March 5, 2017
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| The Walk to Las Palapas |
The Banderas Bay Regatta was a lot of fun, but all the
participants I spoke with were glad that it hadn’t lasted for more than three
days. Sunday was a nice, relaxing
day. I got up late and then went for brunch
at Las Palapas with my housemate, John.
While the day ended up being quite hot, it was breezy on Playa La
Manzanilla. I had some heavenly pancakes
and enjoyed listening to the guitarist, Al, who provided background music. I enjoyed the walk there and back along the
beach almost as much as the food.
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| Kids Taking a Scuba Lesson in Our Pool |
When we got back, some of the cruiser children were being
certified to scuba dive in our swimming pool.
The one at the marina was not deep enough, so Ulla had consented to let
them use ours. I spent most of the
afternoon reading, but did get a little guitar playing in before the music at
Anna Banana’s cranked up and made it impossible to hear myself. Then I applied myself to working on a new
drawing of a street scene in Bucerias until the light failed.
March 6, 2017
I got up early, but had been kept up late the night before
by music, so just didn’t feel like running.
I read and wrote and almost missed the net. After the net, I boiled some eggs in the
electric kettle because the last batch I had done on the stove never got
properly cooked. It seemed the breeze
was carrying away all the heat. I
brought the eggs to a boil and, when the kettle shut off, let them sit for 15
minutes. They turned out perfectly.
I lounged around the house and went for a swim as it was
quite hot. Geo (formerly of Luna Rumba)
and Lobo (a guitarist from San Miguel de Allende) were playing at the Octopus’
Garden that night. I had meant to get
tickets, but never found the opportunity to go to Bucerias to purchase them
because of the regatta. It turned out
that my neighbor, Mark, had a couple of extra tickets, so Betty and I purchased
those.
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| Geo and Lobo at the Octopus' Garden |
Mark had purchased a whole table’s worth of seats, so we
were joined by John and Janice, from Canada, whom Karen had introduced me to
when we all went to the San Pancho Music festival. They were originally friends of Mark’s. We all ordered barbecued chicken except Mark
who just had chocolate cake. The concert
was spectacular. Geo limited himself to
playing the five-string violin and Lobo played the guitar. Most of the music was flamenco-ish, but there
were dashes of arabesque and Celtic in there, too. The amazing thing was they had not rehearsed
together. They had decided the set list
via email, but had practiced separately.
This was not apparent from their performance. The magic that had been absent from the
Duende concert, a couple of weeks prior, was definitely back in operation. Lobo provided the intensity to match Geo’s
and there was no high-tech gadgetry to distract from the music. Even the LED lighting got turned off because
it was causing a hum. We were all
enthralled with their playing.
March 7, 2017
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| Misty Morning |
Tuesday, I got up and ran, since I had wimped out the day
before. There was atmospheric mist
hanging between the ranges of mountains and then everything turned golden when
the sun cleared the top of the ridge. I
went early and had time to run an extra lap around the breakwater before
heading home to shower and listen to the net.
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| Golden Sunrise |
I needed to go into Bucerias to pay the balance owed for our
trip to Copper Canyon. Betty needed to
go somewhere else, so I offered to take care of that errand. First, I stopped at the center of town and
went to the post office to mail a postcard to my guitar teacher. Then I stopped at Little Bee’s to buy some
bulk chocolate. I had bought semi-sweet
(or semi-bitter in Spanish) the last time and found it too sweet. This time I bought “bitter.” It was still sweeter than the dark chocolate
I regularly buy in the United States.
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| The Mex-ECO Tour Agency in Bucerias |
I walked across Bucerias to the other side of the arroyo and
then down to Lazaro Cardenas where the tour agency was located. This allowed me to dodge the souvenir sellers around the bridge. I paid our bills and tried to get a final
itinerary, but was told I would have to wait until the owner got back from her
current tour to Copper Canyon. That
mission accomplished, I walked to the far end of the street and up to the
Chedraui to pick up a few grocery items not easily found in La Cruz. Lazaro Cardenas was a pretty street with lots
of colorful shops and flowers. It was
also often crowded with Canadi-an tourists.
The clerk at Little Bee’s had been surprised to discover that I was from
the USA because their clientele was so overwhelmingly Canadian.
I didn’t need to go to the bank, so crossed the highway and
caught a combi back to La Cruz, arriving by noon. Tuesday was a quiet day at Agave Azul, with
no music at Anna Banana’s, so I took advantage of the opportunity to play the
guitar and draw.
March 8, 2017
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| Bucerias Street Scene |
Wednesday was another quiet day and I managed to finish my
Bucerias street scene. I had feared it
would be too busy, as it had more details than most of my drawings, but I was
pleased with the final result. By the
end of the day, I was craving social interaction, so was happy when Betty
reminded me that my friends, Jan and Gregg, were having a party that night.
The party was a pot luck, so I saw an opportunity to get rid
of some of the food that was piling up in the refrigerator. Betty made Spanish rice with cheese and I
made pasta with Italian sausage. We
spent an hour or so cooking in the kitchen and then trekked across La Cruz,
carrying our pots of food. The communal
kitchen did not provide us with much in the way of serving dishes.
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| Docks for the La Cruz Fishing Fleet |
The party was well attended and it was nice to visit with
people. Unfortunately, the band that was
supposed to play failed to find an amplifier, so the only music was a very
quiet guitarist who played a little hesitant bluegrass. I was dying to sing, but he never played
anything in a key I could manage. One of
the people that I talked to was a Mexican fellow named Pedro who came from one
of the original families in La Cruz. He
talked to me because I was one of the few people who could speak Spanish. From him, I learned that the docks near the
fish market where most of the fishermen keep their pangas were a compromise
with the developers that built the marina.
The marina provides those docks for the fishermen whose anchorage was
occupied by the marina, but only the original families are allowed the
privilege of using them. Other Mexicans have to rent a slip like anyone
else. I hung out for a couple of hours,
but left fairly early. It was quiet at
home and I managed to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
March 9, 2017
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| Removing the Roof of the Palapa |
Thursday was another relaxing day. I got up late and spent most of the day
catching up on my blog. The roof of the
palapa was being removed and there was banging and hammering going on all
day. There were several wasp nests in
the palm fronds and the wasps had to be killed before they could be disturbed.
Supposedly, they were an exceptionally venomous species of wasp that could
cause blindness if they stung you near the eyes. I was glad I didn’t know this when I
occasionally had one in my shower.
Betty, Mark and I went to the La Cruz Inn for dinner because
Betty and I were craving salad. We ordered
Caesar salads with chicken, but were served shrimp instead. When we mentioned this, they brought us
plates of chicken, as well. The shrimp
was actually very good, as was the chicken.
It turned out to be a nice meal.
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| Cantus Eterna at the Marina La Cruz Amphitheater |
After dinner, we went to the full moon concert at the
amphitheater. Cantus Eterna was
playing. They had drawn the largest
crowd I had ever seen at the amphitheater.
Most of the seats were taken and there was a large crowd of standees at
the back. Cantus Eterna played an
interesting variety of music spanning the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The vocalist sometimes sounded as if he
couldn’t hear himself and lost the melody, but the instrumentalists were very
talented and the drummer was downright phenomenal. It was a nice gathering.
When the band paused for a break, I left with a couple of
friends to go get ice cream. It was a
beautiful evening and we sat in the park and enjoyed our dessert. I was home by ten, but could clearly hear the
music until they quit at eleven. I just
couldn’t get to sleep and lay awake until two in the morning. I shouldn't have ordered coffee ice cream.
March 10, 2017
After having been up half the night before, I just couldn’t
drag myself out of bed to run. I slept
in and didn’t get moving until after the net.
Since it was a slow morning, I made myself pancakes out of bananas and
coconut yogurt. They were
delicious. I took my time drinking my
coffee and then practiced the guitar for a bit.
My thumb had gotten whacked by a winch handle on the first day of the
races and, while it wasn’t swollen or bruised looking, it was still quite
sore. I could only play for a little
while before it started to bother me. It
was probably cracked, but it wasn’t crooked and seemed to bend properly, so I
elected not to worry about it. Any sort
of splint would have made it impossible to play at all.
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| Further Deconstruction of the Palapa |
In the early afternoon, I walked up to the tienda on the
corner and bought a few groceries. I
didn’t want to buy much, since we were heading to Copper Canyon in a few days,
but I needed eggs and bananas. The
deconstruction of the palapa continued and there was debris everywhere, making
it somewhat hazardous to negotiate the stairs.
I was glad I was changing rooms the next day because decayed palm fronds
were tracked all over my floor. The
Mexican fellow who had removed the roof the previous day brought his wife and
son to help. The boy was about
four. He was dressed like a little
cowboy with darling little boots that made a racket when he scampered about the
property. The wife carried all the
debris down to the truck while her husband dismantled the framework of the
roof. The replacement roof would not be
a palapa and would cover the formerly outdoor bathroom. The original framework needed to be replaced.
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| Weather Seminar in the VIP Lounge at Marina La Cruz |
At 3:00, I went to the marina for a seminar on tropical
weather. Many boats were planning to
make the crossing to the South Pacific in the near future and there were a
number of seminars directed at this group.
I was not planning to do the “puddle jump” that year, but attended the
seminar to add to my general knowledge as I never knew exactly what I might
find myself doing should the opportunity arise.
The previous summer I had suddenly found myself sailing to Hawaii. I knew that boats waited for a “window,” but
didn’t realize that this meant they were waiting for a strong enough north wind
to blow them out to where they could pick up the trade winds to take them to
the equator.
It was interesting to look at the satellite images of the
moisture gathered about the equator.
Sailors watched the weather and tried to time their crossing for the
moment when there was an opening at the longitude where they desired to cross
in order to arrive at their destination without sailing far out of their
way. Models were helpful but, of course,
it was difficult to access the internet while in the middle of the Pacific. For a fee, professional weather routers could
offer advice via satellite phone. Do it
yourselfers could obtain weather information over single sideband radio and
attempt to plot the activity on a paper chart, arriving at their own
conclusions about where best to sail. On
our crossing to Hawaii, we had watched the progress of a hurricane very
carefully, wanting to avoid it, but not sail too far out of our way. We had timed it beautifully and followed the
hurricane straight to our landfall. A
mistake could have been dreadful.
Betty and I went to the Ballena Blanca for dinner, where we
met up with our friend, Gene, and his two little dogs. It took quite a while to get our food and, by
the time we had eaten, the band was already playing and I was late for movie
night. Betty decided to stay, but I
headed out to the amphitheater to see what I could of Irrational Man with Joaquin Phoenix. I ran into friends and had a good time, but
it was a strange film about a philosophy professor who murders someone. I guess it cut a little close to home, since
I had been a philosophy major and one of my professors actually murdered his
girlfriend’s ex-husband shortly after I graduated.
I was surprised to see Betty still at the Ballena Blanca as
I passed on my way home. The band, The Breeze, sounded good, so I stopped
in for a last beer. One of the crew
members from Wings joined us and we
danced a little. I stayed until nearly
eleven. It was the latest I had stayed
out all season.
March 11-12, 2017
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| Cloudy Morning |
It was still cool and overcast when I woke up on Saturday
morning. The sunrise was almost
completely obscured by the clouds and only the slightest tint of pink was
visible. I ran for 3.5 miles along the
outside of the marina and appreciated the coolness.
Saturday was moving day, again, for me. Guests requiring two beds were arriving that
afternoon, so I was being relegated to the downstairs room where I had stayed
the previous year. The room was dark and
the toilet leaked, but at least I had a place to stay and I would be gone for a
week on my trip to Copper Canyon, anyway.
The price was right. On a more
positive note, a screen had been installed between the door and the light left
on at night. The previous year, that
light had kept me awake.
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| Yet Another New Room |
I unpacked my belongings and got organized. There was no electrical outlet in the
bathroom, so I had to put my electric toothbrush on the table in my room. The room was dark and, with no sunshine
outside, rather cool. I spent the
afternoon and evening reading and had to put on long pants and crawl under a
blanket. I had become a weather wimp and
was not looking forward to the cool weather on my trip to Copper Canyon. At least we would be staying in climate
controlled, fancy hotels.
The full moon kept me awake on Saturday night. I kept hearing crunching sounds like an
animal eating kibble. I looked outside a
couple of times, suspecting iguanas, but saw nothing. About 1:00 in the morning, I wandered out to
the kitchen for a snack and surprised a cat.
Unfortunately, he or she was not friendly and dashed away upon sighting
me. I missed my kitty.
I slept late on Sunday and decided not to go out for
brunch. I boiled some eggs in the
electric kettle and made myself a mango smoothie. It was afternoon before I knew it. I practiced the guitar, ate some leftover
pasta for lunch, read a bit, and then sat down to write. I relished such open days when I was at home
but, after a long stretch of them, I was almost bored. I decided it was time to start another
drawing. Unfortunately, as there was no
good lighting anywhere on the property, the hours when I could see well enough
to draw or read music were quite limited. I started work on a moody picture of fisherman
surrounded by gulls on a foggy morning.
Finally, it grew too dark to draw.
Neither Betty nor I was very hungry, but I wanted to get out
of the house. I eventually convinced Betty to sally out.
I wanted a taco or two and she wanted a piece of chocolate cake. Cake was a big deal in La Cruz. Michael, the baker, provided cakes to several
restaurants in La Cruz. He made carrot,
chocolate, and limoncello cakes. I was not
a big fan of cake, but I had formerly been fond of his carrot cake. In 2017, he had changed his recipe and the
carrot cake had thick layers of caramel and walnuts between the now thinner layers
of cake. Since I didn’t really like
walnuts and mostly liked the carrot cake for the slightly sour cream cheese
frosting, this ruined it for me. I
usually avoided chocolate cake and had been disappointed in the
limoncello. I was mostly immune to the
draw of Michael’s cakes and preferred ice cream.
Still, we went in search of a restaurant that served both
tacos and cake. We walked up to the
Octopus’ garden, but they were closed, as was the Tree of Life. Neither of us wanted to listen to bad country
music at the former Philo’s, but Betty bought a piece of cake to go and we
stopped at the “Red Chairs” taco joint.
Our housemate, Grant, happened along and joined us. I ate a couple of tacos and we enjoyed a
relaxing hour sitting on the street and chatting with the passers by. Betty bought some grapes from a Mexican farmer
who had driven 800 kilometers to sell his produce at the Sunday market and was
trying to dispose of the leftovers. The
cruisers at the adjoining table invited him to join them and we all chatted.
I was quite tired when we got back, but was unable to
sleep. There was music at Anna’s, but it
was really just my own restlessness that kept me awake. At 1:00, the sports bar across the street
cranked up the music, but they shut it down at 2:00 when they must have
closed. I noticed that their music
always seemed to stop at 2:00 on the dot.
I finally slept at some point after that.
March 13, 2017
I awoke at 6:30 and was so disoriented by the darkness in my
new room that I mistook the street side window for the one at the foot of my
bed, rotated 90 degrees, and fell backwards out of bed onto the tile
floor. That jolt dislodged any intention
I might have had of going for a run and I crawled back in bed and slept soundly
until just before the net. I didn’t get
out of bed until the net finished at 9:00.
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| Mobile Phone Hospital in Bucerias |
I whiled away the morning playing the guitar and then Betty
and I decided to go to Bucerias and Mezcales to do some errands and buy bus
tickets for our trip to Guadalajara.
Betty needed to take her tablet to the repair shop, so we stopped there
first. Cell phone and computer repair
was common and reasonable in Mexico. What
would result in replacement in the USA could often be accomplished for a couple
of hundred pesos (about $10) while you waited.
Betty elected to leave her tablet and they told her it would be ready by
4:00. That accomplished, we walked
across Bucerias to the bank, stopping at Little Bee’s to buy some cocoa powder
and chocolate for our friend, Shanti. I
withdrew some cash for our trip and then we caught a bus to Mezcales where the
Primera Plus bus station was located.
An elevated highway was under construction in downtown
Mezcales, making it difficult to see the opposite side of the highway where I
knew the bus station was located. Mostly
by instinct, we got off the bus within a block of the station, since I didn’t
actually see it until we had crossed the road. It turned out to be at the intersection of the main road in downtown Mezcales, a useful landmark. Buying tickets was quick and easy in person. I had tried to do it online, since they
offered a 10% discount for online purchases, but the website didn’t accept
foreign credit cards. We paid cash and
were rewarded for our trouble with the two front seats which had not been
available online.
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| Interesting Political Commentary |
We took a combi back to Bucerias where Betty wanted to get a
pedicure. I decided to stay and keep her
company so that we could go for an early dinner in Bucerias. I was feeling the
need for a change. It took a couple of
hours for Betty to get her toes done and I chatted with a Canadian tourist who
was getting a manicure. It was nearly
5:00 by the time we left and we still had to reclaim Betty’s tablet from the
repair shop. We walked along Lazaro
Cardenas and then ran the gauntlet of souvenir sellers clustered around the
bridge over the arroyo to get to the far side of town. Betty’s tablet was ready and I picked up a
charger cord to replace the one I had that was taking longer than usual to
charge my phone. Then we walked back
across Bucerias to Karen’s Beach Restaurant where we planned to eat
dinner. We walked over five miles
between all of our errands.
\
Karen’s was a lovely restaurant located between the swimming
pool of a modern condo complex and the beach. The condo complex had provided palapas and
chaise lounges for its residents and they added some color to the view. We could see from Punta Mita to Nueva
Vallarta. Our housemate,
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| Karen's Beach Restaurant |
Despite our plans to have an early dinner, it was full dark
by the time we left. We waited in the
arroyo for quite some time before a combi arrived to take us back to La
Cruz. It was 8:30 before we got home and
I had missed the opportunity of getting my leaky toilet repaired that
night. I read for the rest of the
evening and was thankfully asleep before midnight.
