2012 December 19 An Unexpected Journey

So there we were sitting around minding our own business when Kelly and Cheryl called up wanting to know if we would like to go on a driving adventure northwards.  After a milisecond to consider it we said "yes!" and an hour later we were all packed up and out the door.  The plan today is to head northwards along the coast and check out a number of deserted beaches north of Tenacatita, which is the last 'developed' beach between here and Punta Perula 1.5 hours north of here.  I have a particular remembrance of Tenacatita, as it has a gorgeous calm beach where I got slam-dunked by a rogue wave 8 years ago and lost my glasses, causing me to imitate Mr. Mole for the next week until we got back to Canada.  But I digress.

 

The first road we try is 9 km of slow rough road into a marvelous beach.  At least we think it's a marvelous beach; it's now gated at about 4 km.  Bummer, these things happen.  The next beach is on a road leading into a little community called Arroyo Seco (dry stream) which is really quiet and pretty.  Happily, there is a brand new powerline going into the community, as well as a shiny new paved road!  Unhappily, the two groups don't appear to have been talking to each other much.

  

Wait.  What?

 

Remember the kids' ride at Super Valu? 
This is the Arroyo Seco version at the zocalo.

Then the road carries on for about 1 km to a long beach with ca. 10 houses on it.  If you walk north of the houses, however, there is a beautiful secluded beach with sea caves at the northern end.  We make the trek to the caves, but it turns out the tide is just a WEE bit too high, and common sense dictates that we don't smash ourselves against the rocks in the heavy surf trying to get there.  Oh well!  It's all beautiful anyways.

Just another deserted beach in Mexico.

Then it's off to check out the numerous other beaches on the way north, and it turns out that every single one of them is gated!  Hmmmmn.  Kelly and Cheryl are definitely disappointed as they wanted to show us a bunch of cool places, but we're having a great time anyway as riding in the back of an open jeep through the coastal jungle at 28 degrees is a bit of all right for us Canadians.

 

Eventually we get to Punta Perula, and Deb and I just happen to have good friends staying there so we decide to try to find them.  Punta Perula is a small town on a stunning beach which is 90% long-stay Motor Home People.  If you don't have an rv, there's basically no place to stay.  We pull in at the first of about 40 rv parks, walk up to the first people we see, and it's our friends Rich and Evelyn from Genelle! They are parked beside a huge palapa right beside the beach, and have the place to themselves.

 

Steve and Deb with our good friends Rich and Evelyn



3 km of gorgeous calm beach at Punta Perula.

 



Not enough?  Here's another 5 km the other way

Everyone has a marvelous 2-hour chatter whilst fighting off the heat and malaria with the local brews, and then it's time to wend our way home.  90 minutes later we're back at the villa, and it's definitely time for a cooling dip in the pool and Happy Hour; the end of another perfect day.

2012 December 15 Horseshoes on the Beach

 

We've had invites a number of times to go a-horseshoeing, but we've just been too darn busy nest-building.  But now we're not, so it's time to see what this is all about.  Deb is off doing Pilates but intends to join up as soon as she's done, so I wander down at 10:00 and there's already 4 guys getting ready to play!  I say 'getting ready' as the tide is high enough that there isn't any room to put the stakes, and as we have no stakes because Chuck hasn't shown up with the stakes.  Or the horseshoes, which are also apparently items of importance. But other than the lack of horseshoes, stakes, and beach, we are good to go!  The good news is that we're sitting under beach umbrellas and the restaurant staff are happy to bring us beers while we wait.  That just seems to make any problem a whole lot smaller....

Horseshoe groupies.

Award-winning style by Joe.

Finally around 10:30 the tide is on the wane and the equipment is here, so off we go.  Deb also shows up at 10:00, so we have 7 people and we're playing partners.  This resulted in much swapping of partners (not that kind, Otto) and the results were in the end meaningless, but that seems to be the point anyway as we're just there to have fun, darn it!  To that end, the boys gave Debbi a 6' head-start as she's just a girl; I could have told them that was a bad idea but they probably wouldn't have listened.  She promptly kicked ass and took names.  It'll be interesting to see if they fall for that one again....

 

          The Jumbotron

Proposed Horseshoe Pit Expansion Area

It was kind of a smokey day, as the locals had been doing agriculture burning last night about 2-3 miles away between Melaque and Barra de Navidad, but a good time was had by all and tomorrow the smoke will be all gone!  Horseshoes are scheduled for 10:00 every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and I think I'll probably be down there at least twice a week.  And I've downloaded a tide-table-predictor onto my laptop to ensure no one gets swept out to sea in the middle of their backswing.

2012 December 13 Paint Your Alligator

Deb has heard about another festival/event/happening going on Tuesday night down at the zocalo (central park with gazebo) in Villa Obregon, which is a town/suburb on the east end of Melaque.  It appears to be another part of the Festival of Guadalupe, which pretty much fills up the first 12 days of December every year to honor some guy that apparently saw the Virgin Mary in 1640.  Appears to have been a stroke of marketing genius by some church official back then, but I must say that it beats the Death By Christmas Carols that we have to go through in Canada!

 

So we're off to see the sights, and stop on the way for a great rib dinner; we're learning so we split one order between us - works perfect!  A big platter of ribs with all the trimmings and 2 glasses of wine, $12 including taxes and a healthy tip.  On arrival at the zocalo, the place is busy as it always is during the evening; families use the zocalo to visit, eat, flirt, gossip, etc.  In other words, that's where the community hangs out in the cool of the evening.  There's a bandstand set up, but nothing much appears to be happening....  Deb spots some activity over by the bandstand, and it turns out to be a spot where kids can purchase a clay figurine and paint it with watercolors.  Debbi immediately buys an alligator piggy-bank (gator-bank?) that's eating a fish, and commences painting.  Many of the children become intensely interested, and freely offer suggestions as to the next color.  She ends up with a green/blue/orange alligator eating a red fish - this is clearly a gift meant for the color-blind.  We fill it up with all the spare change in our pockets, spin the paintbrush to see who wins it, and present it to a somewhat bewildered young man.  He'll figure it out.

Debbi painting her alligator

This young lady is VERY proud of her bright orange pig.

 

Exhausted from our marathon alligator-painting session, we stop at a street-side stand which is selling pineapple upside down cake, flan, and cappucino.  We're definitely up for that, particularly as the cappucino is 'con mas espuma', which sounds much better in English as 'very foamy'.  Turns out that the music and dancing doesn't START until 11:00 which is a bit much for us, so we wander home and call it a night.

 

Wednesday dawns bright and early, as it's Shopping Day in Manzanillo!  Off to the Melaque bus zone, which is composed of a terminal for 1st and 2nd-class buses on one side of the street, a terminal for 3rd class buses on the other side of the street, a taxi stand, and a writhing mass of buses of all descriptions plus city buses and the usual traffic that also uses the street.  Do not be reading your text messages whilst crossing THIS street!  First-class is roughly airline quality, second-class is about the same as Greyhound in Canada, third-class is getting a bit long in the tooth but is still perfectly acceptable for short hauls.  There is also executive class (which we use for long hauls), it's like airline business-class.  We use second-class for this trip as it's leaving in 5 minutes, the trip is roughly 90 minutes one-way and costs $3.50.

 

Our target of opportunity today is Sorianas, which is a big supermarket complex that sells food, clothes, hardware, toys, electronics, etc.  It also has a ton of smaller stores attached, as well as an 8-theatre complex.  Deb is pretty sure she has seen mattress-toppers there, and our backs are both pretty sore from the very hard beds we have; a common affliction in Mexico.  Sure enough, there they are!  So after a very brief tour of the aisles we have three more shopping bags full of stuff and we're ready to go....  We're coming back to Manzanillo in 7-10 days to overnight with our friend Dorothy, see The Hobbit (YES!), and conduct an early-morning raid on Walmart, so that's enough shopping for now.

 

Arriving back just in time for happy hour (there doesn't seem to be a bad time) we discover we've been invited out to Senor Froy's for dinner.  The complex has reserved a table for 12 at this beach-side restaurant, and we are delighted to chatter away whilst swilling down tequila everythings and beers and eating ribs and prawns. 

 

At Senor Froy's with my main squeeze.

All good things come to an end, and it's back to the complex for nightcaps beside the pool and into our comfy new bed.

 

2012 December 11 Snake Patrol

Another beautiful day in the neighbourhood, and we're off to Barra de Navidad, a beach community just 2 km down the beach, 5 km by road.  The plan is to meet up with our friends Jack and Irma and to mooch around Barra for the day.  We decided to stop in to see our friends Kelly and Cheryl on the way over, who promptly invited us out for a day's sight-seeing in their jeep, so the Jack-and-Irma-visit will have to wait for a bit!

 

Our first stop was Playa de Oro, which is a deserted beach at the end of a 7km bone-jarring bush road.  We got down there and, can you imagine, there was another family there!  On OUR beach!  Oh well, we'll just have to make the best of the remaining 5 km or so of unspoiled sand.  There's a honking big rock in the intertidal zone, and when we walked around it I noticed a young man and woman in the surf up against the rock.  We had various opinions about what they were up to out there by themselves, but we were all wrong as the young man came back with a machete and a big net bag full of abalone!  Hmnnnn, note to self....



Molly the Security Dog, Cheryl, Kelly, and Debbi,
with the Honking Big Rock in the background

Then it was back up the road to go check out some more sights.  A few km up the road Kelly lurched to a stop as there was a very large snake stretched across the road.  Honk honk.  No response.  Rrrm, rrrrm!  Drive right up to it.  No response.  This thing is so big that there's no room to drive around it, and we didn't want to kill it, so Kelly got out and threw rocks at it for about 5 minutes.  We REALLY didn't want to get too close as this thing looked pretty dangerous (anything with no legs and larger than an earthworm looks dangerous to me!), and the rocks were just pissing him off, so we were in a bit of a quandary.  Finally we outlasted him; he slithered off the road and we drove past VERY quickly.  Whew!  After much searching on the internets, it turns out he was probably some type of boa constrictor.  I still think Molly could have taken him....

 

"Hand over the dog, and no one gets hurt."

Recovering our equilibrium, we crossed the highway and cruised around for a bit before fording the Marabasco River a few km upstream from Cihuatlan.  This is really cool; the government put a 1 metre-high weir all the way across the river and there is a shallow ford across the 400-metre river just below the weir. 
 

The ford across the Marabasco River

The locals use it for swimming, picknicking, washing their vehicles, and hanging out, usually all at the same time.  There were a couple pickups backed up to the weir with their tailgates down, turning the truck beds into swimming pools!  Pretty cool place.
 



Swimming pool?  We don't need no steenking swimming pool!

We then went on a tour of a very small farming village out in the middle of a zillion acres of banana plantations.  I had seen a number of kid's 'beach balls' in the back of the jeep, but just assumed they were for Molly or something.  Turns out Kelly and Cheryl bring stuff like that along for Christmas, they drove around until they had found 4 kids of the right size, and gave them each a ball.  There were a lot of bright eyes in the village as we drove off, as most of these folks don't have disposable income the way we think of it.  Good on ya, Kelly and Cheryl!

 

We ended up for comida (main afternoon meal) at the Coco Cabanas, which is stuck out in the middle of nowhere on the beach and makes the best coconut prawns in the solar system. 

 

Debbi, Steve, and Giant Christmas Coconuts at the Coco Cabanas



 

Fed-up, wore-out, and sun-baked, it was definitely time for a ride home and a quiet evening.  Talk soon.

2012 December 10 Nestbuilding Day

Woke up to our first full day in Mexico, it's warm and the sky is blue and life is good.  Except.  Debbi has a determined look in her eye which usually means lots of work for Steve.  Time to go buy all the groceries and housewares we'll need to get set up here for a bit.

 

Luckily there is a bodega (corner grocery) just a block from our bungalow, so down we go to buy 2 big bags-full and lug them home.  That was easy! Steve thinks, but then of course it is made clear that now we have to go downtown to pick up the few little things that the bodega didn't have.  Many kilometres and 3 large grocery bags later, it's time for a cab home.  Debbi is now starting to make high-pitched noises about not having enough room for everything, so I think we're getting close!

 

Once everything is unpacked and spiffied up, it's 4 pm which is Happy Hour!  Actually I'm not sure when HH starts, but it appears to end at 6.  This one, our first, was particularly fun as we have a new iguana living in the palapa and our buddy Max decided to feed him some watermelon.  Turns out that iguanas, who are ostensibly herbivores, have no teeth in front but significant teeth on the sides.  Max didn't QUITE get the watermelon to go straight in, with predictable results, and the iguana is laying low until the all the excitement dissipates a bit.

The Happy Hour crew in the palapa from across the pool

Our neighbours and newest best friends appear a friendly and humorous bunch.  I can't even pretend to remember everyone's names quite yet, but I have identified couples from Quesnel, Campbell River, Vernon, and Saskatchewan so far!

Looking across the pool through a partially-recovered Max.
The iguana is up in the rafters somewhere...

A quiet night tonight watching backlog tv shows on the laptop, tomorrow we're off to Barra de Navidad to visit friends and mooch around town.

2012 December 8 Woo Hoo!

Well, we survived another trip to Mexico without any major foo-foos.  Got to the Westjet counter at 04:51 because we wanted to be first in line with all our extra bags, and we were.  The very nice lady at the counter tried about 20 times to print out our baggage tags, and when the Infernal Machine finally decided to work it pooped out enough tags to take us around the world a couple times!  Very uneventful flight, which is my favourite kind.

 

Manzanillo Airport is actually about 30 km north of Manzanillo, half-ways to Melaque.  It's right on the beach in the middle of nowhere, which is actually a pretty good place to put an airport when you stop and think about it.  Barring tsunamis, of course....fortunately there wasn't one scheduled for today.  Instead, we got shaken down by an airport security guy because of our 3 - 50 lb Humanitarian Assistance (HA) bags!  This is a first for us, as despite what you see in American movies the Mexican public service is efficient and conscientious to a fault.  Bureaucratic yes; corrupt no.  Well, this guy wanted 300 pesos per bag (about $25) to let us through, and THAT wasn't about to happen.  Luckily our friend Cheryl was just outside the doors, and we got the guy to talk with her and explain how the HA thing worked.  After she dressed him down in English for a couple minutes (I don't think he understood 10%, but he definitely got the tone) it was suddenly decided that we could, indeed, proceed without further delay.  Turns out when Cheryl showed up 2 weeks ago they tried to confiscate her HA bags, so maybe there's just confusion and angst over what to do about HA.  Nothing more heart-rending than a bureaucrat faced with a novel situation and no rule to apply!

 

So, despite the best efforts of the Mexican bureaucracy we managed to get all our bags out to Cheryl's little jeep.  Little is the operative word here; it has 2 bucket seats, a rear jump seat, and a baggage space big enough for one bag of groceries.  We have 5 - 50 lb bags and 4 - 20 lb bags, plus we have to figure out how to get the three of us in.  Remember the Clown Car at the circus when you were a kid?  Well, that's us.  I got the back seat.

 

The Clown Car, with The Clown in place

Our new place looks great, albeit smoking hot as it's been buttoned up for a while.  We got everything opened up and the fans all going, and things are starting to look much better.  Our neighbours and new bestest friends CJ and Stephanie bummed as drinks, so we're sitting on our new front porch watching the world go by.  I'll save the intro and the photos for tomorrow.  Time for bed.

Alles gut.  Siempre bien.

 

2012 December 4 The Trailblazer is No More

Yesterday a nice man came and took the Trailblazer away.  Well actually I had to drive it to Vernon for him, but it sounds better the first way.  It's going into semi-retirement, as he will be parking it at his lake-side cottage in Ontario and it will only be used in the summer to-and-from the lake.  An honorable semi-retirement, kinda like the one we are all looking for!

 

Deb sold it through an ad on Kijiji.  First day posted, we got a call from a guy in Lumby who wanted it for his 9-month pregnant wife.  That evening we got a call from a guy in Kelowna who advised us that our truck was now listed with a car dealership in Kelowna, and within a day it was also being advertised in the States!  Gotta love Kijiji....  We got the bogus ads pulled, but holy cow it's the Wild West out there!

 

So, I'm sitting here looking at an empty parking space which feels kind of weird, but now we have room for our new (to us) truck that we hope to drive home from Calgary in the spring!  We're determined to get back into the rv-thing, and getting rid of the Trailblazer was Step One; the new truck will be Step Two, and hopefully Step Three, the new (to us) travel trailer, won't be far behind.

 

Three More Sleeps.