Xanadu? Nope. Close, but no cigarillo. Zandunga!

It’s Sunday in central Mexico. Altitude, 6,300 ft. A 30-minute drive through open scrubland from San Miguel de Allende, an unspoilt jewel town founded on 16th-century gold and silver, 160 miles north of Mexico City.

Our party of two Americans and two Brits is in search of Mexican music, in the middle of nowhere. The SUV hangs a left into cactuses and a dirt road, arriving at an unspectacular hacienda hidden in the landscape’s folds.