MX Trip #27 Morning Call (Wedesday)

Normally, each morning around 7 AM, several of the men ( and sometime a lady with join in ) grab a coffee and meet on the patio at the beach area of the park. Of course the discussion is about the politic of yesterday and how to solve the world's problems. We also watch as the beach comes alive, as some venders start to set up early , probably to get the prime spot, or maybe it is so they are near the beach entrance. 

However, the Pineapple lady has 2 boys, one is probably 2 and the other is around 10 years old and we call him the water boy. Every morning he comes into our park to fill 2 water jugs that appear to be the size of 4 gallons. He carries both jugs to his Mom's stand. Then he gets 2 more jugs and carries then to another stand about 200 feet further down the beach. However, even thought he is built like a fire hydrant he has to stop and rest for a few minutes before he gets to the second vender. During the rest of the day he tries to watch his baby brother as the 2 year old does wander away. He seems to have lots of patience when chasing after his brother. Even thought there are 1000's of people on the beach I'm sure most venders know who the 2 year old belongs to so I doubt he would get lost.

Since the beach was crowded and it will be until after New Years, we just people watched and read a book from the patio. Many park residence go for a walk along the water's edge as walking on the beach is nearly impossible. cheers

 

MX Trip # 26 Christmas Day ( Tuesday )

So what do you do on Christmas Day in Guayabitos, MX. Well, around noon you join the group to set up the patio for Christmas Dinner which will be a Pot Luck affair for 37 people.

Earlier in the morning , we mostly walked around with our coffee wishing everyone a Merry Christmas or in case of our Mexican friends, and the condo was mainly Mexicans, you wish them Feliz Navidad. One lady actually delivered a rose to each RV along with a Merry Christmas wish.

Well ; the day whiled away until 4 PM when we all delivered our potluck dish to the patio and the deserts where over the top. There were two families of Mexicans invited and all the staff that was working that day where invited to have dinner but they prefer to eat in their own lunch area. so they just fill their plate and eat elsewhere. 

The park owner ( 95 years old) and the grandson who runs the park, normally join the park residents for christmas dinner but this year they went to Leon to have Christmas with the son/father and family. Do you understand; Grandfather, son and grandson. 

Our dish for the potluck was an apple pie so we had it made at a local restaurant which are known for their pies. 

Suffice to say, the dinner was a success and everyone had the same compliant; I ate too much. cheers

MX Trip #25 Art Market Day ( Monday )

We were not too busy today and the beach was crowded due to the holiday so went to the Art market in the town park and we invited our new neighbors to join us. Besides Carroll, apparently needs another MX table cloth which we got at a reasonable price. However, we did find out that we overpaid for the table cloth  we bought at the Thursday market. Oh well, you win some; you lose some and some get rained out. 

On the way home we stopped at a small grocery store that " has everything " because in MX you always need something. What a GD calamity. The isle are so narrow that they are only  wide enough for one person so if you are going one and someone is coming the other, one of you has to back out. It was obvious that the narrow isles allow for more stock but  it didn't take long for me to get the heck out of there.

The rest of the day was a reading day on the patio by the beach along with some people watching. Cheers   

MX Trip #24 ( Sunday ) Finally hit the Beach

The beach was a mass of humanity but there is always room for 2 more chairs and that was us. There is not many Gringo tourist on the beach from 22 to the 26 because it is the time that Mexicans who live inland, flock to the beaches and you sometimes get crowded out of your spot. The Mexican don,t really mean to be nasty; it is just that they seem to spread out as the day progresses. 


A crowded beach also draws a ton of vendors ( peddlers ) selling every thing from shirt , dresses and tattoos to many types of food stuff both cooked and raw fruit. Well, Carroll just had to have the pineapple drink where they slice the side of the pineapple ,mush up the inside then stuff it with pieces of water melon, slices of pineapple, jicama and cucumber and sprinkled with hot pepper and the cost was 4.80 cdn. When you consider it was a whole pineapple the price was too bad. 

After soaking up the Sun for a few hours to burnish our tan we return to the MH and had Happy hour with our friends next door. 

Temperature  today was 27 C. If I haven,t mentioned it before gas is 1.43 cdn a litre. Cheers

MX Trip # 23 Laundry / Visit Friends ( Saturday )

Today was laundry day which means we would take our laundry to the Laundriao ( I'm not sure that is a word ) but it is where they do your laundry for a price. We have to  separated it and they   weighed and give you a ticket and in most cases you  pre-pay. However, the husband was running the show today and we know that we have to separate into whites, colored and dark so he just look at the 3 bags and wrote down 50 P per bag which is 3.50 per bag. When you consider 1.50 a load to wash and 1.25 a load to dry plus the soap it is not a bad deal.
 Our laundry would not be done until 3 PM so we decided to visit friends ( Ron and Joy Miller ) who are from Black Diamond. They are in a park 20 miles away in a small town called Lo de Marco. This town has 1/2 dozen Parks, most of them on the water but you can not go swimming as it is too rough. We also went there to see a Jeweler about making ear rings for Carroll to match her ring that she got 4 years ago. We did not realize that the jeweler closed at 2 pm and we did not get there until 2:30 so no luck.  We are not yet in tune with Mexican hours but we will go back another day. 

While we visiting with the Millers I/ we heard a loud shriek or a whistle which kind of startle me.  I said; what hell was that and Joy said, oh that is the man who sharpens our knife. That is how he ask permission to enter the park so she beckoned him in. He has a hand driven grinding wheel and he sharpens knife and scissors and sits on a little stool about 10 inches high. Several people brought their knives and scissors over to Joy's place. One lady had a inch and half pair of scissor and one other person had the circular wheels for cutting material. I said can you sharpen them and he replied I can sharpen anything. He said he never went to school and that is all he knows. The cost was 1.60 an item. He probably made 25 or 30 dollars. 

Since the jeweler was closed we spotted a restaurant  next door so we enjoyed a shrimp taco for our late lunch. A couple ( our age from Toronto  ) where sitting at the next table and they inquired where we from and where we are staying in the area. They are staying in condo in this small town which they found on line. The web site had beautiful  pictures of the condo, the beach and the local restaurant so they took it "site on seen" and  they are disappointed.  They had never heard of Guayabitos, where we are located so we explained how to get a bus and that the bus would drop them off at Guayabitos  and where to look for a hotel and that the beach was great. So they took our advise and said they would check it out. 

Then home to pick up our laundry and spend a happy hour with friends. Cheers.

MX Trip #22 Nothing Day ( Friday )

Some days you just seem to do nothing and before you know it's bedtime. Where did the day go when you're in paradise? 
Our friends Dave and Joanne flew home to BC, first to have Christmas with G/Kids and secondly to restart their health insurance. They have group insurance with their business and they get 90 days of coverage for our of country heath coverage. We wish we had that option.

We spend most of the day sitting by the beach observing the  "zillion " of Mexicans enjoying this exception beach. The beach was wall to wall people and will be until after Christmas. We actually sat on our side of the fence reading a book rather than sitting on the sand. As we say, let the MX have there day.

We had happy hour with our new neighbors from Brandon and afterwards they invited us to go out for supper again. We must put a stop to this as Carroll may forget to cook. Cheers  

MX Trip # 21 Market Day/ Tow bar (Thursday )

Well, no more bad mouthing Mexicans about using the word Manana because when the Machine shop said Manana he meant it. He called this morning and said to pick up the Tow Bar and so myself and Bob jumped in the car and picked it up. The cost was 50.00 Cdn. I would guess a minimum of 2 hours labour plus parts in Canada  would have been  a 400.00 bill.

Since today is Market Day in the nearby town of La Penita we ventured there to pick up some fruit and vegetable. As usually there are a throng of people, which included  many of  us Gringos looking for a bargain. Beside the fruits and veggies Carroll purchased an oversize table cloth for our daughter in law ( there table is 55 X 100 ) and I'm not sure it was a bargain. 

After shopping in the hot sun for an hour and a half it was time to meet our friends at one of the local "Watering Hole" of which there are many. However the place was full and there was no room at our friends table due to the crowd so I found a table that only had a couple sitting at it so we invited ourselves to join them. They were a "younger" couple from Kakabeka  Falls ON near Thunder Bay whom were in Guayabitos for 3 week as they still work to pay for our pensions. Actually it was nice to talk to other people and swap stories over a beer or in Carroll's case; over a Lemonade.

To close out the day we hosted a happy hour for our new friends from Brandon ( D and D ) and Dave and Joanne dropped by as they had a supper date after our happy hour. Cheers