Breakfast and a Paint Job.

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Mexico

We took a stroll down to the market today just to check things out.  We did buy some bread but that was all.  We went to Irma's for breakfast.  It was quite busy there as it is on market days.

We met Kenia, George and Henny there a little bit later and had a nice chat.

Kenia brought Oso (Bear) along.  She doesn't have a good leash for him, so Sue and Kenia went back to the market and got one for him for 150 pesos.  9 bucks.

Normand and Suzanne arrived back at the park today with their newly painted RV.  I am amazed at the quality of work that is done in basically a back alley down in El Monteon which is about 10 miles from here.  They even hand painted the decals and words on the sides and back.  Wow!   

I guess our friend Luis had figured out how to make a neat light for inside his gazebo, so everyone was admiring his handy work.  Next thing you know they start showing up at people's gazebo's out of the blue.  Thank you Luis and we will keep it forever.  Maybe we will hang it at CJs for the summer.  By the way, they are made out of two bowls back-to-back with a light inside. 

So that was our day today.  Nothing earth shattering but fun non the less.  Hope your day was great too.

The Great Mexican Fiesta

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Mexico

It's going to get busy around here for a week or so.  The festival is coming to town, and it starts today with s show at the bull ring.  We bought tickets a couple weeks ago so we will be going.  

There is lots of activities all weekend and on till Tuesday.  They have a huge parade on Monday.  This event brings a lot of people to town, and we get to see some of the mountain folk here to celebrate as well.  Festivals are amazing things in Mexico!!

The show began at 4:00 so we were there with bells on.  Of course, following Mexican tradition, the show didn't start until closer to 5:30.  The venue is the old bull fighting ring which used to be a busy place apparently.  I don't think they do bull fights in the small towns anymore.

The place is quite big and seats a lot of people.  It was only about 1/3 full tonight.

We commented that they have nice lights in the arena except they shine in the face of the crowd and on the back of the heads of the performers.  Oh well let's be thankful they have lights.

The show is a demonstration of a lot of the traditional horse events here in Mexico.  Because it is just a demonstration, not many Mexicans attend.  The stands were full of gringos.  I wish they could have filled the rest of the the seats with the locals which would have made for a real festive spirit.  Oh well!   They did a nice opening with the Mexican, Canadian, and USA flags.  

In true Mexican tradition, there are lots of margaritas to be drank.  They have kids selling them in the stands.

The demonstrations were interesting.  They had a bull ride on an old cow which was quite funny.  They had a kid jump from one bareback horse to another.  

There were a few cowboys showing off their rope skills.  Actually, there was a young lady there that was quite proficient with a rope.

They even did some rope demonstrations while riding a horse.

The dancing horses were amazing and every time the band fired up; they would all start to dance. They are very well trained.

They had some contests where they called people out of the crowd to play games for bottles of Tequila. 

They had a dance troop from PV come up to perform for us.  They were quite colorful.

The ladies riding team performed some maneuvers while riding side saddle.  Nice dresses!

A traditional dance troop and some fireworks and it was all over.  It was all in all an enjoyable evening.  

We were all hungry, so we stopped by a restaurant for something to chew on. 

They had a neat budgie in the back, and I had to take a picture of the bathrooms.  I haven't done that for a while.  

We have noticed more murals being painted in town lately.  There are a lot of them already and I will go on a tour one day to check them all out.  These are a few of the ones on the posts downtown.  Very colorful.  We had a great day and hope you did too!

National Margarita Day on Twosday!!

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Mexico

Today was an exciting day for our neighbour Donna.  The pool is almost finished and today they were putting water in it for the first time.  The local general contractor, Sergio explained to me that they like to add about 2 ft of water to it to create weight on the bottom which helps with the tiles setting in properly or something like that.  Sergio is on top of everything around here, so I would suggest what he is saying is true. 

They have to put in the entry railing and install all the pumps for the circualation, and it will be ready to go.  It has been fun watching the progress over the last month or so.  Some of the techniques they use are a little primitive, but the end product is absolutely amazing.

So, the water truck backed up and strung his hose to the pool and began filling.  

They put the hose in a 5-gallon bucket to make sure there was not a lot of pressure on any one spot in the pool.  It won't be long, and Donna will have her backyard pool.

I don't know if anyone noticed but today was National Margarita Day.  It was also 22-2-22 better known as Twosday day!!  So, we had no choice but to celebrate and how do us old folk celebrate?  Yup we eat!!!  Oh, and we had a Margarita as well.

Harold and I were in charge of getting the pizza from down the beach.  We got 10 pizzas and the bill was like 1200 pesos.  Like 70 bucks Cnd.  Wow.  Any way we brought it all back in the little red wagon and because the sand is firm where it is wet, we had to be close to the water without letting the waves sweep over the wagon!!  We did just fine.

While we were eating, I managed to sneak a sunset picture just because I could.  Happy Margarita Day wherever you are!!

A Trip up in the Hills

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Mexico

Our day started rather early because Jeff and John and Normand and Suzanne are all heading to El Monteon to get their vehicles painted.  Well not John because he just had his done, but he is going to pick everyone up.  I'm interested most to see Normand's RV.  They spend a few days last week removing the decals and sanding the exterior and now they are putting it in their shop (if you could call it that) and painting it.  So far, all their work has looked awesome. 

Their parking spot already looks sadly empty.

Today Emma got a haircut.  Lauren does the grooming herself with Johns help and she does a bang-up job.  Emma likes to swim in the ocean, so this will be a good cut for her.

Sue and I thought today would be a good day to explore up in the mountains.  There is a lookout point where you can see back down on La Penita and Guayabitos.  So, we set out about lunch time on our adventure.  Most of our trip will be on bumpy back roads with narrow rutted trails and some cobblestone parts. That is where you get to see some of the most interesting things.  I'm not going to explain to you all the details but rather just show you where we went.  The pictures don't always show it well, but we were in some pretty high and rugged areas.

                             

                             

Archie had a good time, I think.  He liked to bark at and grab at the tree branches swishing by him.  It was annoying enough that we had to use the bark collar.  He is such a shorty that he has trouble seeing out the back of the Jeep and looks so silly!!

We actually passed the viewpoint on our way up and ended up way back on some trail in a gorge that was tough enough that I decided to turn around and come back when we had a buddy.  It's always better if there is another vehicle in case of a break down.  We don't feel unsafe out there but rather it would be a huge inconvenience to try to get back to town if we were immobilized for some reason. There are always people using these roads either on foot or horseback, or in junky old trucks and any one of them would do backflips to help us out.  They would take us to their house and feed us and give us a blanket to sleep on, I'm sure.  Anyhow we opted not to try the Mexican overnight experience and turned around.  Once we go back to the better road, and that is a relative term, we found the viewpoint.  It looks like a private lane, and probably is, but there is a parking area where you have a great view out over the towns and ocean.

As you can see, it was quite hazy today, so the pictures were not great, but we stopped and had a little picnic and talked about what we were looking at.  There was a grinder sort of thing there which had been abandoned and rusted out.  I have no idea what it ground.  There was not coffee nearby that I could see. 

We got back to town about 2:30 and were a bit hungry, so we stopped at a little taco place that had a shady spot for Archie to sit and be cool.  We sat down and there was a bit of banter between the lady and her son.  We finally figured out that they were trying to close down for siesta and although they told us they would serve us, their eyes really said, come again another day.  So, we left graciously and went home and made a snack there.  A bun with peanut butter trumps a taco any day.... NOT!!!

We decided that since we only ate peanut butter this aft, we would order a fish dinner from Ceci up at the Trailer Park.  Her and Ada and Litzy put on suppers every Monday night and the Trailer Park is allowing us lepers in there to partake of the festivities now.  LOL!!!  It is nice to see their smiling faces again, and I had a nice visit with George and Henny while I was waiting.  

We missed the actual sunset tonight which apparently was spectacular but did manage to catch the afterglow which was a crimson red tonight.  I'm sure that was because of the haze in the air that we saw up on the viewpoint.  Hope you had a great day too!!