Guaymas To San Carlos

Yesterday we got started on our big trip from Guaymas to San Carlos, all of maybe 15 miles. We had gotten to the overpass where you have to make the decision to either to head straight to Hermosillo (state capitol, about 125 kms.) on highway 15 or turn to go to San Carlos. We turned, after all we were just going for breakfast.
The mountains/hills continue.



Getting closer, there are some yards now.





Here we are, heading into San Carlos. The mountain seen faintly on the left is the tourist brochure famous Tetas de Cabra or Tetas de Kawi, depending on who you talk to. A little further down the main street Beltrones Blvd. our breakfast was waiting.

Hills Or Mountains?

Are they hills or mountains? They are called both here by different people. Compared to the Rockie Mountains in Alberta/B.C. in Canada they are probably hills; but compared to the hills in Saskatchewan where I grew up they would be considered mountains. You can call them whatever you want.
I took these yesterday as we drove out of Guaymas on our way to San Carlos for breakfast. They are not the best quality as they were all taken out of the car window as we drove; but they will give you an idea of the land around here. Some of the tourist promotion stuff here brags about the beauty of the area, saying it is a place where, " the desert and the mountains meet the sea" and it is indeed beautiful in my mind.

Snacks

I have been emailing lately with someone who is originally from Mexico. He suggested that I try a mexican snack that he likes.
I found them in the store and in spite of the bag being printed with flames and the word "multintenso" being written on it, decided to try them. I figured they would be pretty hot. I love peanuts though and these are covered with lime and chile.
The verdict? I like them and think that they could be addictive. They are not too hot, just enough spice to make them enjoyable.
Thanks for the suggestion, F..

Dancers

During the Festival del Mar Bermejo one of the dance schools put on a performance to show off their skills. Personally I perfer to see the folkloric dancers; but these young people were good and obviously work hard at their craft. The photos aren't the greatest as I am, as always, too short to get above the heads of the people in front of me. Oh well.

Back To Normal

I guess we are back to normal with the weather. The clouds are gone and it is clear and sunny again. As I write this at 7:44 AM it is 28 C./86 F. feels like 34 C./93 F. with the 74% humidity. On the other side of the country Tropical Storm Dolly is blustering, hopefully she is not causing too many problems.
The landlords daughter in law had a false alarm Saturday evening and we thought perhaps by Sunday morning there would be a new baby; but not yet. She is back at home now and still waiting. Oh well, it is too early yet anyway.
We are supposedly without city water still, we are lucky as we have a tinaco that is fed by our landlords reservoir and the landlady didn't seem concerned when we talked about it the other day. We are being careful though and conserving carefully as we don't want it to run out before the city supply returns. We are generally very conscious about our water use, as after all we do live in the desert and I don't believe in wasting fresh water no matter what your situation is. Too bad others in the neighborhood don't feel the same. Leaks go on forever it seems and no one seems concerned. I can't figure it out, such a total lack of concern as if the supply was infinite.
Just some random photos today. The first is a back stairway in the Palacio Municipal and the next two are just shots taken downtown from the Plaza de Tres Presidentes during the Mar Bermejo festival.

Rain In The Desert

Friday morning when I had to go uptown shopping it was cloudy and drizzling rain here in our colonia. When I got uptown it was raining quite hard. Nice to see the rain. Returning home again it was still drizzling; but it cleared off and was nice later on for the birthday party. It cooled things off a couple of degrees so it was nice to sit outside for the party.

Yesterday morning we woke up to a gray morning and a fairly steady rain. It rained for a few hours which was great. It started clearing off and warming up after lunch though, getting back to our regularily scheduled weather of hot and humid.

It is so nice when it rains here, it washes all the dust off of the trees and it smells so fresh. It doesn't happen that often, so we enjoy it when it does.

This morning it is partially cloudy, so we will see what the day will bring; but I really don't expect more rain.
According to MSN weather our July average for rainfall is 1.52 cm or 0.6 inches which I think we have already had so far this month. July and September are the months of heaviest rainfall here according to them and that seems about right from our experience.

The Birthday Party

The birthday party was held in the salon de eventos "Titanic". I had never been there before and had no idea of what it was like inside. They have 2 water slides emptying into separate pools and another pool just for the kids to paddle around in. The pools are very shallow and just perfect for little kids. There were tons of kids enjoying themselves immensely on the waterslides and in the pools. There were a couple of really little kids that wanted to play in the water; but were afraid of the big pools so they put some water in a little plastic paddling pool and they had a ball in their private pool. They also gave the kids beach balls to play with in the water and had balloons floating around in the pools. They also have swings, etc. for the children to play on.





The youngest birthday girl.

The older birthday girl.

Birthday banner which was the same picture as what was on the invitations.

As soon as we were seated we were served with soda and snacks with salsas. Then we were served plates of fresh fruit. After the fruit we were given a bowl each of a calamari salsa with chips. Later on 2 hot dog carts were rolled in and everyone was served with hot dogs complete with all the fixings, the kids loved it. Then came the cake. Everyone was really full by this time and people began to leave, naturally everyone left with a big shiny bag of treats.
They had a piñata which of course was shaped like Ariel in the undersea movie. (Sorry I am not up on the names of these kinds of movies). I forgot to take a photo of that.
A good time was had by all.

Time For A Birthday Party

Yesterday we were just going downstairs to go for some groceries, when a visiting relative at the landlords asked me to wait for a minute. I should know her name as she is at all of the family events; but it escapes me at the moment. I have always been terrible at remembering names, anyway she went to her car and came back with a birthday party invitation for me.

The invitation is so cute, I tried to scan it; but because of the seashells attached to it, the scanner lid wouldn't close properly so it didn't scan very well. The party is for 2 little girls this afternoon at a salon de eventos called Titanic which is on the road to the beach at Miramar. It looks like it will be an under the sea themed party.

So, I am off this morning to go gift shopping, wish me luck. The party is this afternoon at 5 PM. Should be fun.

Update: Shopping done. Got the gifts wrapped at the same place I usually use, cost $2.70 total.

It was raining hard in centro and is drizzling here. 28 C. feels like 33 C. and 84% humidity, it is sure sticky.

Bloggers Dinner Out

Last evening Bliss and Jim , Cynthia and Mike , Roy and I got together for dinner at a restaurant in centro called Los Barcos. Los Barcos is not to be confused with our favorite restaurant La Barca. Can you tell by the restaurant names that Guaymas is a port city? Los Barcos means the boats (plural) and La Barca means the boat (singular). This name game can be confusing, as one evening we were to meet some people at La Barca, we waited and waited before finally ordering and eating our dinner. Unknown to us they were doing the same waiting game at Los Barcos. Pretty funny. We did finally get together with them on a different evening.
We sat around chatting and when we finally called the waiter over to order he seemed relieved. He told us that the kitchen would be closing in about 15 minutes at 6:30 PM. Early closing.
They had 3 specials: shrimp in orange sauce, fish in orange sauce and chicken in orange sauce. See a trend here? Roy decided to try the chicken special and I decided to try the shrimp special. The others ordered shrimp in a variety of ways. The orange sauce was tasty, nothing great; Roy said he really liked it; but then he likes citrus more than I do.
Dinner over we chatted for a few minutes and noticed that they were locking the doors so we decided to leave so that they could close up. It was 7 PM. When Roy and I were at El Coco Novillero the other night they also appeared to be closing up at 7 PM. This seems very strange as most of the Mexican people eat dinner at a later hour so perhaps the bulk of their business is for lunch. Los Barcos is open to the outside so does not have air conditioning; they did have a couple of big fans going though, so it was pleasant inside.
As we stood outside chatting a group of 4 backpackers arrived, they were Italian and had just gotten off the ferry from the Baja and were hungry. They spoke a little English so we were going to try and tell them where another restaurant was, this was going to be interesting as there are none close to Los Barcos without taking lots of twists and turns. They told us they were on their way to San Carlos so Bliss and Jim offered them a ride. They all piled into their car, packed like sardines. We had a good laugh as it reminded us of the clowns at the circus all piling into their little car. Off they went to San Carlos to find their hotel and some food.
Cynthia, Mike, Roy and I chatted for awhile longer before heading off to our respective homes. A nice evening.
I didn't take my camera; but both Bliss and Cynthia did so there may be some photos over on their blogs. Personally I hope not, I sure hate having my photo taken.

Waiting For The Cruisers

The city is still busy getting ready for the cruise ships to arrive. There is lots of work still in progress and I am sure lots still to be finished. They have accomplished a lot and it looks good.
A week or so ago or maybe two, time goes so quickly here, I read in the newspaper that they had installed a "countdown clock" in la Plaza de Tres Presidentes. The next time we were downtown I took my camera and got a photo of it. It is in the plaza, busily counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the first cruise ship arrives here in October. I am sure there will be lots of excitement the morning that the first ship arrives. We are thinking that we may go down that morning just to see all the hoopla. Should be a sight!

The new marina for pleasure craft seems to be taking off, there are more boats moored there and I took a photo of this big girl that is docked there right now. Too big to get into the slips she is moored off of the end of the dock.

Another Street Dog Post

You are probably getting sick of reading about the street dog, Rojo, that we feed everyday. Reading Waynes Blog yesterday reminded me of some photos that I had taken of Rojo eating. He is a very friendly dog and doesn't seem to mind cats, which is unusual. He never seems to chase them or bark at them or bother them in anyway. One day when we were watching him eat we noticed that one little street kitten joined him at the food. He took no notice of it and seemed to leave it 1 piece of food. We found this amusing. This day he must have been feeling generous as he left the kitten 3 pieces of food! Who says that we can't all get along and share what we have with those less fortunate? Just another lesson to us humans from the animal kingdom.



When we returned from Tucson, we didn't see Rojo for a day or so which was very unusual and then one evening he appeared. I took his food down to him and he looked a little rough around the edges. He was limping and holding one leg up in the air and his head was banged up over one eye. The leg did not appear to be broken though, more bruised, as when he felt like it he would stand on it. He seemed happy to see me though and didn't seem to be in pain. As I was feeding him the landlords daughter in law was chatting with another neighbor lady and they informed me that he was going to die. Apparently while we were gone one of the landlords sons had accidently hit him with his work truck and they expected him not to make it. As he is a street dog it didn't occur to anyone to take him to the vet, it is survival of the fittest with these animals. I took a good look at him and he seemed to be healing fine and to be in no pain, so wasn't sure why they thought he was going to die. At this point he didn't seem to need the services of a vet. I couldn't understand a certain word they were saying and couldn't find it in my dictionary and of course this was the "key" word. As the days passed he continued to heal and is now his old self, with just one more battle scar. He used to sleep right in the middle of the street and just look up when a car came and expect them to go around him, which they did. He may have learned his lesson though as he seems to sleep a little further off to the side of the street now. A hard lesson learned.

Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán

Last night was the last night of the Festival Del Mar Bermejo. It was the 13 th of July which is the anniversary of the battle against the French in 1854. Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán was to be playing and we wanted to see them. Apparently the group started out in Jalisco in 1898 and hasn't looked back since. They are now based out of Mexico City and are known as the best mariachi in the world according to Wikipedia.
We along with 5 thousand or so other people all headed for the Plaza de Tres Presidentes to watch the show. First of all we watched a dance presentation put on by one of the dance schools and then we listened to a singer give a performance. Soon it was 8 PM and shortly thereafter the Mariachi made their appearance. Their group consisted of 13 performers and perform they did. They also sang Happy Birthday to the mayor as it was his 37th birthday yesterday. It was an excellent show; but we got tired of standing and sitting on the concrete before they were finished so decided to head home and watch the fireworks finale from there. We relaxed at home for awhile and then watched the fireworks from the comfort of our lawn chairs on the patio.
A shot of some of the dancers, I know it is a blurry photo; but I liked the way the dresses looked so didn't delete it.

I shot a couple of videos of the mariachi band so here they are.

Happy Birthday Roy

Yesterday was our anniversary and Roys birthday also. We decided to go out for dinner last night at one of our favorite places here. We haven't been there for a long time now and were going into withdrawal.
The restaurant El Coco Novillero specialises in seafood and it is good food at reasonable prices. We both ordered breaded shrimp and when the plates arrived our empty tummies didn't quite seem big enough. We had tons of shrimp, after I had eaten a couple I decided to count and there were still 14 good sized shrimp on my plate. Very tasty. I managed to eat all my shrimp by leaving some of my rice and not touching the tortillas. Service was good; although our favorite waiter was not there, too bad, he was a good waiter and we had always enjoyed his service. Oh well, dinner was great tasting and not hard on the budget. A nice, relaxing meal.
After eating we took a different street home and I snapped a couple of blurry photos out of the car window. Tough scenery to have to live with, isn't it?

Fruit

Over the last few days our landlady has come up a couple of times with some of the fruits that are in season here. She had been to Obregon and brought back some Higo fruit, (looks almost like a plum), from a friends home. She said that the tree/plant that it comes from is called Higuera. She has also been bringing us Mangos from their 5 or 6 trees in the yard. The ones growing on the tree right by our stairway are a later variety and are not quite ready yet. Last night she brought up some Sapote. The next door neighbor has a tree and it is just loaded with fruit. She told me that if we liked it she could get more from the neighbor for us.
We don't mind the mangos, they are fine; don't think I would ever go into the store and buy them; but then we get our fill of them when they are in season. At the moment we have a bunch of them sitting on the counter.
The Higos were pinkish inside and have a texture somewhat like a Kiwi fruit; but with a pretty bland taste. Tiny little seeds, smaller than Kiwi seeds. Not bad. The landlady said that you probably wouldn't find them in the grocery stores; but might find them being sold fresh from the fruit trucks or at the tianguis.
Mangos and Higos.

The Sapote again were quite bland in taste. The texture is very creamy, reminded me of the creaminess of an avocado; but the taste in not similar. Very large pit, not much fruit.
Sapotes.

Festival Del Mar Bermejo

From the 10th of July to the 13th of July Guaymas is holding the Festival Del Mar Bermejo. This festival is to honour the memory of the heroic defence of the port of Guaymas against the French invasion on 13 July, 1854. The best translation I can come up with for Festival Del Mar Bermejo is Festival of the Red Sea, which if you think about a sea port and a battle, in a way it makes sense, not saying my translation is accurate, someone else may have a better translation.
We went downtown in the early evening to see what was happening, I had printed off the schedule from the internet so had an idea of what was supposed to be going on.
Our first stop was at the Palacio Municipal, (Municipal building). There was a trio playing in the courtyard and art exhibits set up on the second floor.



After touring the art work and listening to the trio we left the building and decided to go to the Plaza 13 de Julio. Here there were vendors of almost everything you can think of and also restaurants had set up to serve people. We met one of the ladies from my art class who was there trying to sell her artwork. It was a bustling, busy place. In one of the food places the ladies were making handmade tortillas and from the look of their table had a lot of work ahead of them.
They had tables set up where children, under the tutelage of my art teacher from the Casa de la Cultura, were doing various art activities.
One one side of the plaza there was a stage set up where a group was playing, we sat down to listen to them; but they were just finishing, so we left and continued our tour.

On the other side of the plaza another stage was set up and a group called Teatro Guiñol were just beginning their performance of a puppet show, highlighting the flora, fauna, etc. of the islands of the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortes). The children were enjoying this show.

We continued on to the Plaza de la Pistola; but not much was happening there so we headed over to the Plaza Centenario. It was a little early and the group that was to perform there hadn't begun yet so we walked around the water to the new marina and the building Fonatur where there was supposed to be another group playing and the opening ceremonies of the Ruta de Arte. They had some art exhibited that was touted to be Picasso. Not sure if it was prints or just art in the style of Picasso. The ceremony and ribbon cutting hadn't happened yet, so we looked through the windows and decided that it wasn't something we were that interested in. We decided not to wait for the ceremony to see it. We hung out looking at the boats in the new marina and watching the beautiful sunset before grabbing a bus and heading home. On the way through centro on the bus there was a small parade with 6 or 8 stiltmen and women (zancos) in it. Lots of fun.
There are events going on from now until Sunday evening so I am sure that we will be going downtown a few times in the next few days.

Gifts Galore

Yesterday the landlady called me downstairs to look at all the baby shower gifts. My goodness, what an amazing amount of baby stuff! We looked through it all exclaiming at how cute, cuddly, soft and tiny everything is. Later on yesterday another lady who was unable to attend the shower showed up with yet another gift.
I told N. that she needed a bigger house/extra room to put all the things in and that she has enough for 2 or 3 babies.
Bliss commented on my last post about the late hour that the shower began. That seems to be the regular time for things to begin here if the event is for an adult. Birthday parties, etc. seem to start late, get going even later and go on til all hours of the early morning. Parties for children seem to start around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and go on until the late evening or so we have found with the events that we have attended.

Baby Shower

Last evening I went to the baby shower for the landlords daughter in law. It was supposed to begin at 8 PM so we left just before that. People didn't really begin arriving til around 9:30 and by 10 PM it was in full swing.
The tables were covered in blue plastic and the centerpieces were blue styrofoam plant pots with balloons, candies, little crocheted baby clothes, etc. stuck into the pot on sticks. The pots were filled with blue and white net and looked really pretty, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of one and didn't bring one home. The snack trays were decorated with little plastic foam booties which were filled with blue and white paper, candies, etc.. They were cute also and I brought one home with me.

We were all given a little yarn "baby" to pin onto our tops.

There was a DJ playing and then we were entertained by a show. There were 3 female impersonators who came out and lip synced to some songs and then they also told some rather off color jokes. My spanish vocabulary doesn't contain a lot of the words that were used in the jokes; but I got the idea anyway from their hand/body motions. Pretty funny. They performed for almost an hour before heading off. An interesting show. The DJ continued to play and some of the ladies danced with each other. The snacks and drinks flowed freely throughout the evening and a good time was had by all.
It was almost 2 AM before I arrived home, tired and happy. A fun evening.

The expectant mother with her gifts. The baby will arrive in about a month, and yes, it is known that it is a boy.

New On The Blog List

I have added some new blogs and sites to my list over on the right hand side. I am still using the old blogger so have to add them the old fashioned way, by going into the template and adding the code stuff. I am too lazy to put them in alphabetical order or anything fancy so they are just there at the bottom of the list. Maybe someday I will switch to the new blogger and be able to use all the fancy do dads; but I am afraid that I will lose everything in the switch over, so here I remain.

They are all interesting in their own way, so go ahead and check them out.

Happy July 4th

To everyone from the USA, Happy July 4th!

Just Another Day

Nothing too exciting going on here. We both went and got haircuts yesterday and then I went uptown shopping. The landlords grandaughter had her 6th birthday and the landlords daughter in law is having a baby shower on Saturday, so I needed to get some gifts.

I found a Mariposa Barbie (Butterfly Barbie) for the little girl and something for the baby shower, so the next stop was a place to get the gifts wrapped. I have talked about the gift wrapping places before and they never fail to impress. Yesterday I got both gifts wrapped and done up very prettily for about $2.40, I could never do it as well and for such a small cost. They are a really good deal.

This is the invitation for the baby shower to be held on Saturday evening. I kind of messed it up by writing on it as she was telling me, I didn't realise at the time that all the info. was on the back of the package, duh. Cute invitations. They are having a group, (landlord called them transvestites) perform some dancing for the entertainment. I am sure I will have more to say about that after I see it. Should be interesting fun.

Another Rain Shower

When we went to bed last night it didn't look too much like rain. I woke up in the middle of the night I thinking that I had been dreaming about rain; but when I got up and looked sure enough, it was raining. Yipee!!
It was a pretty good shower as it made little river channels in the street and the roof has big puddles on it. The birds are chirping and happy and the trees and plants are all fresh and clean and covered with raindrops. It is still cloudy and much cooler this morning at 25 C./76 F.. We have all the windows and the door wide open and it is great. Gotta love when it rains in the desert.


Yucca loving the raindrops.