Zihuatanejo

Carnaval Zihuatanejo Style

Not to be confused with a “carnival” that has rides, or a Mardi Gras Carnival that takes place before Lent. Which surprises me as this is a catholic country. While it has some similarities to a Mardi Gras carnival, it is scheduled at the whim of the local government and some years not scheduled to happen at all. It would be impossible to schedule a visit around “Carnival Time” because nobody seems to know if, or when it will happen. This year it was scheduled with the 3 day holiday weekend celebrating the birthday of Benito Juarez when town was full of visitors from the interior. .

The festivities began on Friday night with dancers performing on the stage that was set up in the basketball court in the town Zocolo, A Queen was crowned and a King of Ugly or Bad I’m not sure of the translation, all done with ear-splitting, loud and booming music and a short but magnificent fireworks display. The crowd was so dense it was difficult to walk through and it was impossible to get close enough to see the stage. The back stage had a blinding,continuous, psychedelic laser light show playing. Everything the Mexicans love in a fiesta was there, loud music, and colorful entertainment. I guess I am now part of the population that “if the music is too loud you are too old”. I’m old, the music was past being musical, it was just LOUD.

There were more festivities again Saturday night, I choose not to attend, but curled up with a good book and tuned up a movie. I learned later the volume of the music was greatly reduced. Must have been as we didn’t hear it at our apartment 3 blocks away..

Sunday was the big parade, a full 2 hours, of very large, creative floats, beautiful dancing-girls and handsome men, charming children, lots of local color, costumes and culture and yes loud music. It was a great parade. One of the best, most fun parades I have ever seen. There was even parade participants offering spectators small samples of mescal. And of course the fiesta went on until the wee hours of the morning. You just got to love mexico. Signing KO

We are in our count down phase

Guitar fest is an 8 day series of concerts of talented international Guitar players performed under the stars on the beach and in several local restaurants. The proceeds from these concerts go to purchase musical instruments and scholarships for the young aspiring Zihuatanejo artists. A very worthwhile cause. I only attended one of the beach concerts this year but truly enjoyed it. Following the concerts the musicians usually gather together at one of the local bars for a jam session which I always thought might be the best of the best. But midnight is getting to be a little late for me these days.

As I sit on my balcony tonight surveying the street scene in Mexico, which is so much different than at home, I ruminate on the many differences. I don’t mean to imply criticism, just amazement. Everyone rides in the back of pickup trucks, mamas hold their babies and toddlers in their arms in the front seat of vehicles, and car seats are not the norm. Few people wear seat belts. 3-4 people on a motor bike or scooter is normal, few wear helmets. Teenage girls hold hands with their friends and with their mamas. Children play outside until 10 or 11 O’clock at night. Parents walk their children to and from school, all school children wear school uniforms. Not all children go to school. 6 people in a taxi is not too many.

I don’t know what all business is transpired in a bank, but the lines are very long and folks wait patiently. Grocery stores have no concept of “nighttime stockers” it is all done in the daytime blocking aisles to the point you can’t get your cart down the aisle. To stock the top shelves they just climb up the lower shelves. Eggs are not refrigerated in the stores. You can buy just about everything you need here, but maybe not your preferred brand. USA brands are more expensive, so buy local whenever possible.

Life here is different, slower more and more relaxed. Far less rules, regulations and efficiency. But it all adds to the charm, according to me. The senior is frequently frustrated by what he perceives as inefficiency and knows just how to fix it. But this lack of efficiency keeps everyone working here.

Where i buy my chicken

Young fruit monger

Meat market

Another fruit stall

Strawberries

At home when I shop I buy many fruits and vegetables frozen or canned. Here I buy everything fresh. Mostly because it is easier. If I were to go to the grocery store, Mega Soriana and buy frozen items they would be un-thawed by the time I got them back to our apartment in a taxi, and canned good are heavy and have to be carried up a flight of stairs. So I go to the “Mercado Publico”, just a couple of blocks away and buy fresh fruit and veggies and now I’m even buying much of our meat and fish there.

The Mercado is a cornucopia of sights and smells. It is the way folks all over the globe have shopped since time began. I find it fascinating, other turn up there nose at it. Signing off KO

Where i buy my chicken

Young fruit monger

Meat market

Strawberries

Another fruit stall

Campamento Tortuguero Ayotcalli Turtle Rescue Center

The Senior and I had the opportunity to go to the Turtle rescue to help release some hatch-ling turtles and spend the night at the lovely Casa de Tortuga. All this because I had the winning bid at a Sailfest auction .

I f you have never been there for a sunset turtle release, go. Go now, go next year but by all means go. Turtle releases are done from August to March .

The volunteers do nightly turtle patrols the 15 Km of Playa Blanca and Playa Largo to locate the female turtles. Then they

stay with her to protect her from predators and poachers while she lays her eggs and see that she gets safely back to sea to repeat this cycle again. Next, they move the entire nest of eggs to their incubator area where the eggs are placed at the same depth they were found. Each nest is labeled as to type of turtle eggs and the approximate date expected to start hatching. During prime turtle season, they patrol the beach from 10 or 11 at night until dawn. This is very important to locate and protect as many turtle nests as possible. The survival rate is only 1 in 1,000.

The night we were there, March 6^th, we and about 20 others arrive at a little sheltered

class room area for an interesting educational presentation of the life cycle of the turtles, how the waters of Mexico are home to many varieties, and what the general public can do to help more turtles survive. After a question and answer session, we adjourn to the beach and lined up behind a line drawn in the sand. Just as the sun is setting, the volunteers place 2 hatch-lings in our bowl, then we are instructed to slide the turtles out of our bowls onto the sand and watch them head

towards the ocean. This an extremely important step, and a beautiful site to watch as they move over the sand memorizing this exact location. If she is female and if she

survives to 10-15 years of age, she will return to the very place we released her. She will come ashore to lay her eggs and the cycle will continue. If he is a male his sole mission in life other than survival is

finding a female at the right time.

On this night about 200 hatch-lings were released, some were very quick as if they knew exactly what their mission was, others were slower and a couple didn’t quite know which direction to go, but eventually they all got to the ocean and we wished them success.

We went back to the classroom/store made our donations, bought souvenirs, happy in the knowledge we had done something to help. As this very worthwhile project is funded

strictly by donations. We retired to our lovely quarters to relax and sleep as I need to be up at 5 to go on turtle patrol on the ATV. As it is very late in the season for turtles to be laying, they are only doing one patrol a night, we did not see any turtles or nests. Still a pre dawn ATV beach ride on Playa Larga and Playa Blanca offered an exceptional view of a sky full of stars, than I have seen in years, crabs skittering across the sand and few birds and a

duck or two, a 30 mile round trip that had me back just after first light of day. Quite the adventure! One I plan to repeat next year during prime turtle season. Signing off KO

Valentines Day and The Street Fair On Calle Adelita

This should have poste on February 15, but for some reason didn’t.

In Zihuatanejo there is so much to celebrate. Valentines Day is huge among the Mexican population. Temporary Bazaars are set up all along the main street hawking all sorts of of gifts. There are little booths with purses, shoes, lingerie and the more traditional gifts of flowers, sweets and stuffed animals and beautiful wrappings and boxes for the gifts. The restaurants are full that evening, we went out that night with 2 other couples and while enjoying an after dinner we were serenaded by a wandering mariachi band.

The next day was the annual street fair on Calle Adelita, a street well-known for its many little restaurants and Boutique Hotels. This fair is a fund-raiser for the local Bomberos, which translates to: firefighters, EMT personnel and crocodile wranglers when one encroaches into areas where they could become a danger to folks. Twice over the years I have watched the Bomberos, rope, wrangle and tie up a croc then transport him to a preserve. This year they were raising money for a defibrillator, a worthy cause. Food and drink was available, as was a silent auction and a 50/50 raffle. Couple of different

This pair of cuties were some of the dancers

bands played and groups of Mexican dancers performed. Always a fun evening and I bid and won a certificate for a “Tres Leches Cake” which is quite appropriate as my birthday is later this week

I have been attending Spanish classes twice a week and really working at it. I’m not going to be “bi-lingual” but I certainly have improved my confidence in attempting to speak with shop keeper and such, can read menus, signs. My ability to read it is far superior to my speaking ability. I’m not finding it easy, but quite a challenge. I think when I’m back home I will once again audit a basic Spanish Class at our local college just to keep my skills up. Not so much to progress but to keep from regressing. Signing off KO

COMPUTER WOES, SPANISH CLASSES AND SOME MEXICAN CULTURE

I’ve had lot of difficulty with my “blog” program. I will write several paragraphs and suddenly it all disappears except for the last two characters I’ve typed and at that moment the program will do an auto save. It should be doing it every few minutes, but it isn’t. So then I get to start all over again. I dislike rewriting intensely, I enjoy editing but not a complete rewrite. The result is I don’t rewrite, but get a glass of wine and my book which never fails to please. This has greatly slowed down the blogging. I did discover a couple of blogs that should have posted and didn’t. Why I do not have a clue. So from now on I will write in “word” copy and paste on to word press to place the pictures that way I should not loose text.

My “Classe de Espanol” is getting difficult. We are into past tense of verbs and spanish sentences are constructed differently than English with verbs and pronouns located differently depending on if it is a question or not. Lots of rules of order plus an ever increasing vocabulary to learn. It’s tough teaching old dogs!

One of the things I especially enjoy about Mexico is the sounds of the street vendors. Our water is delivered by a young man who honks the horn and calls out “agua keen” and we wave at him throw down our key for him to carry up a garafon of drinking water.. The ice cream vendors use a bicycle bell to announce their arrival, the knife sharpener blows a tin whistle, but many just call out their wares by name in sing song fashion. I hear “cocooooo” from the coconut man and ” bo yeee yo” from the man that delivers our bollio rolls. The Senior thought my idea a little wacky at first but has come to embrace and use it. I have a string bag on a rope with a little baggie for the coins and as he come by I call out to him, drop down the bag from our 2nd story back porch and tell him how many I need. He fills my bag takes the change and I reel up fresh warm bollios. Works great, saves time!

Bollio man carrying his basket of bollios on his head down our alley
Loading my bag with warm boillos
Warm boillos in my kitchen

We have frequently bought silver jewelry from our favorite beach vendor and this year while sipping mango margaritas at a favorite restaurant along the water front I purchased several more gifts to bring home from other strolling vendors. I think is the very best way to shop; let the stores come to you. Signing off KO

STREET FAIR & MI CUMPLEANOS (my birthday)

It was a birthday to remember, one of those absolutely perfect days. After my Spanish

class I hopped on the bus to Bara De Potossi, a neighboring village that was having their annual street fair. About a 20 minute ride and then you get off the bus and climb aboard the “passajera” a lovely spanish word meaning pick up truck with bench seats in the back. All my connections were seamless and I never had to wait at all. But the best part was the ice cream man was loading his steel tub full of ice cream on the passajera to sell at the fair. The ice cream that comes out of these tubs is the most flavorful ice cream in the world. And I’m sure it is truly home-made and no chemicals. So I had my cone to enjoy on the trip to the fair. The fair is a couple of blocks long, of hand-made Mexican arts, crafts, food and drink. I made a couple of purchases and headed back to Zihuatanejo.

The Senor picked up the tres leches cake from our auction bid and deliver it to Sr. Pintos restaurant. We had invited friends to join us there to help me celebrate 3/4’s of a century on this planet. We had requested that 4 bottles of wine and 4 blooming onions be on the table at 7, they came but “on Mexican time”. Considering we were a large group and they had other patrons they did a great job of getting everyone’s food to them in a timely fashion. Their menu is extensive, my food was great, all almost all my local friends were there. Other than 2 extra bottles of wine on our bill it was an absolutely perfect day. I plan on having many, many more just like that. Signing off KO

KAYAKING AND AN EXPERIMENT IN COOKING

I was planning to kayak with a friend this morning but Sunday didn’t work for her so it was solo kayaking for me. I went early a the surf is usually calmer then and easier to launch and return. Left from La Madera beach and circumnavigated the bay. At the mouth of the bay I had intended to go out just a ways into the ocean, but I think the tide may have been coming in as there were some low rolling waves at that point and I decided it might be too much work. I’m not a novice kayak-er, I have one of my own and have done several Puget Sound trips, but I’m not a strong kayak-er. Hell, I’m not a strong anything anymore. And due to previous experience landing thru the surf I planned to hop off before the waves break and swim or walk the kayak in. But as I approached the shore the surf looked to mild that I went for it. And shouldn’t have! The surf pushed me sideways a position you never want to be in a kayak . As I started to hop off the kayak it, came with me and dumped me in the sand with the kayak on top of me. I could lift it up but could not flip it off me. I lifted up I think 3 times long enough to catch a breath before the next wave came, then some one came and lifted it off and I was finally able to get up and walk in. When I have rented a kayak here before the staff was a little more attentive as to helping you get in. I think in the future just before I come in I might call the Senior to be available for one of my ungraceful landings and render necessary assistance. Also in the future I will get off before the waves and float it in.

We are trying to empty out the freezer before purchasing any more meat or fish and

plan carefully for out last month so we aren’t giving a lot of stuff away. We still had 1 pack of left over turkey from Thanksgiving so I decided to make a turkey pot pie, a favorite of the Senior’s. Of course no rolling-pin, no pot pie pan and no turkey gravy. But mushroom soup worked for gravy. I rolled out the crust on tin foil using a large jar of beans. and a small 2 handle sauce pan doubled for a pie pan. I then baked it in our portable oven. It came out surprisingly good. Not bad for someone who isn’t much of a cook! Signing off KO

LIFE IS NOT ALL A BEACH, BUT GREAT WHEN YOU GET IT

We come to Zihuatanejo for the warm weather, but the beach is a great bonus. We are not true beach people, we don’t go to lay in the sun to bake and marinate and work on

our tans. We do enjoy the beach, but don’t go every day even though it is only a block away. And you ask why? It’s because we live here 5 months of the year vs vacationing. Much of our time here is spent on the daily tasks of just living, cooking, laundry, errands and Spanish classes . I will admit we do have plenty of personal time to enjoy, The senor with his TV and I am on my 13th book this season, Larry Mc Murty’s Comanche Moon. Not usually a fan of westerns, but a big fan of Mc Murtry.

Earlier this week was the Sailfest Volunteers Appreciation party held at a remote beach resort, Puerto Parisio on Playa Larga. Quite secluded and right on the beach where about 75 of us spent a fantastic afternoon eating and drinking the goodies we brought to share and enjoying the pool.

I’m not sure if it is quicker to errands here or at home. But is definitely less expensive. I My computer wouldn’t turn on. 50 pesos ($2.60) and 20 minutes of time it was fixed. Next on to the bakery to order my birthday cake. I had the winning bid on a cake from an earlier auction.

the beach at its best! A good book, mango margarita, sun, san!d and sea

My last errand took me to the beach to reserve a kayak for Sunday and while there I went swimming. Pretty good planing on my part. It did take the better part of an afternoon. But no fossil fuel was expended, I got to swim and logged 3.80 miles on my fitbit. A productive but enjoyable day. Signing off KO

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, NOT FOR ME AND MORE CONSTRUCTION

Living in a second floor apartment with an Iron security gate makes it difficult for a drop by visitor. I thought it would be so great to have a hanging rope that would ring a bell and then we could throw down the key and out friends could come up. Its nicer than hollering from the street which due to traffic noise out side and TV noise inside isn’t very effective. After much searching I found the right bell a lovely brass bell, this was after

the Senor said the bicycle bell I had previously found would definitely not do.

To me every thing is a simple process, hang a rope, with the bell tied to the railing and let our friends know about it. Not so with the Senor. He is more logical. No a rope wouldn’t last , heavy fishing line would be better, and would need to strung thru a series of eye hooks to position the bell in the most advantageous position for us to hear the bell and not bind He installed it as planned but the command strip eye hooks would not stick on the cement railing and the bell bound against the iron railing when pulled hard and someone cut the fishing-line and removed the pull handle. So now he has a plan be requiring supplies from home. So maybe next year.

They moved 2 cement truck loads by wheel barrow to make the cement floor of this restaurant

The construction project behind our apartment has been a great source of entertainment watching a crew of about 5 men build this restaurant behind our apartment from the ground up. They work very hard in very hot weather and it is all manual labor. The only power tool they have used is a “tamper” to compress the soil after the dirt has been redistributed all over the site by wheel barrow. It sounds like a helicopter that is going to take off only it never takes off. They also have a manual tamper.

The man in the green shirt and white hat bought sodas for the crew

Last Friday they poured the concrete floor over interlaced re bar. Two cement truck loads were wheel barreled from the front of the site and distributed through out it. It attracted the attention of a tourist whom I’m sure was a cement truck driver back home. He conversed with the driver inspected the the truck was obviously quite interested in the project and then did the nicest thing. He went to the store round the corner and returned with cokes for the guys. Definitely a very nice, kind, thoughtful person! Signing off KO

More Sailfest

One of the most fun events of Sailfest is the Sail Parade. For 300 pesos you can purchase an opportunity to spend the day on a sailboat, sailing out of Zihuatanejo Bay to Ixtapa and then on to where ever your group chooses to do. Over the years groups I have been with groups who have chosen to “just sail”, go fishing, swim in the open ocean. But most popular seems to be to sail to Ixtapa Island and swim or lunch there.

A group of 16 of my friends opted to go out on the Ziva a 50 plus foot catamaran that was either brand new or just looked like it. It is definitely the Cadillac of catamarans, the most beautiful boat I have ever seen. Along with the 16 of us there were at least 8 -10 others and in no way were we ever crowded. We all brought food and drink to share and our destination was to be Ixtapa Island. Along the way we sunned, visited made new friends, I discovered folks that are probably related, distantly, but us Driscolls all originated from Ireland. As we anchored off Ixtapa Island Captain Jeff called for the panga from our preferred restaurant to come out to take folks ashore to eat and drink more. We were anchored about 200 meters off shore so another gal and I “jumped ship” and swam a shore ahead of the crowd and got us a great table. A couple of more also swam in but most took the

boat. We ate, we drank, we purchased silver from the wandering silver vendor had wonderful day and returning home, happy and tired.

This year Sailfest profited over 2,090,226 pesos which is $108,414. which will all go to building schools and improving the educational opportunities for Zihuatanejo’s poorest children. Signing off KO

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