Roses And Wrestlers

Things have been pretty quiet around here since we returned from Mazatlan. Roy has had a bad cold and I have not been much better. We had invitations to go out on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and for a birthday party on the 27th. We stayed home from all of it. After several bottles of cough syrup Roy is beginning to feel better. My cold doesn't seem to get better or worse, just remains a nuisance. I did go to Spanish class yesterday though and it felt good to get out again.

Plant Update: I have planted some cherry tomatoes and they are now blooming. I am not sure if they will bear any fruit though as I don't see anything buzzing around to fertilise them. Oh well, will wait and see. The plumeria has lost all of its leaves for winter. The hibiscus is blooming as is the rose bush. I wish you could smell this rose, it has such a wonderful perfume that you can smell as soon as you open the apartment door. Wonderful.

I stole the picture below from the EntreTodos news blog. Our landlords oldest son is a wrestler along with his daytime job at the CFE. Apparently the wrestlers put on an event to raise money for a child's operation. The circled face on the bottom right is our landlords son.

A strange phenomena occurred on the beach at Miramar yesterday. Apparently hundreds of giant squid were washing up on the beach. They don't seem to know why; but said that people and fishermen were out in force picking them up to take home and eat. Not my idea of take out food.

The pictures below were taken from El Vigia and La Voz del Puerto newspapers.

Heading Home

Time to head home. We ate a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then checked out. As we had lots of time we decided to walk along the malecon for awhile before getting a cab to the bus depot. It is a lovely walk, the weather was great and we needed to get some exercise before sitting for the long ride home.
We walked for quite awhile taking breaks and sitting and looking at the views before catching a taxi to the bus depot.

The neat looking building below is apparently a popular disco club.

When we had bought our tickets the day before the clerk had told us to check with him in the morning to get the number of the bus that would be taking us. No one at his cubicle; so we asked the lady in the next booth whose company also runs the bus line that we were taking. She made a phone call and gave us a number for the bus. By this time the fellow from the day before was in his booth so just to make sure we asked him for the number and it corresponded. He told us where to catch the bus and we headed in that direction. It took us 3 tries to find the right spot to wait. Boy, the second class buses were in the boonies compared to the first class ones. The bus we were waiting for was a Transportes Del Pacifco, remember that name because after you finish reading this you won't want to take one.

The bus was supposed to leave at 10:20 AM, this time came and went and no bus. Roy kept walking down the line to make sure that we weren't waiting in the wrong place; but nope, no bus. We waited for about 1/2 hr. and he finally pulled in, unloaded everyone and pulled out again to either gas up or get cleaned. Who knows, he didn't inform anyone, just pulled away. We waited for another 1/2 hr. for him to return and then load all the luggage and people up. People had so much stuff that the luggage areas under the bus wouldn't hold it all so they started packing it inside the bus behind the back seats. Finally we were ready to pull out, over an hour late. The day was just beginning! Of course, being a second class bus he made more stops than the first class buses do, which didn't do anything to allow him to catch up on any lost time. We had quite a long stop somewhere and then when we got to the next town of Guasave, he stopped again, told us all something that no one could understand and left the bus. People were looking at each other and asking each other what he had said and everyone was saying that they hadn't understood him. So we sat and waited, and waited. Over 1/2 hr. later he returned to the bus and we prepared to leave. As he began pulling out we could feel the tires dragging, the brakes had locked up. He played around going backwards and forwards for awhile and they finally unlocked and we were on our way again. About 5 minutes after we left Guasave he again pulled off the highway and parked in front of a small cafe. He announced that we would be stopping here for everyone to have supper. WHAT???? Everyone piled off the bus and most people went to eat. We weren't hungry so just hung around outside waiting with some others who had elected not to eat. I am not sure how long this took as by this time I had stopped looking at my watch. Finally everyone returned to the bus and we were on our way again. The next delay was one where everyone was ordered off the bus for them to check for fruits and vegetables because of some kind of fruit fly or something. This of course took awhile. Back on the road again, shortly thereafter we reached a point on the highway and sat still in the line. This was the border between Sinaloa and Sonora and it took us about 2 hrs. to get to the head of that line up. Again we all piled out and the military checked the bus and some of the luggage. The bus driver was very even tempered and used to all of this and was chatting with the passengers the whole time. I suggested to him that going south on the bus was fine; but if going north maybe flying was preferable, he just laughed. We got back on and headed out again. We managed to make some miles before the next military stop where we only waited for about 1/2 hr.. Finally we reached Guaymas and caught a cab home at 3 AM in the morning. What a long trip and the last time that we take a second class bus if I have anything to say about it. We could have waited until 6 PM in the evening to take a first class bus and would have arrived home only about 3 hrs. later than we did by taking one that was supposed to leave at 10:20 AM.. I guess the main thing is that we are home safe and sound though and all is good. I do have to say that throughout the trip the bus driver was very amiable and chatted with the passengers at all the stops, all the passengers were just laughing and rolling their eyes after awhile. It was a good bunch of people to travel with.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. May your day be filled with joy and happiness.

Plaza Machado In Mazatlan

After wandering around the old downtown area we sat down to have a coke and then headed over to Plaza Machado. It is a pretty plaza with restaurants set up all around it. Lots of people to watch. They had a great sand sculpture at one end of the park. Very artistic.

We wandered around the park and sat and people watched for awhile before heading back over to the Plaza Republica where we had arranged to meet fellow bloggers Nancy and Paul . We had done a lot of walking and were tired. Nancy and Paul arrived right on schedule and we returned to the Plaza Machado and sat at one of the restaurants for a coffee. We had a great visit with them and suddenly 2 hrs. had passed. We walked up the street and headed back to our hotel in one of the ever present pulmonias. These pulmonias are a type of taxi that are really neat, they look like a renovated golf cart and can be found all over the city. They are open air and reasonably priced and we used them several times while we were there.

We again had dinner at our hotel, this time both of us had the shrimp and relaxed in our room after a busy day with lots of walking and talking. We were in a kind of reverse culture shock while we were there, it seemed that everyone talked english and there were lots of tourists everywhere. It has been a long time since I have been able to understand all of the conversation around me. Seemed strange. We felt more at home in the old town area than we did in the Zona Dorado where everything is geared to tourism. We enjoyed our visit and would return again.

Plaza Republica In Mazatlan

We got our taxi to drop us at the Plaza Republica. The plaza is full of shoeshine stands everywhere that you look. We wandered around a bit and this is what we saw.

The municipal building.

The coca cola Christmas tree.

The kiosk.

The nativity scene.

The church.

We sat and did some people watching and then decided to wander around the old town area a bit. We arrived at the Teatro Angela Peralta and decided to go inside and have a look around. The theatre itself is a wonderful building inside. It was pretty dark in there so I didn't even attempt to take any photos; but if you ever get a chance to go there, do. It is a great building with a lot of history behind it.

From there we wandered over to the Plaza Machado; but I will save that for tomorrow as there is enough pictures already on this post.

We're Home

We had a good trip and fun in Mazatlan; but it is also good to be home.
We left on Tuesday evening at 6:45PM on a TAP bus, (fare 545 pesos or about $54.50 dollars). The bus was on time and everything went well. Roy snoozed a little bit on the bus overnight and we arrived in Mazatlan around 6 AM Wednesday. We grabbed a taxi and arrived at our Hotel expecting to have to store our luggage until the afternoon before we could get into our room. Lucky for us they had a room that we could get into right away. That was great. We were ready for coffee but the restaurant didn't open until 7 AM, so we decided to take a walk in the direction of the relatives hotel. We wandered along the quiet empty streets and almost the first thing we saw was the Dairy Queen. I laughed and told Roy that I had to take a photo of that just for Isla Gringo, so here you go Wayne. It wasn't open at that time of the day and I wouldn't have felt like ice cream then anyway.

We were sick of sitting so just kept walking and looking around. After about 20 minutes we arrived at the relatives hotel and phoned them from the lobby, intending to leave a message as that is what the desk clerk said would happen. Instead they answered the phone and as they were up and about we went up to their room for coffee. We sat and visited and then we are headed out for breakfast at a cafe about 10 minutes down the beach. The grand kids were just loving the ocean and the beach, it was fun to watch them. We had a good visit over a long breakfast and then headed back to their hotel. We visited some more and then we headed back to our hotel.



The return trip was certainly not as calm and quiet as the walk there. All of the tour operators and timeshare salesmen were out in force. What a nightmare, it was like walking a gauntlet and we were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel. We sacked out for awhile in our room and then wandered over to the Canadian Consulate which is right close to the hotel we stayed in. We wanted to ask some questions about renewing our passports when the time comes and the lady there was very helpful.

We stayed at the Azteca Inn, in the Zona Dorado. The price was reasonable, the rooms were clean and decent and the restaurant was very good. We didn't use the pool or hot tub; but it all looked nice and clean. To me it was a bit chilly for swimming but all of the other tourists didn't seem to think so, they were all sweating and wearing shorts, (we got some funny comments from the relatives as we were wearing our jackets in the morning and they were already in shorts and sweating, pretty funny). All of the staff at the hotel seemed to speak/understand English and were very helpful with directions, etc.. We would definitely stay in this hotel if we ever go to Mazatlan again.



After some relaxing in our room we headed down the street and had a couple of beer and people watched. We decided we didn't want to run the timeshare gauntlet so thought we would try out the restaurant in our hotel for dinner. Good plan. Roy had enchiladas and I had breaded shrimp and boy was it good. I wanted to compare the Mazatlan shrimp to the Guaymas shrimp lol, and the comparison was good. I even got a baked potato, something that we don't ever see on the menu here in Guaymas, maybe in San Carlos they are on the menu but not here. It was really good. We were tired so didn't even look for any evening entertainment, we hit the bed early after not getting any sleep the night before on the bus.
The next morning Roy was up at his usual ungodly hour of 5 AM; but was nice enough to get dressed and head to OXXO for a coffee and then he went to use the computer in the hotel lobby. I went back to sleep for awhile before getting up. We again headed to the relatives hotel for a visit and breakfast with them.
After breakfast we caught a cab to the bus station to buy our return tickets for the next day. We wanted to pick our seats on the bus line that we had come down on; but unfortunately their bus wasn't leaving until 6 PM and we didn't want to hang around for so long with our bags after checking out of the hotel. We looked around and found another bus where we could get tickets to leave in the morning. This was a BIG mistake; but I will go into that on another post. After buying our tickets we started walking along the malecon Olas Atlas headed in the general direction of centro. After walking for awhile we grabbed a pulmonia taxi and went to Plaza Republica. More on this tomorrow.

Heading South

We haven't been doing anything of note that last few days, so therefore nothing exciting to blog about.
This evening though we are heading south to Mazatlan. We will be spending a few days there visiting with family that are there for a weeks vacation. We booked a hotel online so will see how that turns out. If we have time we will also try and meet up with Nancy and Paul in Mazatlan.
Hopefully it will be a bit warmer there than here. We have a cold front that moved in here and today it is only 20 C.. Brrrrrr. We are freezing; although I am sure we are not as cold as north in Canada where it is a balmy -22. Yuck just the thought of that makes me shiver. At least we have no snow.
Enjoy your week wherever you are.

First Communion

Last night we were invited to go to Allans first communion. We arrived at the church to find all of the communicants lined up outside waiting to enter the church. Shortly after, they entered the church and sat down. The service began and about 30 minutes or so into it the children and their godparents circled the church, each holding a box of food. It looked to me like a "dispensa", as each box had oil, canned goods, etc. in it. I am assuming it was an offering to be given to needy families in the congregation over Christmas; but I really don't know. Everyone lined up for communion and shortly thereafter the service was over. I didn't take my camera to the church so have no photos of the service.
After church was over we all headed back to Ciro and Irenes home where food and cake was served. An enjoyable evening and an important day for Allan.
Allan and his cousin Brittany.

Procession For The Virgen de Guadalupe

Thursday is the day that I go to a local orphanage with a group of ladies, we attempt to teach some english to the children. Our group has one class of little ones, then a break for lunch and later a class of a little bit older children. We sing songs, read stories, make a craft and attempt in all of this to teach them their colors, numbers and some english words. It is a fun time for all.
Later on after I had returned from this, we again headed uptown but this time to centro. My spanish teacher had mentioned that Thursday was the day that the San Fernando church was having its procession for the Virgen de Guadalupe. Virgen de Guadalupe day is December 12 th and there is a procession each day for a different church. We sat on a park bench in the 13 de Julio Plaza where we were joined by some friends. The little procession of a couple of ladies and some children arrived at the church, circled around the plaza and after a blessing from the priest entered the church. My photos turned out all blurry, so have none to upload here.
We then headed home and after getting tortas for dinner relaxed for what was left of the evening.
Young Alan came upstairs yesterday to invite us to his first communion. He told us the time, and date and rushed back downstairs. He then came running back up to tell us that he forgot to tell us the place, that done he ran back downstairs. He is quite excited about this. He has been enjoying his classes and has been showing us his workbook, so he is happy about the culmination of his studies.
So, today I will go and pay the cable bill and look around for a suitable gift for his communion. That should be interesting.
The photo is of the Palacio Municipal (city hall) with its Christmas decorations all lit up.

A Bike Ride Photo

Since it has cooled off a bit Roy has been taking his bike out and riding around the area. This is a photo that he took yesterday, somewhere in Guaymas.

The Moon, Venus And Jupiter

I wanted to try and get some photos of the alignment of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter. On Sunday evening we were in centro and by the time we got home it was too late to catch it, the mountains had intervened. The same thing happened on Monday night, by the time I got home from Cynthias and Mikes it was again behind the mountain. Finally last night I tried. My camera is not very good at taking night pictures and one of the planets was not as bright as it had been a couple of nights before. Here is what I got anyway. You pretty much need to look at them full size by clicking on them to see Venus and Jupiter.

The Saga Of Roys Computer

We have been working on just one computer here for the last while. Some weeks ago Roys computer died. A friend came over, did some work on it and it was alive and sort of well (thanks G.), for a couple of weeks. Then it died again. We took it in to the shop and they put in a new hard drive. We brought it home on Thursday and got our landlord to call Megacable to come and hook up the internet to it. The way our computers are hooked up to the internet, Roys needs to be connected from an installation disc. We have the disc; but after the first install use of it, the tech has to come in and do wondrous things with passwords, etc. on a black screen. The first time we had called them after our friend got the computer running they came over the same day we called so we weren't concerned this time. Well, the landlord called Thursday afternoon, they didn't show up and we excused them by thinking that maybe it was too late in the day. Landlord called again Friday, again a no show. Another call on Saturday, another no show. Sunday of course we assumed they wouldn't work. Another call on Monday and by 5 PM they still hadn't shown up. We were supposed to go over to Cynthia and Mikes apartment for Cynthias birthday party, Roy decided that he wasn't leaving. He just had a feeling that if he left they would show up. I went to Cynthias party on my own and left him waiting at home.
When I returned home from the party Roy was happily ensconced in front of his computer. Sure enough the fellow had shown up. We now have the techs name and phone number so if we need him again we can just call him directly and bypass the office. Good deal. We are now a spoiled two computer family again. Thank goodness.

Lighting The Christmas Tree

Last night we went downtown for the lighting of the Christmas Tree in centro on the malecon turistico. We went down a little early so that we could get seats and wandered around for awhile. This annual event was put on by both the city and DIF and they had a dance group called Roglop from Obregon. The mayor came on and made his speech and then the dance group performed. After the group finished performing, Santa Claus made his appearance on stage with a bunch of the little kids from DIF. This over our friends and us, along with the rest of the people made our way to the Fuente Danzante and watched the fountain show to the sounds of christmas songs. A nice evening.
The nativity scene.

The Christmas Tree before it was lit.

The stage.

The pirate ship waiting to load for its tour.

Sunset.