TRADITIONS OF MEXICO

 We're invited to a birthday party. Not just any party, no, Oscar's 5th birthday party.
Oscar is the son if Marisol, a former scholar and employee
of Project Amigo. Our friend Joe has gotten to know Marisol quite well and with the absence of her father during her wedding, Joe was given the honor to "give the bride away". 
He is considered a Grandpa for Oscar.


Birthday parties are quite different in Mexico. 
In this particular case, a covered party hall was rented. Parents who brought their kids to the party stayed and of course they arrived the earliest. 
The party was to start at 5:00pm and by 6:30 the majority of the guests arrived. I counted about 25 kids and roughly 50 adults
 While the kids were playing on the various toys on the grounds, such as trampoline, swings and slides, the adults sipped Jamaica (sweetened Hybiscus uce tea and rice water, the traditional drinks in this area. Snack such as potatoe chip, nuts and corm and Sesame seed twists were placed on the tables.
The party started, with Oscar taking the first swing at the Piñata
which Joe tried to pull away from the larger kids who were much stronger and would knock the thing down with two hits.
The Piñata bursted and all kids dived for the various candies
which dropped on the floor. But only half of the kids had a try
with the stick, so a second Piñata was brought in, and again all kids ran for the candy, which they fairly shared with those who had less that others. Even us adults were offered some of the candy. I opted for anything chocolaty, but foound it super sweet.

Just as we were wondering what type of food would be served. A large bowl of Pozole was placed in front of us. A type of soup, containing strips of beef en large kernels of twice cooked white corn. Consider it soft popcorn. Quite tasty actually.

Oscar got to blow his five candles and stuck his face in the cake for the first bite. Then he attempted to cut the cake, but his Mom Marisol was much better at it.
Of course Joe and Ramiro both accepted a large piece of the light coloured chocolaty cake, with a white frosting.
The present stayed wrapped on the table with the cake and would not be opened until the family returned home, once everyone's tummy was filled. 
Thanks Marisol for inviting us.

 

COFRADIA DE SUCHITLAN

With two vehicles they came. That's a good thing, because there was no way we could have loaded all the donated goods into one vehicle.

Since it is quite a long drive from Cofradia to Lake Chapala, I BBQd some chicken, made Sangria and a few salads and before we load the items in the vehicles and lockk up the Motorhome for the next four weeks, we enjoy our lunch on the patio.

 

Diego, a long time employee of Project Amigo, who is always happy to do anything, has no problem  driving back by himself, we follow with Joe behind the wheel. Joe, a fellow Dutchman who was born in the same city as I, and a member of Ramiro's Rotary club, has been very active at Project Amigo for more than 10 years. He would seldom miss a winter to his volunteer work in Cofradia, together with his late wife Jeannie. As a Master Electrician and overall handyman his services are much appreciated.

In less then three hours we arrive in Cofradia. We are assigned Casa Gatos, a small simple house at the edge of the village, close enough to walk to the Hacienda, but far enough for some privacy. We settle in at the front of the house, which has two bedrooms and a small living area. Joe is in the back part of the house which is separated by a patio.

The kitchen is on one side and has a separate entrance.

Left overs from the RV come in really handy for a light meal, and there is nothing better than a nice glass of wine, which Joe had already arranged for.

The temperature in the village is wonderful and before we settle in for the night we walk through the village of 2,000. We walk the direction of the drum and the flute and find a group of native children n the street, practicing for Sunday's Day of the Dead parade.

It's wonderful to see how these children pay attention to their leader as they snap they home made bow and arrow to make a clicking sound as the leader guides them with his drum and small flute.

I can hardly wait to see the actual parade, during which they will also wear costumes.

In the morning we unload the vehicles and sort everything; Bedding, vitamins, school supplies, soccer jerseys and several suitcases full of children clothes.

We are warmly welcomed by the staff members and meet each of the housekeepers, who will take care of the accommodations for the volunteers. While Joe is busy painting the Gatos house, we start checking some of the houses to ensure everything is in good working order and discuss any needs with the housekeepers.

Our in basket in the office has a huge pile of papers for us to review. We have a lot of learning to do for our role as volunteer coordinators.

I make myself familiar  with some of the office equipment and the location of many of the files from previous years.

Everyone is very helpful, some speak English, but most don't. A reason to get right back into the Spanish mode, which is not all that difficult. Those four months in Chile were good for something.

The people in the village greet us warmly, some remember us from previous years.

It is sure nice to see so many people being employed at Project Amigo. Everywhere workers are busy preparing the homes for the volunteers. Manuel looks after the gardens, Angelo after much of the building maintenance and the ladies prepare the rooms. Most of these Project Amigo employees will only have work during the winter months, except the full time employees in the office, which we will introduce later.

 We are on our own with the meals until the Board of Directors arrive from the US for their annual meeting, so as the only women in the house, I suppose it is my duty to prepare a hot lunch for the three of us.

We better not take it for granted, being able to sit outside. We know that back home things are quite different, It has already snowed.

Joe and Ramiro finish cleaning and painting the walls of the Katz House.The Cats house is named such, not because there are four cats living here. (well, sometime five or even six) but because previous occupants of this house were Allan and Marylee Katz. Now the house is owned by Project Amigo and the cats stay, whether we like it or not.

IMAGES OF ROCA AZUL-LAKE CHAPALA

7:00 am; My favorite time of the day at Roca Azul, Lake Chapala

Rotary Club of Ajijic. Mostly expats from US and Canada. Two new members were inducted today and two more next weeks, brings this club to 42 members, making it the largest club in the district

 

 

After a hot afternoon on our bicycles, a dip in the pool is a real treat, even though the water is quite cold.

 

Ramiro picks ripe Ciruelas from the tree by the pool. The skin of this fruit is almost as hard as a pomegranate. The pit is very large, but the small amount of fruit in between is sweet and sort of tastes like mango.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite picture taken at 7:00 pm, facing the east of Lake Chapala

Both sunrise and sunset are spectacular here at Lake Chapala.

I don't understand why this gem is kept a secret for so  long. It's paradise with so many species of birds, plants and flowers.

Our days of R & R come to an end. Tomorrow we will be leaving for Cofradia de Suchitlan to the Headquarters of Project Amigo.

 

 

4,925 kilometers logged

Friday, October 22
Every morning, as I wake up it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Oh yes, we’re in San Carlos. I remember the tremors last night just when I was getting ready to go to bed.

For some reason we seem to seek out places where earthquakes occur. A strong shake of 6.4 happened last night around 6:00 pm, when were out for a walk. Then again tremors at 9:00 pm.

We thought we were one of the first one to get up in the RV park, but a caravan of three RVs left when we were getting up. Their final destination is Mazatlan and they hope to make that in one day.
As long as we reach Culiacan we will be happy, but we prefer to wait until it is light before we start driving
Other than the numerous toll booths and Pemex Gas stations there is little variation in scenery on this route. I keep dozing off. We contemplate taking the Free road around Navojoa, but stay on the toll road, which later turns out to be the wrong decision. The city is under major construction and we are being lead through various detours on bumpy dirt roads.


As we enter the state of Sinaloa we have to set our clock one hour ahead again, bringing us back to Alberta time. The scenery becomes a lot more interesting with lots of agriculture.

As we stop at a Pemex to make some lunch, our neighbours from the RV park in San Carlos stop there as well. They are from Ontario on their way to Mazatlan. We chat for a while and discuss our route and a possible camping spot for the night.
We pretty well used up all our camping budget on toll fees and decide to park at the Pemex Truck stop south of Culiacan.  There is 24 hour security carrying big machine guns.

Ramiro makes friends with Juan and we are assured a safe night. Safe yes, but quiet? All night long trucks come and go.


Saturday, October 23
As we get up in the morning we are totally blocked in. Ramiro looks for Juan, who is still on his shift. He hands him some money and sure enough by the time we are ready to leave a path through the many trucks has been cleared for us and our friends from Ontario to continue our track south.
I think it is going to be a very hot day, at 7 am it is already 20C.
We follow the coast line for a long stretch. Along the road are stands offering dried shrimp. To bad it is so tricky to make a simple stop, I would have liked to take some with us.
There is no need to worry about safety on these highways, the Federales and army is everywhere, they only seem to stop citizens and seldom bother us RVers. It does give us a feeling of safety.

As we are starting to turn inland the scenery changes dramatically.  Lush greens mountains, mango groves, agave plantation and fields of orange wildflowers. I love this part of Mexico, there is a certain mystery about the mountains. As we meander through the mountains and admire the scenery, we realize, that there are no services for at least 100 km and no place to pull over for lunch until before Tepic, near another toll booth.
We plan the remainder of our route for today. There is no camping anywhere so we wil take a chance and aim for Villa Corona, where we camped before.
We find a way to avoid having to go through Guadalajara, by turning south west for appr. 20 km, find a cut off south and back east again to the RV park. We enter a park just at sunset and are lucky to settle in just as it is getting dark. Today we have put 700 km on the odometer, which is 100 km more than average.
Two years ago when we entered this park there was no space for us and we had to park at the overflow. Today we are the only campers. It’s a shame that so many North American let the media influence their decisions to travel into Mexico. There has been nothing but bad news, scaring people away from traveling. We choose not to pay too much attention to it and let our intuition guide us. We’ve have had no single incident. We have felt safe all along this 10 day journey, including at the border crossing of Nogales and wished that others would feel more comfortable as well.

We have a very relaxing evening, knowing we won’t have to get up at the crack of dawn; We are less than 50 km away from our final destination. What a great feeling, we’re almost home.

Sunday, October 24
The church bells in the village of Villa Corona wake us up. It’s so quiet in the RV park. The only people we see are those who maintain the property. cutting grass, watering the lawn and cleaning up dead branches.
We take our time and move direction Lake Chapala to our favorite RV Park, Roca Azul.
It’s not very busy here either. We see all the familiar places as we enter through the gate, the narrow cobblestone road, the small houses, of which many are owned by North Americans, the trees loaded with bright red flowers, the club house and then finally after the third gate the RV park. We park in a spot where internet reception is at its best and bargain with the owner on a better price, since we won’t be spending much time here.
We are both inspired to do some major cleaning, I on the inside and Ramiro outside. We have a few loads of laundry to do and of course many e-mails to deal with. Now the slide outs can be fully extended we have even more room.
The pool looks very appealing and after the work is done we take a dip.

We drove 4,925 kilometers in 10 days, with just one day of rest.
We’re happy that we won’t have to move around any more for a while the RV will be our home for now.
We’ll take a few days off before we go to Cofradia, where Project Amigo is located.

MEXICO HERE WE COME

October 20

Today, the weather man tells us, the temperature will reach only mid 70s and there may be rain coming in from the west. Well, anything above freezing is a bonus for us and the rain won't bother us.
We just realized that we need to set our clocks back one hour. This gives us a chance to sleep a little bit longer than 6:00 am, as the previous mornings. We drive south through Phoenix during rush hour, but it is an easy road and we have no problem. Our GPS serves us well, indicating what lane to take and where to merge. We could have easily done it with just the signs on the road which clearly indicate the direction to Tucson. There too we move along smoothly and reach an RV park around Amado, appr. 40 km north of the Mexican border.
Here we finally have a decent internet connection, allowing me to spend the entire afternoon catching up on e-mails and make my first posting on the blog.

We are starting to get used to these early mornings. at 7:30 we are ready to roll. The air is cool and I skip my daily walk. We are too anxious to cross the border.

I have reread the detailed instruction and know exactly where to go and what to do.

We pick up our vehicle insurance in Nogales  and follow the road to highway 15 via the truck route. First the US border. "Where are you going. How long will you be gone?"

Next is another control and at the 21 km mark is where we do all the paperwork  done for our visitors pass and vehicle permit. We spend exactly one hour, going from one building to the next and before we know it we are on our way again.

Right after the immigration office is one more control. We stop and let the officer in. He opens a few cupboards and the fridge and leaves with "Buen Viaje".

Wow, that was easy. He did not even blink an eye when he stared ad the 300 some soccer jerseys.

As soon as we get on the toll highway the road is getting better. Although we are not able to keep the same speed as on the US Interstate. Too many curves and unexpected speed bumps. Get used to it Ramiro.

We reach San Carlos early enough to enjoy a glass of wine on our patio and go for a walk along the boulevard, before I check the map and calculate where our next stop will be.

ZION NATIONAL PARK

October 19

We have made ourselves familiar with some of the details of Zion Canyon, packed a lunch, put on our hiking shoes and hop on the shuttle bus, which takes us into the National Park. We have the option to get off at various view points or trail heads and decide to do a 3 hour hike to Hidden Canyon.
It’s quite a climb and at some points the cliffs are a bit scary. Ramiro encourages me and stays close by to catch me or to lend me his walking stick. The views are spectacular.

The sun is still behind the mountain. making it easier to do the climbing.  Chains helps us along some of the narrow trails and in other places steps have been carved out of the rocks.
We find the perfect spot in the sun for our picnic lunch before we continue. Once back on the main road we get on the shuttle again and try another, easier hike to the weeping wall and a third one along the river. The rock formation is amazing, the colours are a deep red in some places.
I have posted the rest of the Zion canyon pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/miselly2/ZionNationalPark#

We had a fantastic day and come hope exhausted. I am not able to get an internet connection and give up, other than sending a few brief messages from Ramiro’s computer before we turn in for the night.

As soon as the first rays of light appear from behind the mountains we’re on our way again.
We decide to take the mountain road through the park, ending up on 89 direction Flagstaff.
We measure our height and width to make sure we will make it through the tunnel.
We are oversize, but for an extra $15.00 a pilot car will block off the road for the oncoming traffic to allow us to get through the one mile long tunnel, driving in the middle of the road. Our park pass, which we bought yesterday, at $12.00 per person is good for 7 days.
There is some road construction going on, but nothing that slows us down too much. The fact that we left early helps. It also allows for beautiful pictures with the early sun casting it’s light on the red rocks.
It takes us a good hour to maneuver ourselves through the tight switchbacks, tunnels and canyon walls, but definitely worth it.
We continue on the scenic route south onto 89 direction Flagstaff, Arizona. A much easier road, but not to be taken for granted. Accidents do happen as it did for this truck loaded with Pepsi.







The scenery changes as we drive through the Vermillion Cliffs, which are like castles rising from the earth. These, the Grand Staircase Escalante National Park and Glen Canyon and dam are some of the highlights of this route.

This is also the starting point of the Grand Canyon, which starts as a narrow strip and runs south, spreading out west over a much larger area. Our road runs parallel along this strip before it veers off to the right, direction Flagstaff.


At a certain point, all traffics gets pulled over onto the shoulder to allow room for a giant piece of equipment passing through, taking up the entire road.


We reach Phoenix at around 5 pm and have no difficulty finding a Walmart at the north side of the city. It is very hot in Phoenix and we sleep with he windows open.

HIGHWAY TO THE SUN

The fridge and freezer are empty, the house is winterized and RV packed. The only way we can stop preparing and relax, is to move into the RV for a relaxing evening.

We make our traditional champagne toast to a safe and enjoyable journey, warm up some left overs and watch a movie before we turn in.

As soon as the sun is up we are ready to take off on this frosty morning. As always, there are a few things to take care off, but at 10:00 am we are finally on the road heading south, via Calgary.
By lunch time is has warmed up significantly. We find a nice spot at a rest area and bring the chairs out for a picnic lunch in the sun.
We reach High River around 4:00 pm, where we drop off some items for the Microcredit display booth for one of the Rotarians there. It happens to be that the Rotary club meets that evening and we are invited to join them and do a presentation about Project Amigo.
The club is preparing for its first art sale fundraiser and are setting up at the RV Showroom. That comes in really handy, perhaps they allow us to park inside the compounds for the night.

We get to meet John Andresen, who has been on a Project Amigo Workweek last year and will join us again in January. John invites us and other Rotarians for Tequila at his house before we attend the meeting. This club sponsors 4 University students at Project Amigo.

As soon as the sun comes up in the morning, we move along, direction Coutts to the US Border. We hear about the heavy snow in Lethbridge and are happy that we passed that already. With out new NEXUS pre approved Id card, the broder crossing is a breeze.

Through this area the wind is very strong and pushes our RV across the lanes. It reminds me of Patagonia. Dry dessert like and somewhat deserted.

We’re happy to see a turn out with a view point. It gives us an opportunity to stretch our legs and strengthen our heart muscles, by climbing the stairs to the view pont overlooking the Missouri river.
The scenery is beautiful; rugged mountains, canyons, valleys and lakes. We stay on the I15 Interstate and after a more than 8 hours on the road, we join the other Albertan RVers at the Wallmart RV park. Of course there are no services, other than “Shop All You Want”, but we are able to boondock for 3-4 days if we want to.

Day 2 of our journey starts at 6:00 am. The wind has died down, but it is only 2 degrees C. I dress warm for my early morning walk, which is a great start for the day.
By the time Ramiro is done with his technical work most RVers have left and we finally leave at 9:30.
Much later than planned, but we are still ahead of schedule.
We decide to get off the Interstate at Boulder and take the interior road, to avoid any high Passes and possible snow.
Looking at the clouds to the west, chance are that there is snow.
We’re on a single lane road now, which is fine, but we did not anticipate the road construction, which goes on for 15 km. Falls is just starting and the variation of colours is a real treat. Chet Atkins voice goes very well with the scenery that passes by us. Or is it us, passing by the scenery?
The cloud cover keeps the air from warming up and it stays at 16C for most of the morning.

When we reach Spencer we pull over for lunch and a sort walk through the village, or hamlet I should say; There are only half a dozen homes in this old Opal mine community. We find a nice rock to remind us of this place out in the middle of nowhere.
As we get closer to Utah, the temperature has warmed up significantly. We stop at a Shell service station and lady luck is with us; There is a sewer dump. We empty the tanks and fill up with fresh water. We’re good for a few more days.

The plan is to take a day off but we are not where we like to be, so we dry camp for another night at at Walmart in Layton, just north of Salt Lake City.

We have a few choices, we can play Rummikub all night, go shopping at Wallmart or turn in early. We choose the latter, which means we rise early.

The streets are wet in the morning, not from the rain, but from the sprinklers watering the lush, green grass in the residential area. I take my jacket off and wrap the sleeves around my waste; It’s only 6:30 am. What a beautiful day this is going to be.

Today we’re right on schedule and leave right at 8. It’s a good thing it is Sunday today, the traffic across Salt Lake City is light and we zoom right along with the rest of the traffic on the I15. It’s a long monotonous road, but we sing along with Elvis and other favorites to make it less boring.

Just south of Cedar City we turn east onto 9, direction Zion National Park.
At Springdale we find a nice RV park, right along the Virgin river.
Ahh, the air is warm. Winter jackets are packed away, and we settle in for a day and a half. Tomorrow is our R & R day. Ramiro needs a break from driving, and I need a break from card reading and sitting.