Today we bid farewell to many of our friends. It’s hard to believe how closely we feel bonded to each other even though some of us have known others for only a few days! Ellen and I had some visitors on our rooftop patio in the morning.
After lunch, John and I tried to get some pictures of everybody. Christian and Robin hit it off: she has a granddaughter Josephine’s age.
Jill had to pose with the “there’s a ham on my head” pig that Ellen found for her.
Rochelle overcame any shyness in front of a camera!
Tom Giles, ever rock-solid, watched all this from the safety of a pickup truck. It seemed like the perfect prop for him, too.
And all the women wanted to get a group shot. Girl power!
While Jill and Robin were riding back with Sherry and Giles, Rochelle and Rebecca went to Puerta Vallarta in a cab.
At the gate, Jim, our host, bid everyone adieu.
After most of our group had left, we were left wondering what to do without ourselves. Jim suggested that we might want to check out El Chaco, a nearby beach. (Some of our number kept calling it El Chapo, but that’s a part of Mexico we would just as soon not experience!) It was an amazing experience, though not one I am sure I want to repeat.
Holy Week, Semana Santa in Spanish, is a Mexican national holiday. Not only that, but camping on the beach, usually forbidden, is permitted or at least allowed this one week of the year. So when we arrived at this beach, just south of the center of San Blas, we found tens of thousands of people already there. It is a long flat stretch of sand. A couple dozen long palapas lined the beach, generally two deep. Each was split into twenty or thirty little stalls. Most people simple drove their cars — or more frequently pickup trucks — to their spot and unloaded everything. We found one of the last few unclaimed stall and just to feel like we fit in, we drove our rental SUV up to it as well. Having found a spot, even if it did not have a particularly good view of the water, we watched the beach with fascination. Vendors walked up and down the beach selling food and trinkets. And groups of musicians did as well. The family in the stall next to our hired these a brightly-clad group to perform for them.
Elsewhere on the beach, were at least a half dozen brass and percussion ensembles. As you walked up and down the beach the sound of one blended into the music of another in a cacophonous layering that perhaps only Charles Ives could fully appreciate.
We had also purchased wrist bands for a few pesos which allowed us to use the pool at the nearby restaurant. Poor are great for kids, and Josephine loves to go to the pool. Not surprisingly, she made herself the queen of the chlorine even without speaking a word of Spanish.
It was a fascinating afternoon, but we all felt a bit exhausted by the experience. So we came back to the hotel where many of us took naps and even relaxed on the patio.
In the evening we had our final meal together in Jim’s lovely communal dining room. He made the most incredibly delicious shiitake mushroom burgers. Better than beef, by far! And afterwards, everyone gathered around a campfire.
Tomorrow most of us leave for Guadalajara.
