Wednesday February 24 2010
Thursday of last week brought the sun back. We have had wonderful sunny days again.
Larry bought another fish that he paid 30 pesos for that we had for our dinner for two days. Yesterday I bought half a cooked chicken for 30 pesos that would have been our meal for two days but a Mexican stopped to talk with us last night and Larry gave him the leftover chicken to eat.
Our landlord, Tony’s mother died on Tuesday. Her funeral was today. I have never been to a Mexican funeral before. We walked in the procession to the cemetery. There was a band that played while we walked and at the grave site.
We went to a new little café to eat. Larry and I had omelets for 35 pesos each. We spent less than $7.00 for a very good meal. Looking at the menu the highest price for anything is 40 pesos. We are going back and try something else. Not sure when as we bought some bacon and a tomato to make sandwiches with.

Thursday February 19 2010
After we got home yesterday and the rain started to let up some I went down to Martha’s store to get some juice. She asked if we wanted chiles rellenos, there was one lady making them for 20 pesos each and another one was making them for 35 pesos for 1, 50 pesos for two. I said the 20 pesos was good and she took off to see if I could get two from her. She had just sold the last she had so Martha asked if I wanted some from the other lady I said yes and off she went to order them from the little fonda down the street. I could have gone back to our casa and Tony would have brought them to us but I decided to wait in the store and try talking with Martha. In about 10 minutes Tony showed up with my chiles.
When I got back to the casa I asked Larry if he wanted some chiles, he said he would but it was just too much work for me. I said they are ready now if you want one.
It was good not to have to cook after the trip home and they helped warm us up after getting so wet on the walk from the bus station.
We woke up this morning to a beautiful sunny morning. Only I wasn’t feeling very good. I did get the laundry to the lavanderia. It was only 40 pesos for the laundry this time.
Larry took the bill for the phone – computer hook up to pay. Ed has the phone, there are 3 other computers hooked up to the network so we all pay a quarter of the bill, this month we paid 98 pesos for the month.
By 11:00am I was starting to feel better and got up to set out on the porch and try to get the kitten to come out. She is so afraid of everything that moves or makes any loud noise on the street. It was working she was coming out but then it started to cloud up, then I heard a loud, long roll of thunder. Just as another roll of thunder started so did the rain.
We were standing on the porch talking with Jean-Paul when lighting hit right in front of us and we had the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard.
It rained hard most of the rest of the day. It was also colder than it has been. When I saw Tony putting the cars in his garage I asked him if he had any extra blankets, he looked for half an hour and brought us a nice thick one. It has been on a shelf for a long time and has a musky smell to it but he said he will take it mañana to the wash machine.
We are so tired of the rain.

Wednesday February 17 2010
Tuesday the 16 we took the 8:00am bus to Tepic. We wanted to get there to take the 11:00am Turi Bus that takes you to see Huichol Indian village, historical Tepic and the ruins of a silk and cotton factory. We wanted to catch the 11:00 tour as it was in English. We had plenty of time and the tour time had been changed to 12:00.
We had an hour to kill which we did by going to find a hotel, The Hotel Cibrián, 270 pesos a night or less than $25.00US.
We went back to the plaza to check out what was going on with the booths that had been set up. Some of them were selling food. One was a group of Huichol Indians making blue corn tacos.
We decided to try them, bought one for each of us, someone brought us chairs to set in while we ate them. A TV crew that was filming the event caught us in the act of eating and filmed us. I don’t know if we ended up in the news or not.

When we went back to go on the tour we started talking with another couple from the US. Then we find out all of us are from Oregon and that he works for one of Larry’s distant relatives.
We had done this tour 2 years ago but we learned so much more this time, not only because it was in English but they had improved the sites we stopped at. At the Huichol village we got to walk up to the holy grounds and meet the Shaman. He wanted to give us his phone number in case we needed any medical help.

Then it started to rain, so back to the hotel for a little TV before finding something to eat for dinner.
Wednesday 17th we were up by 6:00am so we could catch the bus to go to VIP’s to meet Cliff and have breakfast. Cliff has a blog that is more like a journal that we have been reading for the last few years. It has a lot of good information about Tepic.
We had a wonderful visit with Cliff before going shopping at the bigger stores on the back to catch the bus back to San Blas.
The weather man had said it was going to be cloudy in Tepic this last 2 days but it rained and we had rain and when we got back to San Blas it was raining harder than it had been in Tepic. Walking as fast as we could the 3 blocks to our casa we were soaked by the time we got here.

Sunday February 14 2010
Wednesday the 10th we went to the marina where the fishing boats all bring in their catch of the day. We bought a serria, 1 3/4 pounds for 30 pesos.
We decided that we would dip it a batter and deep fry it. It is always a challenge to go shopping for the items I need to cook with. I like to make a beer batter. Finding a can of beer is no problem but we went into two stores before I found pancake mix. Never did find a whisk to mix the batter with so I had to use a fork. We ate about 1/3 of it Wednesday.

Thursday the 11th it rained a little in the morning then turned nice.
We went to Wala Wala for chiles rellenos. I have been looking forward to this all week.
We ordered 1 order for both of us. To our surprise the dish came with two big chiles, a salad, beans and half an avocado. We could have ordered one order and split it. They were good but could have been warmer. I like them hot in temp and mild in spicy hot. They cost 100 pesos each so dinner was 200 pesos or about $16:00US
We felt like we were stuffed when we left.
Friday the 12th the sun was shining, it turned out to be a lazy day. I double dipped another 1/3 of the fish. The batter was thin and crisp; don’t like the thick stuff when you get more batter than fish. This batter would be good with shrimp too.
Saturday the 13th we had the rest of the fish for lunch.
I started to crave some candy so I walked down to Kanes. I got some more pina juice while there too.
We decided to go to the plaza but when we got there the mosquitoes where out in force. As soon as I sat down three had landed on my arm and two where on Larry’s cheek.
We sat there for maybe 15 minutes and decided to go back home. We stopped at a hamburger stand and bought two with cheese, ham, and fries for 40 pesos and took them home to eat.
Sunday the 14th another sunny day. I slept in as I was wide awake at 4 this morning but was back in bed by 5:30.
During the night I could hear a cat crying. I thought it was Ed’s and knew it could get in if she really wanted to.
We had gone to the store and were back at the house when Ed said you want a cat. He was feeding a kitten that had spent the night under his pickup. I said no but Larry went to look at it. Guess what we have now.

Tuesday February 9 2010
Larry went for his morning bike ride and said that where the water had been over the road yesterday it was now mud.
It had been cloudy last night it was sunny this morning but clouded up this afternoon. We are expecting it to rain tomorrow but we will bring everything in from the patio before going to bed.
This afternoon we started talking about what we were going to have for dinner. I had made it to the market to get some grapefruit but nothing for dinner.
We decided to try Patty’s Pizza again. At 5:45pm we went on our bikes in hopes that they were open and could take our order. He was willing to take our order. After he had asked for our address he looked at me and said oh by the DIF. By 5:55pm we had ordered our pizza and was on our way back home. We had our wonderful pizza by 6:40pm.

Tuesday February 9 2010
Monday afternoon I told Larry I was hungry. He said but every time we go to Wala Wala’s on Sunday it’s closed. My comeback was “you are right it’s closed on Sunday but this is Monday”. We changed into some warmer clothing as it had clouded up and started to cool down, then walked to Wala Walas for hamburgers. They do make good hamburgers there. I ask them not to put mustard on mine as I don’t like mustard on hamburgers. Larry also had a coffee (the real stuff) and I had limeade. Our meal was 155 pesos, or around $12.00US.
To my surprise when I walked through the door a sign was proclaiming that they were going to have Chiles Rellenos every Thursday. So we know where we are going for dinner on Thursday.

Monday February 8 2010
On Saturday the 6th they held San Blas Day. They normally start the procession at 1:00pm but this year it started at 5:00pm. It had less people in it than normal too. I didn’t go down to the docks to watch the boats go out so I have no idea how many boats went out. They didn’t stay out as long either as they were back before dark.
We watched then put the tower togather for the fireworks

We decided to wait until 9:00pm before going to the plaza to watch the fireworks. We should have gone down earlier so we could get a good place to watch. We couldn’t see the entire tower so I decided to come back home and watch what we could from our back patio.
Sunday the 7th Larry went for a morning bike ride to the beach. He said the roads still had water standing in some places clear across, and about 6-8inches deep. There was a truck that had tried to make a U turn but did it too sharp and ran into a big potted tree sometime during the night, the truck was still on top of the pot.
For dinner we went to the cocodrilo for spaghetti. We order for one and share. The meal was 65 pesos. With the exchange rate close to 13 that’s around $5.00 for a meal for two.

Thursday February 4 2010
On Monday of this week we went over to isla de ray or island of the King. We took a flower over to remember Ellen with as it has been a year since she passed away. There is no shade on this beach, it was a hot sunny day and I got a little sunburned.
The bird festival is over but there are still some people that are here to see the birds. Yesterday was San Blas Day. It’s always on the 3rd of February. There is a big ceremony that goes on in the church before they can take the statue of San Blas out. Then there is a big procession as they carry him down to the fishing marina where he is put on a shrimp boat. Then there is a procession of the one shrimp boat and a lot of smaller boats filled with as many people as they can get into them. They go out to sea by this rock that has a statue on it and bless the shrimp fleet so they will have a good year of fishing.
Then in the evening the Indians put on a really nice firework display.
Only it didn’t happen this year as it was raining. It has had raining since Monday afternoon, stopping just before noon today. We have been told by people that have been coming down here for 10 years or more it has not rained in February before.
One of the shrimp boats were blown aground Tuesday, they have tried pulling it back out to sea but they will have to wait for a high tide.
Our street looked like it was a river or rio as they call a river here. The water was ankle deep at times.

This is how it looked out our door "Rio Salas"

This is a hut the Indians use on isla del ray, only one we have found.