdling about while the Bajio mountains compete with them for your eyesight.

“The ranch always is the thing that has provided for us. It’s our life being here,” Morin says. “Climate change is a big concern for us. We see what it has already done. I hear some people think that the area here will be a desert someday.”

According to NASA observations, 85% of Mexico was facing drought conditions in 2021. Aridity has become so pervasive that many farms have already witnessed crop eradication. While projects to plant native plants that fare well in desert conditions, like agave and mesquite, have shown encouraging results, Morin points out that it takes five years for such crops to yield produce. Tourism provides a quicker path to revenue. So, laudibly, Morin and his family have reinvented their ranch into a thrilling and deeply authentic destination business.

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Using entrepreneurial creativity, the Morins have developed a program that will delight travellers who seek a deep connection that manifests a sense of place and is enriched with authentic cultural experiences. For guests who want to spend the night, tents are available for camping and plans exist for on-site cabins to be built in the future. The day trips from San Miguel, which is about 45 minutes away by car, are what bring the visitors in and most come for the horseback riding.

The well-trained horses are guided through the tour by Xotolar’s group of caballeros, who lead riders on terrain surrounded by the peaks. After sauntering across dry brush and bramble, and passing cactus needles that pose a challenge while rocking sideways on a horse, each visiting city slicker treks down a boulder-filled descent to the Guanajuato River, where the equines can gallop through trails and water, if riders are keen for speed, or slowly walk the path as their companions take in the scenery where the mammoth cliffs rise from the tributary and the experience nestles into the mind like anything marvellous.

Surely, if the rain does not return, there should be a steady pouring in of visitors who venture through Xotolar’s gates for the chance to do this: Be a Mexican cowboy or cowgirl for a day, running fingers across the soft, sweet hairs of a docile horse and feeling its pulse warm your palm as you pat its neck with affection. Xotolar is the kind of place where role-playing is old-fashioned and tactile. You get in a saddle and ride — nothing virtual anywhere. The ranch manages to confront its climate struggles by providing an escape from an Internet-addicted world, demonstrating why reality remains a level up from any digital diversion out there.

MORE ABOUT VISITING XOTOLAR RANCH

Location: Rancho Xotolar, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato Mexico (see map below)
Rates: Tours include round-trip transportation and lunch. Half-day horseback riding costs $2,576.82 MXN per person (approx. $200 CAD) and full-day tours cost $3,930.49 MXN per person (approx. $305 CAD). Overnight camping stays include horseback tours, farm activities such as cow milking and cheese making, and three meals for a cost of $5,021.77 MXN per person (approx. $395 CAD). Cooking Classes: Learn to make chile rellenos and enchiladas, among other items, in the Xotolar kitchen. A class runs from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and costs $1,757.35 MXN (about $140 CAD).
Reservations: Visit the Xotolar Ranch website for full rates and booking information.
Currency Exchange: $1 CAD = $12.75 MXN; $1 USD = $17.50 MXN (rates are approximate and based on published rates as of November 2023)

 

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Disclosure: Vacay.ca Managing Editor Adrian Brijbassi’s trip was supported by the tourism board of San Miguel de Allende. Neither that organization nor the featured business reviewed the content before publication.