From CDMX to San Miguel: Salsas, Saints & A Transcendental Truth

Namaste, Haribol, peace be with you and upon you.

We are Mark (Madhumangla dasa) and Maria (Srimati dasi), also known as JuicyMagiK when we get mildly organized and press record on a camera that is already, secretly, recording.

This little travel diary is from our early weeks in Mexico, moving from the big heartbeat of CDMX out to storybook San Miguel de Allende, where pink churches, bus rides, hot chocolate, and quiet moments of Vedic wisdom all end up in the same bowl. Salsas, saints, spiritual questions, and a tiny transcendental truth about what “religious” and “spiritual” actually mean when you strip away the slogans.

Landing in Mexico: CDMX, Friends & First Impressions

We touched down in Mexico City on the 10th, and by the time of this little recording it was the 24th, so we were rolling into our third week in Mexico. Long enough for the city to stop feeling like an airport extension and start feeling like a living, breathing friend.

We stayed with a dear friend, Carlos, in CDMX (Ciudad de México, Mexico City). His place became our soft landing pad: home altar, simple meals, shared laughter, and a base for sorting out buses, backpacks, and which jacket we had already lost.

Mexico City felt big and buzzing but also oddly gentle. The neighborhood streets, the morning vendors, the colors, the smells, all of it had this grounded, everyday kindness. Compared to the way people sometimes move in huge cities, noses buried in screens and thoughts, CDMX felt refreshingly human.

A Bus Ride to “San Miguel de Aende” (Or However You Say It)

From there we hopped on a bus and headed up to San Miguel de Allende. Or as we kept mispronouncing it on camera: “Aende, Alliende, Ali-end-eh, Aende.” The locals, of course, just say it with that soft, easy confidence that makes you want to hand them all pronunciation rights forever.

San Miguel de Allende is famous for its old stone streets, plazas, and especially its churches. It is a UNESCO World Heritage city, with bell towers and domes that seem to hold stories from centuries back. If you love sacred architecture, places like the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel pretty much stop you in your tracks, especially when the light hits the pink stone.

We kept finding ourselves in front of yet another church dedicated to yet another saint, often only a short walk from the last one. You step out of one hushed space, full of candles and whispers, step onto the cobblestone, and there, one or two streets away, is another sanctuary opening its doors. Guides and travel writers have whole lists of these spots, like this overview of beautiful churches in San Miguel de Allende, but for us, it was more like wandering through a living mandala of devotion.

You can feel that for at least 500 years the town has grown around these sacred centers. Daily life, shops, families, dates, arguments, and celebrations all seem to spill out from the churches and then circle back to them.

Markets, Fruit Stands & Street Joy

Of course, where there are churches, there are people, and where there are people, there are snacks. Many, many snacks.

San Miguel and CDMX both leaned hard into that part of the pilgrimage. Around plazas and along side streets we kept bumping into:

• Fresh fruit stands stacked with mangoes, papayas, and all kinds of juicy color
• Juice stalls happy to throw things into a blender for you while babies watch from slings
• Little markets with pyramids of oranges, avocados, limes, and vegetables we kept misnaming

There is something very spiritual about a perfectly ripe mango eaten while sitting on a church step. You have incense smoke drifting past, some old hymn rising from inside, and your fingers are sticky. Grace is like that, a little messy and very sweet.

Churros, Hot Chocolate & Rajasic Treats

And then, of course, churros. Mexico City and San Miguel both made sure churros were not a theory, but a repeated life experience.

We met:

• Plain churros, still warm, sugar clinging to everything
• Filled churros, stuffed with thick sauces and creams that probably register in some other dimension as pure temptation
• Thick, comforting hot chocolate, sometimes so rich it felt more like a soft pudding than a drink

In our devotional practice, we usually try to keep the diet on the sattvic side: simple, fresh, not too spicy or stimulating. In the Vedic tradition, foods get grouped in three qualities: sattva (peaceful and clear), rajas (passionate and fiery), and tamas (heavy and dull). Churros filled with sweet sauces plus hot chocolate, eaten late at night, are very much on the rajasic party side of the chart.

But we are also human. And sometimes your bhakti journey includes sharing a plate of churros and laughing about how you are going to balance this out with some extra mantra meditation in the morning.

Salsas, Colds & Healing Heat

Another thing that showed up on pretty much every table in Mexico: salsa roja and salsa verde. Red salsa and green salsa, both proud, both a little different in each home or restaurant, both ready to wake up your tongue and your sinuses.

We had both come down with a small cold, that kind of travel sniffle that floats around airplanes and buses. The chilies in the salsas turned out to be unexpectedly kind friends. You eat a few spoonfuls, your nose runs, your chest feels warmer, and something in the body says, “Ah, we are moving again.”

Even while trying not to overload on rajasic food, it felt like these salsas were being used in a healing way. Not just for taste, but for circulation, warmth, and that strange comfort that comes when you can finally breathe through both nostrils again.

All of this was happening while surrounded by layers of devotion in stone and paint. You could have a spicy taco in the shadow of some old sanctuary mentioned in lists like 10 must-see churches in San Miguel de Allende, and feel that your little cold and your little life are part of a much bigger, ongoing story.

The Kindness of People (Two-Legged & Four-Legged)

One of the simplest joys of this part of the journey was how kind everyone felt. Not in some idealized travel brochure way, just quietly, practically kind.

Vendors were patient with our broken Spanish. Bus staff answered the same question more than once. People on the street pointed us in the right direction instead of pretending not to hear. There was this down-to-earth warmth, a “we are all just doing our day” softness.

And it was not only humans. The dogs and cats we met along the way mostly radiated the same energy. A few barked, none bit, many accepted a scratch or a soft word. It felt like the whole place, animals included, was set at a slightly kinder default.

We noticed that when the outer world is gentle like that, it is easier to remember your inner practice. Japa beads feel more natural in the hand. Short prayers come more easily. You do not have to fight the environment in order to be soft.

Why We Keep Our Space Quiet (No Public Comments)

Some people ask why we keep comments off on most of our public content. After all, the internet loves opinions, right?

The simple answer is that we are trying to keep things mellow and safe. The online world can turn very sharp, very fast. Arguments over tiny points. Misunderstandings that explode. Projection, ego, and a lot of pain being thrown around without much listening.

We wanted a small, more intimate space where people who truly feel called to this kind of devotional conversation can reach us, without all the noise. That is why we set up a private portal on our site. If you have a real question, or a sincere appreciation, you can send it through our JuicyMagiK community portal.

It is like inviting people into a living room instead of yelling across a crowded street. Quieter, slower, more human.

A Little Transcendental Truth of the Day

Somewhere between the salsas and the church towers, a sentence from our reading jumped up and asked to be shared. It went something like this:

• Philosophy without religion tends to become dry mental speculation.
• Religion without philosophy often slips toward fanaticism or stays shallow, without its full depth.

Both sides on their own can veer off. If you only sit and think, without any practice, devotion, or relationship with the Divine, your thoughts can start circling in midair. If you only perform rituals or follow rules, without any inquiry or understanding, your faith can become rigid or blind.

So, philosophy and religion are meant to walk together. Head and heart. Question and prayer. Study and surrender.

“I’m Not Religious, I’m Spiritual”

We hear this a lot: “Oh, I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.” It is a familiar modern sentence, usually said with good intent, often as a way of stepping away from painful experiences with organized religion.

From a Vedic perspective, though, you cannot really separate spiritual from religious if you understand what real religion actually is. In Sanskrit, the idea is closer to dharma: the natural function or nature of a thing. The dharma of sugar is sweetness. The dharma of water is liquidity and flow. The dharma of the soul is loving service to the Supreme.

If “religion” means that deep original connection, the living relationship between the soul and the Divine, then to be spiritual is already to be truly religious. Not necessarily in the sense of belonging to a certain institution, but in the sense of living in alignment with that eternal function of loving service.

When people say “I’m spiritual, not religious,” often they are actually saying, “I want a living relationship with truth and love, without the pain I experienced in some institution.” That longing is very sacred. The invitation is to rediscover what real religion means, so that the word itself stops being a trigger and starts pointing back to joy.

Guru, Shastra & the Lord in the Heart

On this journey through Mexico, as in the rest of our lives, we try not to walk alone. In our tradition, three companions keep showing up like divine bodyguards:

• Guru: our instructing and initiating teachers, real human beings who live the teachings and guide us
• Shastra: sacred scripture, especially texts like Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam that hold timeless wisdom
• The Lord in the heart: the Paramatma, the inner guide who hears sincere prayer and nudges from within

When these three line up, there is a special kind of safety. You hear something from a teacher, you check it with scripture, you sit quietly and pray inside the heart. Over time, a sense of clarity grows. Not perfect certainty, but a soft, steady confidence that you are facing in the right direction.

Travel can shake routines. Different food, different beds, different streets every few days. In that shifting landscape, keeping Guru, Shastra, and the Lord in the heart close is like carrying a small temple inside your ribs.

Walking Softly Through Sacred Cities

San Miguel de Allende, with its layer on layer of churches, saints, salsas, and strolling visitors, is a good reminder that sacredness is not always quiet or rare. It can be loud and daily. It can smell like tortillas and incense at the same time.

Other travelers might map out the city with tools like this guide to 37 churches in San Miguel de Allende, ticking off sites one by one. Our map feels more like: “Where did we meet kindness? Where did the heart soften? Where did some small truth about love and service land more deeply?”

Sometimes that is inside a church. Sometimes under a giant tree. Sometimes over a plate of mangoes with chili and lime.

We are gradually making our way through Mexico and planning to move on toward Guatemala and El Salvador. The outer map keeps changing. The inner intention stays the same: remember, serve, and share whatever little light we have in a simple, non-dramatic way.

Staying Connected On the Journey

If you feel drawn to this slightly goofy, heart-based traveling sangha, you are welcome to come closer.

You can:

• Join our quiet online community through the JuicyMagiK portal
• Visit the main JuicyMagiK site to see what we are up to
• Support devotional projects and offerings through the projects and sats page

We keep it small on purpose, so questions and appreciations come through as real human messages, not as comment battles.

Blessings From Under a Giant Tree

So that is this small slice of life: a bus ride from CDMX, churros in sticky fingers, cold-clearing salsas, centuries-old churches, kind strangers, a few dogs, and one simple spiritual reflection on philosophy, religion, and true spirituality.

Thank you for walking a little way with us. May your own travels, whether they are on buses or only inside your heart, be guided by good teachers, honest scripture, and the quiet voice of the Lord within.

Haribol, Hare Krishna, peace be with you and upon you.

mariakerwin

As a former serial entrepreneur, she turned from a workaholic in the business world to freedom and creativity, living now as a writer, creator and world traveller. Since an early age Maria is close to death and what exists beyond, courageously exploring the dimensions of existence. A Kundalini Awakening guided her into the abyss of fully surrendering to the life force itself, crushing all known aspects of her old life. Finally, it led her to her purpose of bridging both worlds, connecting to what goes beyond the ordinary.

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