Real Mexico!

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.

Secret Beach

Mornings are pretty relaxed at El Encanto. Everybody is up pretty early in the morning because without television nobody stayed up too late the night before. And early mornings allow some time for getting to know each other. Here Christian and Giles chat while young Miles attentively observes.

Jim’s breakfasts are wonderful. And he always has some hardboiled eggs and a couple other things to eat out before he formally starts serving at 8:00. Lori appreciated that !

Lori was a new friend for this trip. She and Yvonne have known each other since junior high school. Oddly enough, she now lives only a few blocks from our old house in Long Beach. Definitely small world. 

Speaking of things small, Miss Josephine make sure that we always knew where she was and what she was thinking at every moment. And when sheer volume was not enough, there was always the creative us of make up to create a presence at the table. 

After breakfast, John and Sherry went off to San Blas to go shopping. Sherry wanted to cook one of the meals here and decided that given the local ingredients Shrimp Creole will be the perfect choice to bring a bit of Loo-ze-anna to Nayarit, Mexico. 

Once John and Sherry came back, Jim piled us into a couple vans — Mike drove one — and we went off to the “secret beach.” It’s not a secret, of course, but it is far enough off the main road that we had it to ourselves even during this busiest beach week of the year. As you can see, it is a beautiful swath of golden sand.

Everybody wanted to get their feet wet as soon as we arrive. 

John, always thinking about other people instead of himself, helped Jim to put up a big parachute for a beach palapa. 

After everybody had been in swimming, we had a delicious lunch of ceviche on a huge avocado half. 

Miles particularly enjoyed his meal. He is such a fantastic baby.

The waves were not the best for surfing, but Natasha brought her board along anyhow. 

Weirdly enough, even though nobody else was on the beach, all of a sudden this pink car came driving down the sand … selling ice cream. Rats! The one time John did not have a single peso on him.

But after a few blissful hours it was time to pack up and go. Josephine hitched a ride.

But the rest of us just trudged sadly away from the lovely spot, wishing we could spend a few more hours there.

Later, after dinner, John and some of the ladies went into town to check out a local festival. 

Tomorrow many of our party will leave to return to the United States. What a great time it has been!

Jungle Boats

One of the best things about El Encanto is the whimsical artistic sensibility that Jim brings to the hotel and the gardens that surround it. Take this bench, for example.

Of course, I am a soft touch for any canine, and Jim has some wonderful dogs, all rescued. I am here with Sugar, a Pit Bull and Dalmatian mix.

Our second adventure here in Nayarit was a little bit nostalgic for John and me. We had come to this part of Mexico about 25 years ago with John’s dad. We were staying at a friend’s house in Puerto Vallarta, and we came north in a roofless Volkswagen bug to look at the towns on the Bahia de Banderas and along the Nayarit coast. I am not sure how we knew that you could take a boat through the mangrove swamps just south of San Blas, but we did so. I think there were only a couple boats there and we just parked along the side of the road. 

How things have changed. Today that wide spot in the road boats a couple dozen shops and restaurants and there is a boatman’s cooperative that operate the rides through the jungle. There is a upside to all of this:  we had a fight with our boatman twenty five years ago when he tried to tell us at the end of the ride that the price was five times more than we had agreed on. Today we just went to the office and bought a ticket and climbed into the boat.

I am not sure if this was here when we were here last, but I think it dates from the early nineties. It is the remains of a movie set build here for what I think was a Sylvester Stallone film. Maybe one of you gentle readers has actually watched one of those films and might remember which one it was. 

They promised us on our ticket that we would see “cocodrilos” and sure enough we spotted an alligator about five minutes into the ride.

We also spotted a number of birds, but the boat operator did not slow down enough for me to get a photograph of any of them. After riding for about twenty minutes we came to a small zoo in the middle of the estuary. There were a number of somewhat depressing pens there, particularly a smallish one where a lynx was pacing back and forth. The ones with the alligators seemed to have the most contented inhabitants. I suspect alligators are content to do nothing if they are not having to hunt for themselves. 

There was also a little swimming area, happily caged off from the rest of the estuary. Miles enjoyed the warm water. He is such a happy little baby. 

On the way back, Josephine took charge, as she often does, placing herself in the bow.

After the boat ride, we went into San Blas for a bit. John knew a small hotel there which supposedly had the “best burgers in San Blas.” As it turned out, the restaurant did not open for about 45 minutes, but they were kind enough to let us use the pool.

When they finally did begin to serve lunch, some of our party, the ones in the wet swim trunks ate outside while others of us ate indoors. I am not sure about the burgers, but the comida mexicana was quite good. We had a really absurd conversation about how you could say “I have a ham on my head” in a variety of different languages. I think we figured it out in eleven! At the end of the meal, they surprised Jill with a birthday cupcake.

Back at the hotel most everybody rested until dinner. I did a little work on this blog. 

Today was Jill’s birthday, and Jim provided a carrot cake for the occasion.

Ellen surprised her with a small gift:  a ceramic pig to put on her head. Oh, how did I forget to take a picture of that!

Waterfall

We woke up, as one often does in Mexico, with roosters crowing away merrily. After a healthy breakfast, John and some of the women in our group went to San Blas to go shopping. I stayed back at the hotel to do some work. I am not quite sure what they were looking for in town, but they came across a celebration of Benito Juarez Day.

Juarez, a Zapotec Indian from the southern state of Oaxaca, was the reform-minded leader of the nation in the middle of the nineteenth century. He helped expel Maximilian and the French from Mexico, confiscated much of the holdings of the church, and provided greater rights for his fellow indigenous people. His birthday on March 21 is a national holiday here in Mexico. 

Jim organized an outing for our group today to a waterfall up in the mountains. It took us about 45 minutes of driving to get there.There were several cars already parked at the trailhead. Jim explained that it is usually empty, but because this is Semana Santa and so many Mexicans have the week off work, we would have more people there than usual. After a few minutes of hiking, we caught our first glimpse of the waterfall.

Unfortunately, at least for a few of those in our group, we had about 240 steps down the trail before we made it to the base of the falls. We paused for a moment at the beginning of the descent for a group shot.

Not longer after this, a couple of our party were not in the mood to smile. But somehow, even with a couple of spills, everybody made it to the end. Most everybody was willing to jump right into the water and cool off!

None of our group, however, were quite as adventuresome as some of the Mexican boys who climbed up onto the cliff and dropped 10 or 15 feet into the pool below. I caught a picture of this lad just before he splashed into the water.

It almost looks like he is heading up instead of down, doesn’t it? Fortunately, none of these boys were injured despite all the rocks. But after swimming for a bit, everybody came out of the water and had some lunch. 

After lunch, we walked around a bit. Rebecca and Rochelle climbed a tree to pose for the cameras.

John is also not too camera shy.

But, to paraphrase the old saying, those who hike down must also hike up. We walked up the trail, some a bit faster than others. But we all finally made it to the top. Along the way we were rewarded with many views of the waterfall.

We returned back to El Encanto. John and I share a rooftop with Ellen and Mike. 

We have some of the funkiest rooms here, but it’s nice to have the family together. 

On the Road to San Blas

The day did not start out well. Our flight arrived late, the baggage was nearly lost, and when we finally made it to the Budget office to pick up our rental car, we were told that they had released our reservation and had no vehicles at all. Rebecca, John’s niece, managed to get somebody at Avis to give us a car, although it was more four times our previous rate. At least we were not taking a bus. 

Things improved after that. We went off to a not-particularly-attractive part of Guadalajara to pick up Ellen and Mike. My sister and brother-in-law arrived a day before us and they had found an inexpensive hotel to spend the night. I was happy to hear that they had slept well because I was pretty sure that I was not going to be able to drive the whole way on three hours of sleep. 

We were out of Mexico’s second largest city without too much difficulty, and pretty soon the car was on the tollroad climbing up into the Sierra Madre Occidental. I should mention at this time that this vehicle, a Nissan SUV, was packed with six people and way too much luggage. Rochelle, Rebecca’s traveling companion from Berkeley, was stuck in the very back on a tiny little pop-up seat with all the suitcases piled around her. What a trooper! After about an hour, we all decided that we needed a bit too eat and poor Rochelle should get the chance to move her legs again. So we decided it was time for some Tequila!

I am not speaking of the alcoholic beverage right now, but the town which gave its name to that drink. Santiago de Tequila is a small city just to the west of Guadalajara on the arid leeward slopes of the mountain range. It is a charming little city, and has been designated as a World Heritage Site. We stopped at the Casona Antigua for lunch. It was great!

Afterwards, we walked around the Casona. It is not only a restaurant, but also one of the larger hotels in the area and I suspect the most expensive. Just off the lobby we walked though this small bar. I was a little surprised in this conservative part of Mexico to see that they had incorporated an old altarpiece into the bar decor.

La Casona Antigua has a delightful rooftop bar area with great views of the town.

After this, we broke into groups and went shopping. I found the shop for the Rubio distillery and joked to my brother-in-law that he should get something there with the “Marca de Rubio.” He is such a die-hard Democrat that he did not find that at all amusing. But we all did find posing with the phony campesino in the square more humorous. Rochelle, the young lady on the left, seemed to particularly grasp the silliness of the whole thing. 

After lunch, I let Mike drive the remaining three hours to the coast. We are staying at El Encanto, a small hotel just off the beach in Santa Cruz de Miramar, a small town about a half hour south of San Blas. John stayed here last January when he came down to Mexico to visit our friend Bob. He was so taken with the place that he decided to get many of our favorite friends and relatives to come join us here for a few days who could take a week off work and were up to a hotel with no room service and a few spiders. Surprisingly, we had all fourteen beds filled within three days of issuing the invitation. All had purchased airplane tickets and wait list was formed. There was no turning back. 

We made it here a in the late afternoon. We greeted everybody—most people arrived before us—and unpacked our stuff. John walked down to the beach just before sunset. 

Jim, the owner of El Encanto, often hosts large groups like Yoga retreats, and he has a eating area across the road from the hotel right next to his own house. It is festooned with lots of colorful lights. You can see it in the background behind Ellen. 

Once we arrive, we were not surprised to find Sherry in the kitchen helping out with the dinner. 

Meanwhile, the rest of us, like Mike, just sat around and chatted with each other.