Destination Tequila

Continued from the previous blog......On Tuesday, when Dave & I went back to Steve & Lorraine's to book the casita for Shelley & Darren they invited us to dinner for Wednesday evening.  The men were going on a tequila run and when they returned we were all to go for dinner. I asked if I could bring something and Lorraine said I could bring dessert. 

I was a little stressed about taking dessert since I did not know where to buy the things I would need to put a dessert together.  On Tuesday afternoon we went in to Lo de Marcos and I was able to buy ingredients to make a Banana Split Cake with a couple of substitutions. 

I will tell you how my day went on Wednesday, then Dave will tell you about his.

Dave left at 7:00 a.m. and I took Cleo for our morning walk.  On our way back as we were coming down the road, I see coming towards us a man herding the four giant steers, horns & all, towards us.  There is nowhere for us to go except towards them.  This time Cleo saw them.  I practically had to wrestle her to the ground because she really wanted to go see them.  Thankfully, not a sound came out of her mouth because I was sure that if she started barking, they would probably stampede us.  I would have loved to get a picture of them.  Maybe next time.

Immediately after breakfast I decided to make my dessert.  (You men can have a nap now). The dessert called for a graham wafer crumb crust which of course I couldn't get so I made one with Oreo cookies.  The next layer went according to the recipe.  The next called for a can of crushed pineapple, sliced bananas & strawberries.  I bought a whole pineapple & crushed it with my ninja.  Next layer is whipped cream or cool whip.  I knew I would never find cool whip but I found "media crema la leche". Leche is milk, crema is cream.......I asked the woman at the store, using some sign language if it was whipping cream.  She said no, but didn't really seem to understand me, and a young Spanish woman who spoke English was shopping and said yes, it would work.  I beat the heck out of it and it was not turning into whipped cream.  I looked online and found out I had bought half & half cream.  Now what?  I had to put something on top of the layer of bananas or they were going to turn brown.  I took the truck to town which I wasn't thrilled about because it has narrow cobblestone streets and people park on both sides so you can barely get through.  I went from store to store with no luck.  I finally bought two small containers of fruit on the bottom Greek yogurt.  The fruit was berries & when I stirred it up it all turned purple.  Lovely.  I spread it on the dessert, sprinkled a few walnuts on top and called it done.  If I had been serving this to friends or family it wouldn't have been a big deal but we were dining with a group of strangers.  

After this fiasco I decided to take Cleo to the beach.

She had a great time playing with a puppy.

Now for Dave's story.

Ok - so now we have been down here for about a week, let's see how I'm doing fitting into the Lo de Marcos lifestyle.

First - yes very hot and sweaty here but they have good beer which is cold- check! Second - Dar and super traveller Cleo, love it here - check! Third - have met many nice people and even jammed with a guitar player - check! (The music scene here looks awesome - more on that another time). Fourth - have been accepted by the cool dudes group down here to join them in some annual shenanigans- which is where this story is going. One of the first cool dudes I met at our rv park is Tony - professional dobro guitar player / singer from Colorado, and a great guy ( we jammed second night here haha). Another is Steve - Disney music writer/ producer/ composer/ author and jazz/ flamenco guitarist, a very nice person who, along with his wife, owns the home Shelley and Darren will be staying at ( in a Casita) when they visit us. Steve is from San Diego. Wayne is from  Grand Forks B. C. (Which he says stands for Bring Cash) and owns a hotel amongst other properties. He is a real Canadian and is huge into sports and poker and always wins $$ at the pool table - a guys guy. So this motley crew decides to take me with them on their annual road trip to pick up gallons of Tequila. Yup - that's right - the only real Tequila comes from the state of Tequila, and we were off on an 8 hour trip to the town of Tequila to pick up a truck load. 

So everything was going smoothly on our trip until about 2.5 hrs out when Tony said his truck felt funny - not shifting. After a quick check of tranny fluid ( which was ok) we started watching for a town.Upon pulling into the town of Ixtlan del Rio we found a transmission shop. They checked the trans out and said they could fix it. 

Wayne and I went further into town , found a nice restaurant, to spend an hour having brunch - awesome. Then we spent an hour on the main drag waiting to be picked up. It was a big town ... But ... No gringos! After a while of standing on a corner we noticed many of the same people passing by over and over. Then a couple walked by and I heard the woman say " hey - they are speaking English!". It hit me - we are the only gringos here! A gringo lady with her teen son drove by, then pulled into a spot at the curb. They approached us and said "oh my God - they Are speaking English!!' She said that we were the only other gringos there. She offered us a lift back to the transmission shop where the tranny was all apart and 3 guys were laying under the truck working on it! We stayed there 2 more hours but eventually it was fixed at a cost of $ 3400 ( pesos) or $ 250. usd and 4.5 hours. Back on the road in search of Tequila. 

An hour later, at 10 past 2:00 we pulled up at the back door of the Tequila plant. It was closed for siesta!! From 2 till 4!

We left - with our bottom lips dragging on the ground at 2:20 - late, empty handed, sun burnt, and thirsty!! Now with a 4 hour drive ahead of us. But even so - the weather was wonderful, the scenery unbelievable, the company entertaining and Tony's truck was purring while he piloted us home..... or so we thought.

About an hour from Lo de Marcos a flag man on the road stopped us in a long line of traffic for about 45 minutes. We arrived home after dark at 7:30 - a 12.5 hour day. We all went to Steve's for drinks and supper to lick our wounds. Steve's wife Lorraine along with the other wives made a feast and all types of alcohol was imbibed... the end of a great day in paradise. Dave

We had a wonderful dinner and even the dessert was good.  

This is a fabulous light fixture at Steve & Lorraine's.

Thursday morning we attempted to walk on the beach but the water was much too high.

Having coffee on our patio, enjoying the view.

After breakfast we were off to the market at La Penita.

This horse walked across the road in front of us.  Nothing is tied up here.

We walked around the huge, hot market in La Penita then went in search of a cold beer & a breeze.

We had a view of fishermen coming in with their catch.

I believe that's a dorado.

This is the menu from the place we had our beer.

Cockroach??  We will have to find out what it really is.

While I am thinking of it, for those who are interested I calculated what we paid in toll fees on the way here.  $227 Canadian.  There are also free roads you can take but we opted for the toll roads.

Friday morning was almost too hot for our walk but we persevered. 

On our way back, the steer had just been herded across the road.  I barely got a picture.

On Friday afternoon three RV's pulled into the park.  They are all regulars and were happy to meet us. They invited us to join them for dinner at a restaurant in town.  There were eleven of us.  We had a delicious dinner & excellent margaritas.  A great evening.

On Saturday morning we walked into town for a change of scenery. 

We discovered a market and were told we just had to try the cinnamon buns.  Yummy.

We went over to Steve & Lorraine's at 11:00.  Dave helped Steve hook up their new TV & Lorraine took me to see some casitas.  I am looking for a place for Shelley & Rene since unfortunately, Steve & Lorraine's won't be available.  

Saturday afternoon was beach time.

Saturday evening I cooked the shrimp I bought on Friday from a fish seller that came to the park.  It was delicious!

On Sunday morning we went to the market in La Cruz.  It's a great market!  We bought bread, cheeses, tuna & dorado.  They have a nice beach there too.

Once again, it was too hot to enjoy the market for very long so we decided to go see Sayulita.

What a busy place!  They also had a market.  We found a butcher shop & bought a few things. 

Then we went for lunch.  Cleo enjoyed the view.

Last night, Sunday, it was decided it would be a good night to jam.  After all no one has to get up for work on Monday.  This is the cabana where they play, taken from my rv window.

Dave & Tony are getting set up.

Let the good times roll.  How lucky for us that Tony loves the blues.

Another great evening.  That's all I have to report for now.

Our new home

We've had just over a week in our new home and we are really enjoying it.  We would enjoy it more with less humidity but that will improve eventually. 

Last Friday we went into the town of Lo de Marcos to explore and shop.  We started to walk around and within minutes decided it was much too hot and headed directly to a beach bar for a cold beer. 

Here are a couple of pictures we took driving through the town with our A/C on.

So much for that excursion.  

When we got home we phoned the Mexican insurance company with the help of Ana at the RV park.  We thought that we would enquire about making a claim for the damage done to things on the roof of our trailer.  We spoke to someone and gave them the information.  

Here is another baby turtle about to be released.

Beach time.

We were back in our trailer at 5 p.m. starting to prepare dinner when there was a knock on the door.  it was our insurance adjuster who had just driven from Puerto Vallarta!  Wow!  Talk about service!  He asked questions, took pictures & filled out forms.  We can have the work done in the US or Canada.  We will check when we get to the US to see what the cost is before deciding whether to proceed with the claim.  

We have found a great place for our morning walk.  We're not the first people to discover it.  Everyone in town, both locals & Mexicans are walking there in the morning.  We go for our walk first thing in the morning, even before coffee, because it only gets hotter.  Our first morning we saw an armadillo cross the road ahead of us.  Another morning, on our way back, there were four very large steer eating at the side of the road which thankfully, Cleo did not notice.  

Dave gave Cleo a haircut which turned out great.  It took him part of two mornings but I'm sure he will get quicker.

Saturday we were back on the beach visiting with Jodi, one of our RV park neighbours.  Cleo is watching the ice cream cart coming.

This is a hermit crab.  They keep Cleo entertained.

On Saturday night we did "the taco walk" with some of our neighbours.  We walked to town, bought beer at a store and took it to a restaurant & had tacos.  Then we went back to the store, bought another beer & went to another restaurant for tacos.  Fun!  At the second place it was too hot to sit on the sidewalk where the tables were set up so we asked if we could move them to the road where there was a bit of a breeze.  No problem.

Some people needed dessert.

When we got back to the campground Tony & Dave played some music in the palapa.

These are pictures from our walk on Sunday morning.

If you can zoom on this picture you'll see how one tree is hugging another one.

It's a jungle out there.

Back to the beach.  We usually go every day mid afternoon and stay until it's time to cook dinner.

Monday we drove to Puerto Vallarta to shop for a few things we can't get here.  It was not a fun experience with the heat & having Cleo with us.  We took turns going into stores while the other one stayed in the truck with Cleo with the A/C on.  When we were someplace that had shade one of us would wait outside in the shade with Cleo except for Home Depot where they allowed us to take her in the store, but only if she rode in the shopping cart.  I sure wish I had taken a picture of that!  We came across other people in the store who had their "pocket" dogs in their cart.  Pretty funny.  

We stopped at a place for lunch and Dave enjoyed a Modelo Negra beer which I also like even though it is a dark beer.

This was a picture in the ladies room of the restaurant.  Apparently they had an interesting one in the men's room too.

It was a very scenic drive.

So while we were in PV on Monday we got an email from Freddy, our insurance adjuster.  

DAVID, I NEED YOUR HELP

CAN YOU MAKE A SCAN OF TE PAPER THAT I GAVE YOU

AND SEND IT TO MI

I LOSED MY COPY

THANH YOU 

You gotta love Mexico.  Haha.  

Monday evening on the beach.

On Tuesday morning we went to see an awesome casita that Shelley & Darren are going to stay in when they come to visit us December 2nd - 9th.  Woo Hoo! 

The rest of Tuesday was pretty relaxing.  In this picture you can see the circus tent material we picked up in PV to make shade.

We tried out our screen tent in the evening.  There are a few mosquitoes and many no-see-ums.

We don't get the best sunset pictures because it sets behind the hill.

I am going to end this blog on Tuesday night.  To be continued.......