ROAD TRIP!

Pete and I are starting off on a long road trip.  Something we have looked forward to for a year.  We are planning to drive from Seattle to Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico and we will keep in touch with you and write reminders to ourselves by trying to blog regularly.  This should be an interesting trip for us and maybe you might like to learn about it too.  Since we are driving, we imposed on friends who have done it (Canadians, of course) for information.  They were very helpful.  Have to get Mexican car insurance, a Mexican entry permit and a posted monetary guarantee that you will bring the car back to US.  This last money is returned (they say) when you come back thru the border. 
We are not in a hurry so we will visit friends and family on the way.  In California and Arizona.  A couple from Arizona will cross over the border with us and we both have timeshares at Puerto Penasco in Mexico.  We plan to play golf and rest there for a week.  Our friends drive back home and we head off to Mazatlan on our adventure.  We have a week there and our friend from Guadalajara will fly over and join us for a day or two and drive back to his home in Guadalajara where we will stay for a day or two.  Then we drive to Ajijic and find a place to stay for a month or so. 

Sound like fun???  I'll let you know how it goes.  Adios amigos.

Last Parade Before Lent

There was a small parade on Saturday and music and dance, a little larger parade on Sunday, a bit larger party on Monday, and a real blow out Fat Tuesday Parade. The children get a real kick out of running "away" from the clowns (men dress up as women) who chase them and shower them with flour. A long time tradition which probably once meant something - maybe the flour chased away the bad demons. Those characters dance and act up at every intersection and throw flour on the crowd and also confetti. Of course, there are floats! Maybe not like the Rose Parade but some of them have beautiful girls dancing hula or wearing beautiful white gowns and waving. They throw candy. Other floats have men dressed up - one in particular made the crowd really laugh - it said "Por Gulpa del Alcohol Una Boda Resulta" and had a very large man in a white brides gown with another large man in a mariachi suit, some of the attendants were dressed as mariaches but they were women dressed as men. There was also a float with "women" in some scanty clothes posing alluringly. The side walks were crowded with families, grandparents and small babies. There was so much talk and laughter at all the flour throwing and who became covered with it. Most of it was thrown at pretty teenaged senoritas who laughted and screamed. We did get caught in a little flour but were not really the target. What fun!

We stopped by a little hole in the wall to get a drink and ended up having lunch - a wet("drowned") bagette pork sandwich and a coke. We had never had one and enjoyed it as well as talking to the owner, an older senora who spoke only Spanish.

We are enjoying our guests very much. They are adventureous and independent. We have tried lots of fruits and veggies - today we bought cactus leaves (nopales) which we will cook. Also bought a different kind of squash and some ceviche. A while ago we bought a fruit named, mame, which was good for one taste for everyone and then we threw it away. Maybe we needed someone to tell us how to prepare it. We like to experiement.

Don't want to get too carried away with this blog so I'll find a nice picture and be blogging you later.

A MONTH - ALMOST - IN AJIJIC

This is a photo of part of our garden.

We are sitting in the garden on another beautiful day. Birds are seranading us with songs. Afternoons, when it gets the warmest, the garden is the place to be- reading and talking.

This morning Pete went to the gym and worked out. Then we went to breakfast at a lovely little hotel with a garden room in the middle. The food was great and we met the owner who is from Pennsylvania and very charming.

I stopped by a salon and got a hair cut. Badly needed. The square was filled today with many older gentlemen sitting on benches. They all looked as if they were having a relaxed day. Everyone, Mexican and Gringos, are very friendly. Everyone has been negatively effected by the bad stories about the violence in Mexico. Of course, it is not here, there is no reason for the narcos to come to this "retired community". We feel we are perfectly safe here.

MORELIA AND THE MARIPOSAS

After spending a lot of time on the internet, we decided to take a tour to see the Monarch Butterflies. The trip to Morelia is some distance and so it turned out that we stayed two nights in Morelia. The tour included a walking tour of historic Morelia with a wonderful informative guide. Morelia is so beautiful. There are over 1000 buildings which are on the Unesco Heritage list and the ones we saw on our walking tour were well kept up baroque buildings with a great history. There are many squares and wide boulevards. The city is a planned city because they wanted it to be the capital of Michoacan State. 62 spanish noble familites were directed by the queen of Spain to come and settle the city. Of course, they were given lots of land and indian servants (slaves) as incentive. Anyway, it is about 6500 feet in altitude and the air is beautiful and clean. The people are beautiful too. There is a large university so there are many young people. There are the standard beautiful, ornate, golden cathedrals and churches.

Our trip to find the where the butterflies come to overwinter, mate, lay their eggs and to die, was all up hill. Up hill in the van (14 of us) up hill after we got to the parking lot and more up hill to 11,000 feet elevation, where the butterflies COVERED the trees. The sun came out for a while and the butterflies warmed up and started flying around. An amazing sight. We were lucky to see it because the clouds came back and it cooled down and the butterflies settled down on the branches of the huge fir trees again. You have probably seen all of this on the Discovery Channel but in person it is magnificent.

Now, I have to confess that the altitude did bother me as it always does. Maybe it is those many years of smoking or maybe it is the fact that I was born and have lived at sea level. (It could not have anything to do with my advanced age.) So, I took a horse up the mountain and Pete walked. Going straight up hill on a horse which was led by a Tarascan Indian young man was also a work out. Then I was going to walk down but on the way down I slipped on soft sand which was like ice. Didn't hurt myself but I was very dizzy for a few minutes and all of the tour guides thought that the horse was a better way for me to go down. So on the horse I got again. Well, going straight down the mountain on the horse was a workout. I made it but those horse riding muscles are a bit sore today if I sit very long.

We stayed two nights in Morelia and came home last evening (Sun. Feb 10). Our friends here has expected that we would be very hungry and had dinner for us.

Now I will get a lovely photo from Pete and talk to you again soon.

Goodbye Parties and Thoughts of Returning

We made a trip to Guadalajara to spend a morning with Steve, Cuqui, Lupita and Mrs. Torres. We have enjoyed so much our time with them and have learned a lot of Espanol too. We went to a very lovely restaurant for breakfast and then to Lupita's home to see her art. She is more fantastic than she knows and I hope that in the near future she will have an exhibit so that many more people can appreciate her work.
On the trip back, we went again thru Jocotepec. We hoped to be adventurous and have a bowl of birria (goat stew). Well, we just forgot that it was Friday and all of the places usually serving it were not. Jocotepec is a very Mexican and Catholic little town.
So, we stopped instead at a tourist place in a Balneario in San Juan Cosala and had our lunch. That place is a maze of pools of varying degrees and on Friday just chock full of little children. They also have all of the spa things-massages etc. I have been told its great. Just another treat waiting for next time.
Warmer weather is here. The mornings are still just perfect and if you walk in the shade so is the rest of the day but it gets up to over 72. The evenings are balmy so that's great.
We have looked at several places to rent but will see about what's happening at home before deciding what we will try next year.
Tomorrow we will go on an art walk and take in another good bye dinner - love it - Yep, we will miss this place and everyone here.
art

Music and Mexicans

Friday night we went with Helen and Doug to opening night of the Northern Lights 7th annual music festival. What beautiful music! Held in the "auditorio" in Ajijic, the acoustics were perfect, and at about 450 people the event was sold out. Organizers had brought together outstanding musicians from the UK, Canada, US and Mexico to form the best chamber orchestra you ever heard. During a 2 1/2 hour program my favorite was Los Cuatro Estaciones (The Four Seasons) by Astor Piazzolla. As a tribute to Vivaldi there are occasional echos of some of his melodies, but the work is mostly based on a tango/jazz combination that is irrresistable. We'll go back for more this week. Find out more at http://www.northernlightsmusic.ca/ .

This was the first event that we have attended where it seemed that the entire audience was composed of Americans and Canadians. Ajijc is not like a seaside resort. Here the english-speaking community mixes well with the Mexicans. We have only found a few restaurants, loncherias, and fondas where the majority of diners are not Mexican. The same is true in the grocery stores and drug stores. Despite the numbers of Americans and Canadians who have made this area their home this is still a very Mexican town. All of the streets are cobblestone except for the main highway through town. Many of the Mexicans keep horses, and wherever you are you can often see and hear horses on the cobblestone streets. Of course ATVs, smart cars, vans and trucks are more common. There is always music being played, and several times every week there is some traditional activity--never fakey stuff for tourists, but always by and for the Mexican people who live here.

Living in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico in January 2009

We are enjoying the mild weather and the wonderful scenery and great food of Ajiic. We have met people from many states and from Canada. All escaping the cold weather. Our "casita" is very nice and convenient to the little town and to the lake. This week we have visited Guadalajara and Tlaquepaque (a beautiful artsy town) on Sunday when all of the tourists from the city visit too. During this time a thief (probably an inside job) stole Steve's Nissan Z car and some other stuff from his house in Ajijic. This is his first burglary in 6 years here. Anyway, he dealt with the police and insurance etc on Monday and we house sat and TV watched on Tues while he followed up on paper work.. The police came soon after he left and they had found his car and wanted Pete to come with them to identify it. I did not have my camera ready to take a photo of Pete being taken away by the police. Too Bad. He made it back okay. One of the police had lived in Renton.

We have taken a bus tour around the lake (Lake Chapala) thru all of the very little no gringo towns and learned a lot of history of the area. Of course we visited churches and city halls and we saw pelicans on the lake by the hundreds near a very very small fishing village. Yesterday, Fri, we attended a reading of a play by the Lake Chapala Society members and tonight we will go to a musical production. Lots of things to do each day. Next week we look into classes. I'll try to attach a picture of something.