2013 January 12 La Manzanilla

Deb and I were muttering to each other a few days ago that we were long overdue for an adventure.  We were chatting idly about taking a bus to La Manzanilla, which is a pretty little town about 30 minutes up the coast, when our friends Cheryl and Kelly overheard us and said 'hey, we haven't been there for a while either!'  So of course next morning Cheryl and Kelly showed up in their trusty jeep, and of we went to La Manzanilla.

 

One would be tempted to think that it's just another Mexican beach resort with cheap food, cold beer, and miles of pristine beach.  Well, yeah, it has those too.... (perhaps the best beach in Mexico!) but La Manzanilla has crocodiles!  When we were here 8 years ago there was a bayou (river that is turned into a lake because of a sand bar at the beach) that was just full of honking big crocodiles and caymans.  There was a 3-foot chainlink fence keeping them off the street, but they could still wander onto the beach and spoil your afternoon if you didn't keep a sharpish lookout.  Now the fence has been extended to block off the beach, so in theory this is no longer an issue.  (Note to self: these are wild crocs, and they are fenced on 3 sides; the upstream end is wide open)  Even better, some entrepeneur has built an elevated walkway (2 feet above the water) that goes about 200 yards through the mangroves and you can go for a really cool stroll for 10 pesos (75 cents).

 

There were definitely a ton of slavering killer lizards out there, but also birds, crabs, iguanas and all kinds of other neat things. Up until last year there were a couple of 16-footers which probably weighed a ton apiece; they aren't in evidence so must have been converted into handbags or headed for other parts or something.  Nevertheless, there were still lots of big boys and girls on hand for our edification.

Not a telephoto shot....

Steve on the walkway

A whopper out for a cruise

After checking to ensure that Molly was still in one piece and on the end of the leash, we headed off downtown and parked at Kelly and Cheryl's favourite spot on the beach.  Not hard to figure out why; they have free tables/chairs/umbrellas on the beach, and they bring you food and beer for as long as you can continue to raise your arm.

 

After a couple of beers and some truly great fish and chips to fortify us, Deb and I headed down the beach for a bit of a walk.  The beach here is marvelously flat, the sand is very nice, and the water is very calm.  Three for three!  (Steve is very careful with beaches, as it turns out he is allergic to being swept out to sea.)  One still has to be careful though, as the beach is at least 5 miles long and if you get too far from the beers you might not make it back!  Fortunately we had the sense to turn back after a mile, so other than the usual mild sunburn we arrived back safe and sound.

 

This beach goes on forever! 
Taken from the beach chair.



Good snorkeling out here (I am told). 
Taken from the beach chair.

Sadly, the same couldn't be said for our beach bag.  It is woven plastic stuff, and Steve left it on the sand beside his chair.  In our absence, the cafe owner's German Shepherd wandered over, gave it the mandatory sniff-test, and very helpfully marked it for us.  Cheryl, after recovering from her initial horror, quickly poured a couple litres of fresh water inside the bag to wash/dilute the dog piss off everything.  That certainly seemed to work for my cellphone, which was hidden in the bottom of the bag; I couldn't smell any dog piss at all once I got all the water out of it.  Usual drill; rip apart, yank out battery, wipe off, leave naked in sun to dry out.  I'm talking about the cellphone, not the dog :/  Miraculously, it survived without a scratch.  I'm talking about the cellphone, not the dog. :)

 

All good things must peter out eventually, so it was then back into the jeep for a leisurely drive back to our villa.  All in all, an excellent day out!

 

 

2013 January 5 Melaque Bay

Our beach here is quite nice, and it is framed by rocky headlands to make a very pretty bay.  The north end of the bay also has a malecon (sea-side walkway) which is backed by steep hills and/or cliffs, and is therefor completely undeveloped.  We have discovered that it is home to at least one troop of coatimundi, which are new world simians that are racoon-sized and have ringed tails but have fox-like faces.  Very cute, and definitely opportunists.  When we were in Costa Rica some years back we had lobster dinner in a palapa restaurant in a wee beach town south of Puerto Limon.  There was a wild coatimundi lurking up in the eaves, and he'd steal your lobster right off your plate if you weren't paying attention.  Going for a whiz definitely entailed posting an alert sentry!  We've seen these little boogers on a couple of occasions; they hang around on some very steep cliffs just underneath where the cormorants roost.  One of the babies was clearly trying to figure out how to get at one of the birds to make a meal of it, while the bird looked on with a jaundiced and obviously experienced eye; he appeared to have seen it all before.  The first time out we didn't have our camera and of course they posed outrageously, the second time we had the camera so they were quite shy.  We'll keep working on it, and will eventually have some pics for you....



Deb on the Melaque malecon

The first couple weeks here were quite smoky as the farmers burn their fields in December for pest management, and then the Christmas holiday season came along with floods of Mexican tourists from Colima and Guadalajara filling the beaches.  Now the weather has smartened up considerably and the beach is busy without being crowded.  It's a great place to hang out over a beer or lunch and just watch the world go by.  This year the baitfish have decided to come on-shore, so it's a constantly changing mix of pelicans chasing baitfish, fishermen chasing the tuna and jack crevalle under the baitfish, swimmers and boogie-boarders just generally getting in the way, and people, dogs, hawkers, and runners working the area above tide-line.

De-hooking an overly enthusiastic juvenile pelican

We may need to put up some traffic lights....

 

The beach is not an excuse to lose touch with your BFFs!

 

Yesterday our friends Howard and Barb asked us out for comida (lunch, the main meal of the day) at Froy's, which is a very nice beach-side restaurant near downton Melaque.  The weather was perfect, the company was great, and the beach had on it's best outfit, so I definitely had to include a few snaps.  Howard and Barb are now officially homeless, as they sold their house in Canada a couple years ago; they live in a 32-foot fifth-wheeler in Canada in the summer and rent a 2-bedroom bungalow down here in the winter....

Melaque Bay from Froy's

Melaque Bay from Froy's

 

Deb, Barb, and Howard at Froy's

 

 

 

 

 

2013 January 3 The Birthday Boys (Steve, Jesus, and 2013)

December 23 is my birthday, and about a week before we had discovered a beach-side terrace restaurant that has live music in the evenings.  Dec 23 was listed as blues night, which is my favourite, so our plan was to spend a quiet evening together over dinner, drinks, and music on the beach.  But first we thought we'd spend the afternoon walking around Barra, and mayhap having a beer at Popeye's, which is a nice little bar/restaurant just on the edge of the Malecon.  It was a beautiful day, and reminded us of why we like Barra so much.  Whilst sitting in Popeye's drinking a beer and watching the world go by, we heard a shrill whistling and Santa rode his bicycle by!  He was headed for the malecon, and had 3 little nosepickers just digging to catch up with him and be the first on his lap.  Well, we definitely had to go and watch this for a bit.  Turns out the emerging Mexican Santa trope is the full traditional Santa costume plus a shiny whistle.  Don't know why, it just is.  He blows it a lot.

Santa, mermaids, and ocean.  OK, I guess....

Steve's birthday present at the Barra de Navidad malecon

We got to our little restaurant promptly at 7 pm, and the manager informed us that our table for 12 was ready.  Hmmmmmn......  Debbi managed to pull off another surprise party for me, complete with a large table of guests and a marvelous carrot cake (don't ask where you get one of those in Mexico!).  Surprising me must not be overly difficult, as this is I think the third time that she's done this.  It was a great night, and now I'm a year older.

Steve and Deb at the birthday party

 Carrot cake and tequila?  Why the heck not!

This is our second Christmas in Mexico, our first being Christmas of 2004 with son Dave in Puerto Morelos on the Carribean coast.  This time around we have been invited by our friends Kelly and Cheryl to share Christmas dinner with them, Jack and Irma, and Eric and Rochelle.  Deb is contributing a honking big tureen of her signature ceviche, and Irma, Cheryl, and Rochelle are whipping up a traditional holiday feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, sage dressing, green things, and cranberry sauce.  Everyone arrived around 4 pm, in plenty of time to catch up on the latest news, down their favourite social lubricant, and graze on a large assortment of antojitos whilst the ladies worked their magic in the cocina.  And it was excellent!  Kind of weird eating Christmas dinner around the pool in the dark of the evening while it's still 32 degrees, but we'll work on getting used to it....

 

Got home about 9 pm, which is just when the Christmas party at our villa was breaking up; they had dinner for 26!  I'm sure that would have been quite a show, as half of the population in the villa is somebody's grandma, and we all know how grandmas like to cook!

Christmas around the pool.

Irma the Candy Cane

Our hostess Cheryl and good friend Rochelle

New Year's Eve is generally a pretty quiet celebration for Deb and I.  This time around our friends Jack and Irma have invited us to an intimate party for 20 or so at Lucy's Paradise, which is a really cool little bar that features live entertainment just a half-block from the lagoon in Barra.  It isn't a restaurant, but you can get anything you want to eat from the restaurant across the street; the waiter simply jaywalks over and serves you!  Tonight the restaurant set up a really big barbecue on the sidewalk across the street and the chef barbecued up about 50 lb of excellent ribs for us, which were served with salad and garlic mashed potatoes and washed down with the poison of our choice from the bar.  Then the 4-piece band showed up and played very good music (mostly blues and light rock) until Deb and I left, which was about 10:30.  I know, I know!  But the room was starting to move around significantly, which is apparently a side-effect of too many margueritas, and we thought that we'd better get a bit closer to home in case our condition took a turn for the worse.  Our good friends Terry and Joe were sitting at the palapa counting down, so we joined them until the dirty deed was done and we finally went to bed well into 2013.  I'm pretty sure tomorrow is gonna be a REAL slow day....

 

 

 Photos from New Year's deleted by censors.

2012 December 22 The Old Men and The Sea

I've been wanting to go out fishing ever since we got here, but the boys went out the day we arrived here and I had to wait for the next time around.  That's today!  Four of us from the villa (Bob, Joe, Terry, and yours truly) are off to kill a mess of dorado (maybe) and if we get lucky a sailfish or marlin or three.  The boat is a SuperPanga, which is a 26' open fibreglass boat with a canvas bimini top and twin 75hp outboards.  A 7-hour cruise is 3000 pesos ($3000p) plus tip, and you bring your own food and drinks.  With a healthy tip and a half-dozen Pacifico it's $70 for a full day's fishing, can't beat that!  We're leaving from the Barra de Navidad lagoon at 7:00, so it's up at 5:30 and into Bob's car at 6:30; I knew there was a catch....  It's a gorgeous morning with Venus putting on a very pretty show as the morning star, and the lagoon is a hive of activity on arrival, with water taxis bringing locals to work and fishermen heading out for the day.



The lagoon from my favorite lunch spot

Our pilot/guide/deckhand is Rodrigo, a 30-ish local who turns out to be a very hard-working and knowledgeable fishing guide, albeit with very limited English.  We chatter our way offshore until we clear the last rocks about 3-4 miles from the lagoon, and then it's time to get out the rods and get down to business.  Rodrigo works 5 rods; one center rod on a short line with bait just below the surface, two middle rods on medium lines with plugs skipping on the surface, and two outer rods on long lines with baited plugs right on the surface.  Trolling for dorado is about 8 miles per hour, and for billfish is up to 12 miles per hour!  Rodrigo handles all the rods and the boat, and sets the hooks on the fish.  Our job is to look pretty, wait nice, and reel the fish in.  The four of us whip out coins to determine the order for getting into The Fishing Seat; after much discussion of what's a head and what's a tail on these things, what determines a win and a loss, and what to do when Steve drops his coin (again), it is determined that The Fishing Seat will be occupied in order by Joe, Bob, Steve, and Terry.  This appears auspicious, as Joe has only been out once before in his life and he caught a sailfish; we consider this to mean that he's on an unbroken winning streak....

 

After about 45 minutes there is a terrific wank! on one of the outboard rods, and Rodrigo leaps back, yanks on the rod and reels in at a ferocious pace.  Nothing.  Then he puts the reel in neutral and spools out line to stop the bait in the water; when he locks it up again the fish is there and he sets the hook, and it immediately comes about 4' out of the water.  It's a sailfish, and Joe cranks it in, a very pretty sight.  It's a female about 50-60 lb, and Joe is now two-for-two!

 

Joe and Rodrigo with The Victim

We're all pretty energized after that, as we're 45 minutes into a 7-hour charter and we've already got a nice fish in the boat.  So, of course, that's it for the day.  Not for lack of trying; Rodgrigo took us all the way out to 27 miles off-shore (12,000 feet deep, I am told), zigzagged us all over the surface of the ocean, changed lures and bait about 10 times, and changed speed constantly.  We got 6-8 more bites, most of which were probably dorado, but couldn't hook anything up.  One was definitely a sailfish, it came up to one bait on the surface and gave it a whack, stormed over to the other bait and gave it a whack, but just couldn't manage the hook-in-the-mouth thing.  At about 2 pm Rodrigo had trolled us back to where we started, and it was time to get back to the lagoon and close out the day.
 

It was a joint effort. 
Steve, Bob, Rodrigo The Dwarf, Terry, and Killer Joe.

 

Turns out we were one of only 2-3 boats that got anything today, just pretty slow out there right now.  Rodrigo hung the beast up for us, and after the mandatory photo-op he processed the fish into fillets whilst we sucked on cold beers and watched.  A fascinating process on a big fish of this shape; turns out it was a female as it has a very big skein of roe, which the locals are delighted to take home with them.  We were all a bit disappointed to not get into more fish, but we had a good day out there anyways and we're all looking forward to doing it again.

 

Ick, or Yum, depending on your point of view

My share (the smallest 1/4 I could find) fed four of us last night with three pieces left over, so it would have easily fed 6, and that was exactly half of it.  I was  somewhat leery of it as I have heard that marlin is a low-end fish from an eating perspective.  Deb marinated this stuff in lime juice, cilantro, and lemon-pepper spice and then grilled it on the barbie and it was excellent!  So I don't know about marlin, but sailfish is perfectly OK.

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.