March 25, 2019
I finally felt almost normal, so got up and went to the gym
on Monday morning. After returning from
the gym, I walked over to Mario’s grocery store to buy a little food before it
got too warm. I had eaten all my food
and anticipated being in town for a few more days, so I needed supplies.
No sooner did I get home from the store than I received a
message informing me that we would likely leave on Wednesday morning. We didn’t have a long enough window to get to
La Paz but would head for Mazatlan and wait there for a window to cross. I was sorry to leave La Cruz so soon, but
hadn’t been to Mazatlan since 2013 and had a friend to visit there. It seemed like a good plan.
I spent most of the afternoon practicing the guitar and
packing and then shot off a quick blog post.
It didn’t take long since almost nothing had happened the previous
week. Soon, it was time to head to the
Octopus’ Garden to see Cheko Ruiz’ last concert of the season where he was
scheduled to be joined by Diego Mondragon. I couldn’t miss that.
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| Cheko Ruiz and Diego Mondragon |
Karen and I shared a table with six Canadian condo dwellers
who were big fans of Cheko. We enjoyed
chatting with them while I ate dinner. The
show was fabulous. Each musician outdid
himself and even the owner, Alfredo, chimed in with his trumpet at one point. They played some music I had never heard them
play before. One piece by Rodrigo y
Gabriela rocked and the flamenco guitarist, Juan Ramirez, had a chance to shine. He seemed to be better every time I saw
him. He had come a long way over the
course of the season and I looked forward to hearing him, again, in the future.
Diego Mondragon played a few pieces with the band and added
another level of complexity to the music.
Their grand finale was Cheko’s new single, Afinadito. I decided to take
a video just in case it became a huge hit.
The band jammed for over nine minutes and my arms felt like they were
going to cramp up if it went one minute longer.
Diego and Daniel, the trumpeter, just kept playing and the drummer
didn’t want to be outdone. Even Juan
took up some bongos and played a decent solo.
No one wanted to stop playing and the audience didn’t want the show to
end, either.
It was my last show at the Octopus’ Garden, as Alfredo was
losing his lease at the end of the summer and it would be converted from a
restaurant to a hostel. It was emotional
for me as I had many wonderful memories of hearing and playing music there over
the years. It always seemed to take a
long time to get comfortable again after my regular haunt closed. I hoped that Alfredo would succeed in finding
and establishing a new location before I returned.
March 26, 2019
I thought it was my last day and I had a lot to pack in. I got up early and went for a run in the
marina. I had not done so for a couple
of weeks and it was noticeably lighter.
I almost missed the dawn. When I
got home, I did a load of laundry and spent most of the day packing and storing
away my belongings. I practiced the
guitar one last time and then packed my guitar and music. I would be delivering my things to Unleashed later that afternoon.
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| I Never Got Enough of This View |
I cooked up the chunk of arrachera I had bought when I
thought we would be staying longer so that we could munch on it easily during
the crossing. I was leaving most of the
perishables behind but was bringing along any transportable food that would go
stale before I returned. If we didn’t
use it on Unleashed, we could use it
later on Scout.
I found a few minutes to update my blog before Cherie came
home to give me a ride to the marina with my bags. We were going to the beach at Destiladeras for
the late afternoon/evening and dropped my things off on the way.
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| Big Waves at Destiladeras |
A number of our friends had gone to the beach, earlier, by
bus and already had a table set up on the sand.
We arrived around 16:00 with our friend, John, in tow. We ordered food and drink and played in the
water for a couple of hours. Our
original plan had been to stay for the sunset but the tide had reached our
table and our friends were ready to go when the restaurant employees came to
relocate us. It was very windy and the
surf was big so I was not inclined to go in the water, anyway. We packed up and headed for La Cruz by 18:00.
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| The Beach at Destiladeras |
Having returned early, I decided to accompany Cherie to the
Brittania for the evening. We were
hungry, so stopped at the Octopus’ Garden for Tuesday burrito night. The burritos were made from shredded pork and
were huge. We split one and both of us
got plenty to eat. I got a chance to say
goodbye to the owner, Alfredo, without a big concert crowd around. I promised to find him at his new location in
the fall, wherever that might be. I knew
he would keep us informed via his frequent Facebook posts.
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| The Band at the Brittania |
It was not very crowded at the Brittania but I did get a
chance to say goodbye to John and Janice, Mark and Rosie, and Connie and Ted. I danced with Keith from Poco Loco Dos and had a good time we didn’t stay late because we
were planning to leave in the morning.
I looked at the weather when we got home and the weather
window seemed rather dubious. I
mentioned that to Paul in a text before going to bed.
March 27, 2019
I looked at my messages when I awoke and received the news
that Paul agreed it was not a good time to go and had scrapped our
departure. All my clothes were on the
boat, so I couldn’t go to the gym. I had
a lazy morning and then rode the bicycle down to the marina to collect my
guitar and enough clothes from the boat to make it until our next possible
weather window on Saturday.
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| Unleashed, My Ride to La Paz |
While I had been ready to leave, I had been sorry to miss
Geo’s dance party at Oso’s Oyster Bar on Wednesday night. Geo was playing rock 'n roll and blues that
night, which he normally does not do. I
was interested to see that. With our
departure delayed, I got the chance to go. I met Paul and Carol at Unleashed
at 17:30 to share a glass of wine and eat the chicken I had bought in
anticipation of leaving. Then I bicycled
over to Oso’s for the music.
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| Ted, Rosie, Marc, Janice, and John at Oso's |
The usual music groupies had reserved a table for eight. It was a beautiful night. We didn’t have a good view of the stage, but
we had a lovely view of the marina. Oso’s
was absolutely packed and they had even set up tables outside on the Malecon. The service was terribly slow and it took me
over an hour to get a glass of wine.
That was probably a good thing, as the glasses were generous. As it was, I was a little bit tipsy by the
time I was asked to dance.
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| Leon Playing Washboard with Geo at Oso's |
My partner was a good dancer, but a terrible show off. He spun me all over the floor and several
times dipped me nearly to the floor. At
one point I was upside down with my head practically on Geo’s feet. It was a very strange perspective and I was not
comfortable. It took me three dances to
escape his clutches and, by then, I felt I had made up for missing the gym that
morning. I stayed firmly anchored to the
table after that and managed to pay my bill just before the show ended about
22:00. As usual, the crowd thinned
noticeably after 21:00. We were not late
night partiers.
March 28, 2019
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| Dawn at the La Cruz Marina |
Having retrieved my exercise clothes, I got up early to run
on Thursday. Karen, Marc, and I planned
to spend the day at a music festival at La Postal in Bucerias which started at
11:00. I needed a nine volt battery for
my guitar and wanted to go to the bank before we left. I took a combi to the Mega where I ran into
my friend, Graham, but failed to find a nine volt battery. I did find a great pair of sandals in a shop
in the mall. It had always been
impossible to buy shoes with any arch support in Mexico, but Birkenstock
knock-offs had finally appeared in some of the tourist areas. While they weren’t quite the quality of true
Birkenstocks, they were about 20% of the price and were often more
stylish. I bought a great pair from a
brand called Nomads for 549 pesos
(about $28.)
I met Marc and Karen at La Postal. The festival (if you could call it that) was
small. It was a fund raiser for a group
of parents trying to start a Waldorf school.
They had a silent auction but the minimum bids were set too high and no
one was bidding. We camped there all day,
moving from table to table so as not to monopolize prime real estate. Karen ate three meals there and Marc and I
two.
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| Javier and Diana Gutierrez Singing Opera |
While the “festival” was not a great success, the music was
surprisingly good. They started off with
Diana and Javier Gutierrez, a pair of opera singers who were among the
organizers. I wasn’t expecting much, but
they were so good that even the neighbors came out to see what was going
on.
The second act was Chema Chendrix,
composed of Andra (formerly the singer from Ana Banana’s and now the Drunken
Duck) and some friends. She was normally
quite good, but was not used to playing with those musicians and was put off by
the sound system. (The soprano,
beforehand, had overwhelmed the sound system completely on a few high notes.) It wasn’t her best performance, but it was
nice to see Andra, again, since I don’t frequent the Drunken Duck and had been
wondering what had become of her. Keith,
from Poco Loco Dos, joined us and
remained with us with the exception of slipping out for a dentist appointment
in the late afternoon.
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| Diego Chavez |
Andra was followed by Matt Storch, who played at the La Cruz
Inn. He went through just about my
entire repertoire and it was all I could do not to sing along. Next, came Cesar Velasquez, a Mexican
saxophone player who played Kenny G-like soft jazz and then Elaine Canineo and
Chris Gomez, the Brazilian singer and bass player that we had seen at Chacala.
Diego Chavez came on at 17:15 and I had been waiting all day
for his set. I had enjoyed his
performance at the San Pancho Music Festival and was happy to get the chance to
hear more of his mostly original music.
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| Dueto Aguamarine at La Postal |
We had moved to another table further from the stage when a
birthday party of thirty mostly children invaded the upper level where the
stage was. Cherie and John joined us
there and we eventually moved to a larger table nearer to the stage. We couldn’t hear much of Olivia de La Cruz or
Caravane who played while that party was going on. They finally left in time for us to hear
Dueto Aguamarine, who played from 20:00 to 23:00. They were very good and, using looping
technology, made a lot of music for two people.
They played all the traditional Mexican songs and the woman had a lovely
voice. The young man playing the guitar
sounded great, but I could barely stand to watch him playing Spanish guitar
with a flat pick. He must have been
self-taught.
We stayed until the end and we were amazed that they managed
to produce correct bills for all that we had eaten and drunk over the course of
twelve hours with friends coming and going.
March 29, 2019
I made one last trip to the gym on Friday and said goodbye to
Fred and Judy from Wings. I stopped at a farmacia on my way to the bus
stop and purchased some packets of electrolyte powder to use on the
crossing. The packets were much smaller
and lighter than bottled drinks, although they had a salty taste and weren’t
very inviting.
I spent the afternoon doing a last load of laundry and
practicing the guitar. Then I schlepped
across La Cruz with my guitar and backpack full of computer and heavy music to
drop them off at the boat on my way to meet Karen.
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| "Noche Mexicana" in Nuevo Vallarta |
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| Vallarta Azteca |
My last night was spent in Nuevo Vallarta at “Noche
Mexicana,” a fundraiser for Tierra de los Ninos, an organization that teaches
life skills to underprivileged children.
Karen drove a truckload of us to the party, which was held in one of the
covered structures behind the San Javier Hospital where the Nuevo Vallarta
market is held on Tuesdays. They had
food vendors, a raffle, and a singer who entertained us while we ate. I had a bowl of tasty pozole and a couple of
tacos al pastor from Tacos Junior. After
everyone had eaten, there was a show put on by the award-winning dance troupe
Vallarta Azteca. They performed
traditional dances from Jalisco. They
were very good and the costumes were outstanding.
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| Excellent Mariachis |
After the dancing, there was mariachi music. These mariachis were excellent. All the violins were in tune and they stayed
together. The violinists strolled
through the audience. I was tired, but
still glad to stay to hear them. Karen,
who loves mariachis, would not have been budged, anyway. She dropped me off just before 23:00 and I
went straight to bed, needing to get up at 5:45 the next morning for our
departure.
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