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THIS TOWN IS FULL OF MEXICANS!

That may seem like a strange statement since we are in Mexico, but Mexican tourist have arrive by the bus loads, big beautiful touring buses. I saw a row of at least 10 buses day before yesterday They have come from all over Mexico to spend their holidays at the beach. Families travel together, large extended families with grandparents, all their children, sisters, brothers, cousins down to babes in arms. They move through town in large groups of 15 to 20 people sometimes and the main goal seems to be the beach. I do hope they visit the restaurants as they all say business has been slow. But the streets are full, the plaza is crowed to the max and has some type of entertainment every evening.

Yesterday was a busy day trying to get the Senor more comfortable, his recent back surgery has not relieved his sciatica, and he was getting more and more miserable, and grouchy as one does when not feeling well. So we went to the doctor. This amuses me because last year when I had a sore throat and needed to go to the doctor he gives me the money and tells me to go. But when he needs to go It’s required that I go also. He makes fun of my taking Spanish classes, but it’s times like this that my exceeding limited Spanish is helpful. The Dr Speaks perfect English and thinks part of the Senior’s problem is that one leg is shorter than the other, he measured him and said a lift in one shoe would help. So we out to find the “ortopedia” store, (actually a neighborhood of 3 orthopedic stores) it was about 6 blocks away with a map and some directions, we got close but not quite there when a group of people walked by and the one in the group that spoke English asked if he could help us and while he wasn’t from the area but his friends were and knew where we needed to go and took us there. Mission accomplished, we got the heel lift. Later that afternoon when I went out to get the Senor’s prescriptions filled and had been to 3 pharmacies with no luck again I run into the same group who again offered assistance , or if I needed help with translations. I explained it wasn’t a language issue, just lack of supply. I’m always impressed how helpful people here are. Stand on any street corner and look confused and someone will come by and offer assistance. In turn when ever I see English-speaking folks looking for something I been coming here long enough I can frequently offer assistance.

I love grocery shopping here, and buying eggs in plastic bags amazes me.

While reading and napping in the late afternoon I set my glasses down on the bed and then later rolled over on them bending the frame, I’ve done this before here so I knew exactly where to go get them fixed. 20 minutes later they were fixed and it only cost 20 pesos (about a buck 35 cents). Just amazes me, the price of things, or people’s time.

By night fall the Senor was feeling better so we went out for dinner at The Captains Daughter and finished up the evening at the Barracruda listening to Steve and friends play.

Usually it is the ladies that take off their shoes to dance

Their music just makes folks want to dance. Signing off KO

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BEAUTIFUL IF NOT SUNNY ZIHUATANEJO

Yesterday it drizzled on and off all day, not the kind of rain that is cold or that gets you wet. But the skies were cloudy and it was definitely cooler. But by the time we were getting ready to go out for the evening the drizzle became rain. Not the tropical down pour that soaks you in minutes, just plain rain. It wasn’t cold, no wraps were needed but to keep dry getting to our destination, dinner,at Daniels, we had one street and the plaza to cross out in the rain. And who likes to arrive looking like a wet dog, so we used our beach towels as serape and arrived no worse for the weather. Everyone is grousing about the strange weather, they say it is never cloudy or rainy this time of year. The forecast is warmer today and back to normal tomorrow.

We had a great Christmas dinner, most of the folks we know were there. They moved all the tables inside, which made the dance floor small but adequate. As alway Jimmi Mamou’s music was outstanding. My lobster was good, the Senor enjoyed his turkey, even if there was no cranberry sauce, and the chicken and fillet that came with my lobster came home in a box for the Senor to enjoy today along with a large slice of rich gooey chocolate cake. There was a really great fruit salad that came with the meal. I could enjoy just that for another meal some time. sometime during the evening the rain stopped so we arrived back at our “casa” dry and no worse for the weather. I will admit it seemed strange to people wearing long sleeves and some folks in jackets and women wrapping up in shawls. It was cool, but not that cold. Had a brief chat with Santa on our way back, Signing off KO

IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE DAY

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain, it’s another cloudy day with a bit of a fine Washington mist now coming down. Not enough to get you wet, and it’s warm. I decided that I need to swim more or I won’t be in shape for Sharkfest in Troncones on Jan 10th. So at 7:30 this morning I went to Playa La Madera, just a short walk from where we stay and swam 3 laps out and back around a sailboat anchored out. This is to become my new morning routine. I can walk at other times, but there is almost no one at the beach at that time of the day and it is close to my normal home routine.

Since our TV service is not currently carrying the Senor’s favorite channel, I’ve learned to stream it from another source. I use the word learn loosely, more like just plain luck, but it keeps him happy and informed.

The Senor decided he needs a new white shirt to wear with his dress white shorts for our Christmas Eve dinner so we will do some brief shopping this morningand hopefully check in with the sand artist as I hope this rain hasn’t damaged his work of art. Meantime we are playing Christmas music on my I pod and enjoying our little Christmas display, feeling just “Christmasy” enough.

Met with success on our shopping trip, the senor got his new shirt and I learned that a “bolsa” is not only a bag or purse but also a pocket. Checked in with the sand carver, I’m so impressed. It’s been fun watching the progess and so glad the rain hasn’t hurt his work of art. He has brought me much enjoyment

Tonight we will join friends and enjoy a Christmas feast at Daniels, and enjoy the music of Jimmi Mamou FelizeNavidad from our casa to yours. Signing off KO

ESTA NUBLADO, IT’S CLOUDY

What a surprise, woke up to overcast skies yesterday morning and they lasted clear into this morning. I had originally planned to go swimming about 7:30 AM this morning at La Madera beach, but since it rained during the night I changed my mind. Rain can cause run off and muddy up the water. Instead with the cloud cover I anticipated a killer sunrise and headed to the plaza just before day break to capture it. In front of the plaza Christmas tree was this huge curious pile of sand all cordoned off.

I assumed it was for a sand artist to sculpt and envisioned a nativity scene some time in the future. I then went off to wait for the sun to pink up the sky and got a few shots, but nothing spectacular and decided to return to the casa, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the sand had been carved in my absence and I had missed the whole event.

As I was trying to take pictures of it , which was quite difficult as I couldn’t get far enough away because of the yellow tape I now noticed the sky was a bright orangy pink as the sun was coming up. Quickly tried to get a few pics, but the color didn’t come out as vivid as reality. I felt like I was continually having my back to the best action of the morning. I find it difficult to believe that the carver did all that in my absence, but I’m sure I would have seen the sculpture if it had already been carved when I took the first picture. Mysteries of life.

One of the great pleasures of life here is the quantity, quality, and variety of fresh fruit as so reasonable. I love being able to go out our door and the fruit vender being right there. But equally interesting are the beautiful displays at the many “fruiterias” around the mercado. Here we eat avocados daily, we put them on everything except cereal. Signing off KO

Bought strrawberrries and avocados off this cart steps from our door step

SUNDAY SWEET SUNDAY IN ZIHUATANEJO

The Senor declared Sunday a day of rest, I’m not sure what makes it any different for him than any other day. Except this Sunday he plans to devote to football which due to our ongoing TV issues requires he retreat to his favorite watering hole, La Playa under the Captains Daughter.

Sundays are quiet here as many shops are closed, you get to hear church bells ring and see families out socializing. But none the less mostly quiet. It gave me an opportunity to attempt some organization of pictures on my new tablet. It’s so new it’s frustrating as I really havent learned to operate it quite yet. I’ve got some pictures on the tablet, someon my phone some on my camera and trying to get them all everywhere is difficult for the technologically impaired.

But as the Zihuatanejo sun begins to set this town comes alive again with mucho gusto. Families, young lovers, teenage Romeos sparking their girls, all heading to the Plaza and basketball court where every Sunday evening there are dozens of food booths selling interesting concoctions, most of which I have no idea what it is and of course there is the corn shucked from the cob into a styrofoam cup on which mayonnaise and hot sauce is the prefered topping. Personally I stick with the ice cream vendors and admire the handicraft wares and watch the kids painting ceramics or on easels. This goes on every Sunday all year-long.

This Sunday was particularly crowded, full of Mexican families, not many gringos. It was very difficult to get thru the crowds. At one end of the plaza many chairs were set out and as I got closer I realized it was a memorial to the 40 missing students. Each chair was empty except for a picture of a missing student taped to the back of the chair. Very moving and also disturbing. In fron of the display were 2 banners, with my limitted spanish i could only read one of them and it called for the removal of the president.

As I turned around there was a man making a scene, either drunk or crazy so I headed down the Malecon where it wasn’t quite so crowded walked to the pier and back, by this time the man had climbed to the top of the large Christmas tree and was sitting on the top holding on to a big ball yelling and gesturing. I kept waiting for him to fall, but he didn’t. The police came, looked at him, took his picture and left. I thought they would make an attempt to get him down for safety reasons, but the mexicans have a very relaxed attitude towards safety and he was left to get down on his own resources. And from what I hear he came down and the police arrested him in a heavy handed fashion. But I missed that action.

I went back to our “casa” watched a great movie “the Book Thief”. My daughter was kind enough to record about 20 movies on a small hard drive and send them to us before we left. It really was a day of rest. signing off KO

slowly findi g my way in espanol

The plan for the day was to attend the Sat morning market, the “ecologiatianguissanka”, a charming littlebazzar composed of local artist making hand crafted items, many from recycled materials and organic foods that are usually served on a banana leaf. I found several things I liked, but settled on a Christmas decoration for one of y daughters. I have more time for other purchases and limited suitcase space. My purchase had tobe done in Spanish, rocky but successful. Next was to get our phones set up. I knew where a

Telcel store was, the one with the handsome young man with the grey eyes who spoke fair, but not proficient english. Together we got my regular home cell phone up and running, and then he ran out of sim cards. But one phone does us little good as we use them just to communicate with each other. So now I’m off to a different Tel cell (they are as common as coffee stands at home.) But here no english is spoken. None the less I leave with the Senor’s phone up and running. Next I run into our friends from Ixtapa, Iswear all you need to do is just walk around town and you will eventually meet everyone you know.

Onward to purchase a hamburgerguesa from the corner bar for the Senor who has opted for a day of football and socializing at the Captians Daughter. The cook speaks good english but he his going to make me do it all in Spanish. Good practice, but makes me nervous but I do try.

After a brief siesta I’m off to the Posada in the La Madera neighborhood. I am told this is very traditional Mexico. A block or two is blocked off from street traffic. Both sides of the street are lined with tables with a variety of food, drink and other wares, much like at any bazar.

It begins with the children dressed as Mary and Joseph along with an angel and another child at the top of the street where folks are gathered arround singing what appers to be a song with many, many verses, then the ribbon across the street is

dropped and the children parade down to the front of the stage and sit in the first row and you don’t see them again. On stage sits the childrens orchastra, dressed in jeans and white shirts. The program proceeds much like the School Christmas programs, the orchestra plays and they are good, a group of children singing stand below. Some music was familiar, others not. Christmas carols that we are familiar were sung in spanish of course, but the absolute star of the program was when they sang the beatles

“Imagine” in english, show casing the voices of two teenage fellows with great voices, an absolute show stopper. The startling difference between this program and kids christmas programs at home was much of the audience had beer or other drinks in their hands. Next were some folkloric dancers, very good, and then a group of latin dancers who were ok.

A pinata was hung from a tree in the center of the street and the kids gathered around to take turns batting at it until it would break. The man from the latin dancers got upset came and told them to stop the pinata until his group was done dancing on the stage. I was takings pictures of the kids and he told me “pinata later, now dancing” I think they did one more dance and it was pinata time again. He wasn’t making any friends They did several pinatas and when the pinata finally breaks it is definitely a dog pile and the kids grab all they can get. I’m amazed no one gets hurt, but the kids here tough and not whiney at all. Fun evening!

After returning to our ‘casa” Ii look out from the balcony and there is an art show set up in the street below. Of course I went down to see, I’m forever amazed a the beautiful

art here. The big news for the day is the Senor finally has his TV going, still can’t get all the channels he wants but he cn live with this. Thanks to all who helped. Signing oiff KO

HOW CAN I BE SO BUSY ON VACATION

It’s been a very busy day.After a leisurely breakfast on our balcony, we headed out for the Senor to get a pedicure and me to get both a pedicure and a manicure. All three services cost less than one us manicure.

The senor then took our laundry to be done while I was having my pedicure, and his annual trip to the watch repair shop. Every year while taking off his watch he drops it on the tile floor and it falls to pieces. He has learned where to go and gets it fixed. It is just an annual event. The morning exhausted the Senor so he returned to our “casa” with his lunch, of rotisserie chicken and a pair of earrings for me. How nice, they are quite pretty!. Our weekly visit from the Lupita the cleaning lady happened while we were gone and our quarters are spotless. So now it’s off to the Commercial. as the senor has decreed the bed too hard and he needs a foam mattress topper. We have to dicker a bit with the cab driver as he wants 5 pesos over the going rate and we won’t pay it, but he decides 25 pesos will be OK after all. We are tough customers and have been coming long enough we know the ropes. We make our purchases and marvel at the fact that all the Christmas trees we saw 4 days ago are all gone. But we did learn they grow them in Mexico and they weren’t shipped from one of the tree farms that are literally in our back yard at home. My daughter used to say when she lived in Honolulu when the trees arrived you bought them that very day or they were gone. I guess the same thing is true here. We made our purchases and returned for a siesta before dinning on our balcony.

We are still fighting with Century link to get our home internet service up and running so we can receive our regular TV programs here. Skype has become my friend. It is very cheap for phone to phone calls and I guess free for folks who set up reciprocal invites to do it computer to computer. So far my family has not responded. to any of my requests to sign up for Skype. I guess they don’t need any motherly advice..

Many booths of Pinatas set up near Kyoyo Circle

We rounded up our day with dinner and a movie on the balcony and then a walk to see the huge display of pinatas and

poinsettia. Of course I got one of each. The designs, the shapes and the colors are just fantastic, and you can watch them make them also. There are booths with a variety of christmas decorations, colorful, but a little tacky for my tastes. The Senor tells me I shouldn’t criticize. We picked out a nice poinsettia and returned to our “casa” to finish our

All decorated for Christmas complete with a cha cha-ing deer.

Christmas decorating Skyped home again to find out there is still no internet, but I am to deal with the dispatcher in the morning. Signing off KO

Every thing is so colorfull here — Every thing is so colorful here

ON THE BEACH

One of the main differences I see between a beach in Washington state and a Mexican beach is people actually go in the water! At home my experience has been very few adults venture into the water, some kids will, but not all. Some will just splash around the edge because it’s cold.

And only in Mexico would you see a full marching band complete with a tuba on the beach. Here the water is warm and at Playa Las Gatas where we were yesterday the reef protects it from any wave action so it’s like swimming in a very large pool with beautiful colored fish.There are yellow fish with black stripes bright neon blue ones some big ones and little ones. fascinating to snorkel along the reef. We have been returning to the same spot there, Gloria del Mar and have over the years made friends with Juan the waiter. He recognized us walking down the beach and waved us in, which was good as they are no longer allowed to have the sandwich board signs in front of their restaurants, the authorities decided it impeded strolling along the beach.

We had a wonderful red snapper fillet for a late lunch, soaked up some sun, getting abundance of vitamin D and generally just relaxing and visiting. My spanish professora would not be too pleased with me as I m still slow to use my spanish, and much english is spoken here. But I have learned a few new phrases and this will be a great help as we venture out more into the country side.

We had another lovely musical evening, again at the Baracruda this time with Steve Calvert and friends. We have been following Steve around town since we first heard his music several years ago coming in through our hotel kitchen window as it backed up to the now defunct Pacalos. He’s from Bremerton, but now lives and plays full-time in Zihuatanejo. Once again we are a music groupie!

We are becoming more Mexican as we find it hard not to go out at night

and enjoy the soft warm evenings, there is always activity somewhere and it’s just pleasant to stroll, greet friends and people watch. Although this might change for the Senor if we get connected up with TV tonight. Signing off KO

VERY EARLY ZIHUATANEJO MORNING

The sun isn’t up but I am. Spent the last hour writing on my blog, thought i saved it but it disappeared instead. I’m working on new tablet and as of yet I haven’t figured out how to edit my pictures, or zoom in on pictures. All this technology is pretty steep learning curve for me. But here on my balcony with the solar christmas lights we brought 20141217_164101 from home give us the feeling of Christmas. They work wonderfully on at dusk off at daylight

I like the early morning time, it’s so early the chickens haven’t woken the dogs to wake the neighborhoods yet. a nice time to ponder, reflect and plan. My balcony is beautifully decorated with rope christmas light that are solar power. With all the sun here they stay on all night and don’t go off until day light. Many businesses put up Christmas lights and there is a huge display of poinsettia and pinatas that I will walk out to see tomorrow

We plan to go to the beach today so it’s good I’m up this early to pull the chicken from the freezer. I like to do a chicken in the crock pot on beach days as we come back tired from all the sun and fun and don’t want to go out again.

Had dinner last night at Daniels on the beach, where Jimmi Mamou was playing. Caught his show the night before at the Baracruda. It’s like we’ve become part of a “groupie” that follows Jimmi Mamou where ever he is currently performing as we met up with the same friends again tonight. We still love that old-time rock and roll that he plays so well. We made our Christmas Eve reservations for Daniels, the Senor will be having the traditional turkey and stuffing, while I, being fisheterian, will have the lobster. And Jimmi will again be entertaining us.

Have just about become settled in our “casa”, everything is finally working, but our internet t home is still out preventing us from getting our home TV on the computer. With the help of skype I’ve called and set up another appointment to have it fixed, between our phone service going out and the internet just days before we left Century link just couldn’t quite send us the right repairman for the right job and only got the phone service up and running. Most difficult task was to find someone at home who would be available to let the repair man in. Our neighbor Trish who is usually at home has an appointment that my interfere with the time frame they gave me. Oh well one more day won’t hurt the Senor’s TV addiction too bad.

The sky is now pink with first light, this a favorite time of day for me especially here as sun rise is so beautiful. Signing off KO

Back in Sunny Zihuatanejo

And it feels like home, almost. We arrived to a few quirks at our apartment. Yesterday the air conditioner burnt out literally. This is the second time we have had an air conditioner go out in a shower of sparks in Mexico. Took all day but it was fixed good as new. We’ve eaten out the last couple of nights so we weren’t aware until this morning we the Senor went to cook breakfast that our stove doesn’t work. No problema we have a microwave. But lo and behold the microwave has been inhabited by goblins or spirits of some sort. He plugged it in set it for 3 minutes and the time came up 22 minutes. So we shut it off and a couple of minutes later it started it’s own. You have to stand there and watch it and open the door when you want it to stop. Then unplug it. Not the easiest way to cook eggs, but possible.

Our first day here we went to the commercial, the Mexican equivalent of a super market. Like Walmart it carries everything, but varies from time to time what is available. But they do have fresh Christmas trees and cheaper than we see at home which is amazing considering they may have been shipped from home. Less than $14 for 5-6 ft trees. It is also one of the very few stores that have cash register. All the shops just use little calculators.

Today we went to the Mercado for fruits and vegies, my favorite shopping place, it is definatly a sensory over load. There are baskets of spices that I have no idea what they are, yellow chickens complete with heads and feet, strips of beef hanging, flies flying and ladies waving fans over baked good to keep them away. Every thing from food to hardware under one roof.

Back at our “casa” Aurturo, the owner came and got both the stove and the micro wave up and running. I got busy on skype and called dish, Centurylink and Verizon discoverer ou tv problems here are because our internet at home still hasn’t been repaired. I think that will happen tomorrow. If Trish got my message and can hang around the house in the am. Problems all solved, feeling good. Signing off

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