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The Mexicans are celebrating yet again. This time for St Patrick’s day. This is in celebration of The St Patrick’s Battalion.  They start at the beginning of the month and continue right through to the 17th.

We started the day before; the 16th. Ron and Julie are here so we arranged to meet up with Pat and Mike for a Pizza in Barra. After Pizza, Mike was feeling a bit under the weather so Pat took him home and arranged to meet us later.

At Lucy’s bar, we had a reservation so we ordered drinks and settled in for great music with Dave Spinks and company. He is really good and I always enjoy listening to him. Who said older folk don’t have fun.

The following videos are not that good. Bad lighting, bad sound and good alcohol were the main causes.

There was a game where we had to take a drink between numbers. We noticed this also included the band. The following video is of a guy from Saskatchewan dancing with Lucy the owner, as well as Dave of course.

Later on, after Pat had returned home, the four of us hopped a taxi to the main square in Melaque. The driver had a rough time getting us there as the roads were crammed with people and vehicles.

Across the square is a ‘churo’ stand. This is a sweet thing similar to a donut and made fresh as we watched. We ordered a bunch of those and then fought our way to the main square.

The place was packed. We could tell by the lack of Nordenos that the season was coming to an end. There were hundreds of Mexicans and their families just hanging out waiting for the fireworks to start. They come to Melaque by the busload. We had warned Ron and Julie to be aware because the fireworks can get a little dangerous.

They started and the fun began. It’s hard to describe as they are not like your basic firework display. These happen mostly at street level and there are sparks going everywhere. Part way through, they set off the skyrockets. These things howled into the sky and burst noisily showering everyone with debris.

Just when we thought it had ended there was a huge boom nearby and more rockets took off. All in all a lot of fun.

The taxi stand was nearby but they couldn’t get out for the crush of people so we started to walk home. As we crossed the square we ran into Vic and Suzanne. We seem to do that a lot. We walked with them until we had to part ways and got home at about midnight. It was a very successful evening. The main event is tonight though so I don’t know what that will be like or even if we’ll go or not. Maybe watch what we can from our roof.

 

There was a unique situation where Rosalie and her four sisters were all in Mexico at the same time. The problem was, two were in Puerto Vallarta and three were in Melaque. Further complicating the situation was, that of the two in P.V., one was arriving and twelve hours later the other was leaving. We, however, would overcome.

Brother-in-law Vic arranged to rent a seven-seater van and we started our quest. The van was fine and got us there but it had no rear shocks. There are many, many topes (speed bumps) on the main road to P.V; up to four in each little town we passed through. Most are not well marked and if Vic, who was driving, happened to hit one a bit too hard Gordie and I, who were sitting in the back, tended to head for the ceiling and then return with a spine-crushing thump. There were also road works with unexpected ridges which added to our misery.

Sister-law-Delorie was the one leaving so we spent a day with her in a luxurious apartment overlooking the ocean.

We sat around the pool, drank wine and generally had a good time. That evening we picked up Marina and her friend Barb and we all went to the Marina for Dinner.

Some of us had been to Victor’s Place Restaurant previously so we knew the food was good and that he dishes out a lot of free booze. In fact, he gave our table two bottles of Tequila as part of the service.

Victor always greets his visitors personally with “welcome home” even though he hadn’t a clue who we were. Even if we had been there previously he probably wouldn’t have remembered as every time he handed out free drinks he had to have one himself. The thing is he never seemed drunk. He is a very nice man and we would go back again; and not just for the free booze, although that is a strong consideration.

Sadly, Delorie had to leave early the next morning. So Vic and I took Suzanne, Marina and her friend Barb to Walmart to get some supplies. We also got their phones hooked up with a Mexican sim card. They got unlimited calling and text in North America plus 2 gigs of data for 50 pesos (about $3.50) for 15 days. We are being ripped off in Canada.

That evening we walked the Malecon and saw some great sights. Firstly, me panicking because we were so intent on the sunset we missed the start of the action. It was cooler then, as we watched the sun go down.

The following morning we pilled into the van and headed back to Melaque and those bone-jarring topes.

Rosalie’s sister Giselle and husband Gordie were arriving here on Saturday so we decided to rent a car to pick them up. We asked Suzanne to come along as all three sisters could be together for the ride back from the airport.

The car rental place was in Barra so we hopped on the local “chicken bus” for the trip there. The car cost 600 pesos a day ($41.39) including insurance and taxes.

The car we got wasn’t quite what I had envisioned. It was a micro-mini compact and barely big enough for four people, not five as well as luggage. We decided to try and make the most of it as the two girls and I wanted to go to Manzanillo for supplies at Walmart.

When we left Walmart with a loaded the car it was apparent that we couldn’t get one more person in, certainly not two with luggage. So, we agreed to take Suzanne and the supplies back to Melaque. After lunch, Rosalie and I headed back to the airport.

After parking the car we went in and expected to wait forty-five minutes for our guests to come through customs and immigration.  To our surprise, they showed up in about twenty minutes. I barely had time to gag my cerveza down. Well, they showed up but their checked bag didn’t. They weren’t amused when I told them this was a good thing, as we didn’t have the room for it anyway. After the required paperwork we took off for home. We are still waiting for their bag but have been assured that it will turn up today.

It was nice having a car so, as we had it for the minimum two days, we went to La Manzanilla the next day for some time at the beach with the rest of the gang. That evening we went for pizza at a local restaurant. This is how they do the pizzas. They were great.

This was my first experience driving in Mexico so I was a little apprehensive.  However I needn’t have worried. In a lot of ways, it was easier than driving in Canada. For a start, as Rosalie pointed out, the stop signs and speed signs appear to be ‘only a suggestion’ and are basically ignored.

One of the reasons it’s easier here is that everyone is so polite. There are no stop signs at most of the intersections so whoever gets there first goes first and everyone avoids hitting everyone else. No one gets mad, no horns beeping, no angry revving of engines; it’s great! Also when on the highway if someone wants to pass, the slower vehicle in front pulls on to the hard shoulder and lets them by. I passed a cop car on a solid yellow line this way. Well, he did pull over to the shoulder, so I had to.

There are some anomalies though. Most of the major roads through cities have side roads running parallel. If you need to turn left, you have to be in one of these lanes on the right and wait for the left turn signal. It’s a bit confusing at first but you get used to it after a while. It also makes it easy to do U-turn.

All in all, we had a great time and look forward to renting another car soon to do a bit more exploring.

 

I don’t like St Valentine’s day because I feel forced to acknowledge that I love my wife, and I tell her every day. It’s all about money and I also don’t like the idea of a giant greetings card company trying to guilt me into buying something.

I once went into a store to buy a St. Valentine’s day card,  and was greeted by a garish bright red display covered with hundreds, if not thousands, of bright red cards all saying “buy me, buy me.” Yuck!” I immediately walked out and have not bought one since.

We did go out for dinner on the night though. There were six of us: Vic, Suzanne, John,  Joanna and us. It was a great night. There was dancing and some of us joined Elvis in singing and of course, we drank too much.

The thing that struck me the most was the diversity of people: Old (mostly old), Young, short, tall, skinny, fat, good looking, not so good looking, but we all had someone we cared about and we were all having a good time. So the evening was worth it.

Anyhoo, enough of that rant. A few days later we invited Vic, Suzanne, Mike and Pat over for dinner. We decided to cook steaks. We had had some a few days earlier that were really good.

Vic and Suzanne showed us the place where we could buy the meat. Six three quarter to one-inch t-bone steaks cost about seven dollars each. (200 pesos a kg or about $13.72) They were so big we ended up freezing two of them. They were both tender and tasty.

Jamaica (Ham-ika) is a drink made from dried hibiscus flowers. We tried it several times and liked it, so Rosalie bought some flowers from the local store and made some. It involves a lot of boiling and reboiling to get the most out of the petals and we ended up with a nice healthy drink for next to nothing.

John and Joanna wanted us to see their place so we met up there with Vic and Suzanne to spend a couple of hours on the beach. I wanted to say that I caught this nice fish but you can see the shadow of the Mexican who really caught it.

His timing was perfect. There was a school of fish just offshore; you could tell by the way the pelicanos were attacking. As well as the birds the school was also attacked by larger fish and this guy did one cast and caught one!

 

After the beach, Rosalie and I went and got some ingredients for another batch of pierogis as another friend of Vic and Suzanne’s is coming to visit and we are going to get more T-bones. He is of Ukrainian origin so we want to test my skill with the pierogies.

“Love isn’t what you say. Love is what you do”

Winnie the poo

 

When Christian came by with his horse a while back, Rosalie fell in love with the idea of doing the Sunset Tour with him and a bunch of other people. So she booked the tour and went with her sister Suzanne and hubby Vic as well as our friend Linda.

Christian, his sidekick and partner Gerry and the horses arrived surprisingly on time for Mexico. Then again it would have been embarrassing to miss the sunset. To me, the horses seemed to be very docile and easy to get on with. I ducked out of this one as I’m not sure how my hip would take it. Besides, I had a sinus infection so wasn’t feeling my best.

I watched as they saddled up one by one with Gerry and Christian helping them to get on their horses. Suzanne was a little nervous but Gerry became her protector and gave her lots of reassurance.

They left the house and turned left to head for the beach. As they went along the beach there were tables and chairs in the way so Rosalie steered more toward the surf. Christian immediately redirected her away from the water as apparently, the horses are afraid of the sound of crashing waves. (Woosies!) The tour eventually took them right along the beach toward the other end of town. They wended their way through town and across the canal, hen took the old road to Cuastecomantes.

At the top of the mountain, they stopped to see the sunset and to admire the view of Melaque. Many photos were taken and some beer and water consumed.

As it got darker, they retraced their steps via the beach rather than through town and headed back to our place for some linament and a cold beer.

 

We went to Jim and Ylda’s home for a fabulous meal of cabbage rolls and pierogis. They were so good that even though I don’t eat a lot I went back for thirds. I have always wanted to try making pierogis so I went home inspired.

The following day I mixed my first batch with a potato and blue cheese filling. There were a few problems though. There wasn’t a roller around so I used an empty wine bottle (the fun part was emptying the bottle; of course.) Also, I needed a larger rolling surface. Between Rosalie and myself we did get it done and it was delicious. Now I was in a fever to make a new batch with a different filling.

The next day we went in search of a roller and a larger cutting board. Both were found at our all-purpose Plastico store.

Back at the duplex, I whipped up another batch of dough and realized I had made an error. I was supposed to use hot water for the mix but I had used cold. Plodding on, I found that everything was getting really sticky. This time I finished the job with a meat and potato filling. It too was good.

The third batch was made using up all the leftover filling from the previous batches and again had trouble rolling the dough. Everything stuck to everything else. Not good!

While looking for more recipes I noticed that some of them said to roll the dough into little balls and roll them individually. This gave me an idea, so we went up to town and bought an inexpensive tortilla press.

We couldn’t try it out that day as we had to go to a meeting about the local Emergency Awareness program. It was a little depressing. They have some ambulances here but they are poorly equipped. The 911 system works but they speak little English and in one incident didn’t answer the phone.

The guy giving the presentation knows of these problems and is taking steps to correct them. He made an appeal for any used medical supplies that we could bring from Canada. Last year the Canadians and Americans brought supplies and someone brought a defibrillator. It doesn’t matter if the instruments are broken as the Mexicans are great at fixing and improvising.

The following day we tried out the tortilla press and it worked better than I expected. We did some with bacon/mushroom/green onion and potato and some with an apple and cinnamon filling. So now we have a freezer full of pierogis just waiting for someone to come along and try them out. That is if I don’t eat them all first.

Sounds epic, And in some ways it was.

Diane invited us for a bike ride in the backcountry. This is also a safer bike ride to Barra de Navidad. Going along the highway can be a bit hairy.

Dianne and Ron along with Tony and Nancy met us at eight thirty at our place. Rosalie had ridden ahead to let Margo and Denny know that we were on the way. We all met up at Materiales de Pollo and away we went.

We rode up to Hwy 200 and waited for the green light so we could cross the road. It may seem un-Mexican to wait for a green light but it’s a good idea because for traffic to make a left-hand turn you have to be in the right-hand lane. We didn’t want to get run down while in a state of confusion.

After a short time, we were in the backcountry. The road out of town was “paved’ for the first quarter of a km but after that it was dirt. ‘Paved’ being rocks stuck together with concrete. It was probably great for cars but a bit bumpy for us.

The country out in that part is very agricultural. There were plantations along most of the road and of course the odd goat or cow. Quite a beautiful ride.

We got to Jaluco and the decision was made to add to our agony journey by taking another long way around. At about the halfway point we decided to stop for brunch at a restaurant back in Jaluco.

‘Letty’ is a restaurant on a very sharp corner. We piled our bike up outside and the eight of us went in. The staff and manager didn’t speak English so Rosalie and I, using our best Spanish, ordered a ‘cafe con leche’. We were served hot water in one cup and hot milk in another. It was then we noticed the jar of instant coffee on the table.

 

This being Mexico we decided to make the best of it. Rosalie put some coffee in her cup and used some of the milk from my cup and she was all set. I added coffee to mine and I was all set. I didn’t have a problem with this method as we often made instant coffee with hot milk while living in England.

The food as always was great. We both had a mushroom omelet with refried beans and salad. And, as always, it was inexpensive. Prior to getting our order Rosalie was given a tour of the kitchen. Neither of us knows why.

Feeling nicely full we took a leisurely ride back to town. All in all, it was a great ride. Having said that, before we go again I have to get a much more comfortable seat for my bike. I’ll be limping for a week. We just got back and my knee started to complain so the journey was just the right length,

We travelled about 14 Km and were gone for three hours. I know this because I downloaded a nifty GPS app. I say we travelled about 14 Km because I forgot to turn it on until halfway through the trip. Maybe I’ll remember next time; probably not!

In the last few days, we have been polishing our Spanish and finding better ways of saying things. We often use “quiero” (I want) but we’ve learned this could come across as a bit blunt so we are finding friendlier ways of saying things “Puedo tener” (can I have.) I find it annoying as I only just learnt the old way.

Tired of overtaxing my tiny mind trying to learn more Spanish, I retired to the hamaca for a rest. Rosalie did her usual job of feeding me grapes. Well, that was my dream until I realized she was throwing them at me to wake me up, for dinner.

I’ve only fallen out of the thing twice. Both times I was trying to get in and not out. Fortunately, I didn’t cause myself too much damage. The danger is when Rosalie gets in with me, for a little woman she sure bounces a lot. Twice I almost spilled my wine.

We just get settled in when this happens:

The guy in the red VW sells ice cream,  even a tequila flavoured one. He’s been doing this for twenty years and we have no idea why he hasn’t gone crazy listening to the same recording over and over. The little girl is locked out and yelling to get in; her brother is even louder. We have no idea what the guy on the bike is advertising. The gas truck. Someone selling fruit and veggies out of the back of the pickup truck. And of course that F…ing rooster.

We finally settle down to read our books and before long Rosalie starts to take a nap. This is a tough time for me. When she sleeps on the couch I can at least tiptoe around very quietly and do a few things. In the hamaca I’m frozen. One badly planned move and I would wake her up. Worse yet we could both fall out onto the tile below. It’s only a few inches but it’s a very hard ceramic tile. I can only hope it’s a short nap before my muscles start to cramp up from inaction. The worse part is, that even if I’m brave enough to reach for my wine glass I may have to wait a while to refill it.

To keep my mind occupied I go into a zen state and count the dead bougainvillea blossoms blowing on to the patio. I swear every bush drops their blossoms and no matter where they are on the street, they end up on our patio. Perhaps we should leave them there, it may make our landing a little softer if we do fall out.

 

We went out to Laguna Del Tule for a meal and to watch the band the other night. The band was good and so was the food when we eventually got it. We waited an hour and a half to eat after we had ordered. I think they want to get people to drink more while they are waiting. I was not impressed. If we go back it will be after we have eaten. Ron was even attacked by a killer gecko.

The following day we went out for lunch while Rubi was cleaning the place. There is a corner restaurant we pass a lot but have never been in so we opted for that. They didn’t have a menu but offered us Pollo Americano or Steak Americano. After my past experiences with steak here we chose the pollo. The only problem was, that we didn’t really know what we had ordered.

When the food came it was delicious. It was simply a chicken leg with rice and potatoes and a thin tomato sauce. And, as always it was very inexpensive.

When we got back to the duplex Rubi was finishing up. It was her birthday so we wished her “Feliz Cumpleanos.” Before she left she asked if she could have the tip money we had been saving up for her; probably for her birthday. As she was leaving she invited us across the road to her casa that evening for some pizza. We knew that none of her family spoke English so I was a bit apprehensive as to how we would communicate. Even so, we were very honoured.

We arrived at eight thirty with some cerveza and a bottle of cafe tequila liquor as a gift. There were a couple of chairs spare so we sidled up and sat down. Introductions were made and so far all was going well.

During the introductions, we met Rubi’s parents and a brand new baby. It was Rubi’s nephew and he sure was cute. Within ten minutes Rosalie had that baby and was cooing to it like its own Mum. As she came back to the table with the baby I got a laugh as I pointed at Rosalie and the baby and said “No para ti” (not for you.)

I needn’t have been worried about the language barrier as within a few minutes Rosalie was deep in conversation with Rubi and her husband Joshua. (Pronounce the J as an H and make the H silent. Sounds something like hose-way.) Having been down here many times, my Spanish is better than I thought. I managed to get in on some parts of the conversation and even contributed a little.

They told us that sometime down the road they want their kids to learn English. I said “This is Mexico you should speak Spanish” but they said it was also necessary to speak English and looking back I think they are right.

 

We had a beer, ate our pizza and after a while went home. It was a great night. We were accepted by the family as new friends and the experience of communicating with them in their own language was awesome.

Now that we have rediscovered the local little restaurants, we went out for dinner last night.

We found a nice little corner place “ Rosita’s Loncheria” with tables on the sidewalk.

The owner and waiter was Rosita of course. She took our order and from then on we were then entertained by a young man whom we think was her son.

The first thing he had to do was run off down the street and disappear somewhere to get me my cerveza. He came back with the wrong one so had to retrace his steps and get me the right one. Not that I really cared about the brand.

By entertaining I mean he did all the rest of the serving. He was about 10 years old. We always speak Spanish as much as we can and usually get through a meal without having to speak English. He was well schooled in what to say to us in English, and when.

He had several standard phrases like “How-is-your-meal” “ Is-everything-okay” etc. He was a lovely young man so at the end of the meal we gave him an extra tip just for himself.

While we sat there Mexican life went on around us. Except for one Canadian lady who was obviously a friend of Rosita’s we were the only other Canadians in sight. It was a typical street scene, kids playing in the road, moms and dads standing talking. There was a severely handicapped man, maybe about thirty years old who was having a hard time walking upright. Nobody took any special notice of him, he was accepted as just one of the crowd. And of course, there is always a bougainvillea bush close by for some colour.

Mexicans are so easy to get along with. Sometimes you find one that may be a bit standoffish but once they get to know you they are the friendliest people around. I think we have an advantage as are seen around a lot and not considered short term tourists. Rosalie usually asks their name and remembers to use it next time we see them. It helps a lot. And of course, they appreciate us trying to speak their language.

When we first came here I wasn’t a fan of the local food. Lately though, after discovering some of the smaller restaurants where the locals eat I only want to eat there. We went out to renew our phone plan and Rosalie dragged me into a roadside taqueria. We each had a mushroom omelet and a coffee, it was the best, and of course, only cost $140 pesos ($9.70) for both of us.

Being here is good for us both. We are living simply but richly. Soaking up the culture, learning the language and above all having a good time. I hope we can carry that attitude back with us in April.