This is the REAL Mexico I've been hoping for .....

Wednesday 3/20/13

Yesterday we went to Concepción de los Buenos Aires – about 25 minutes west of here, still south of el Lago Chapala – a very pretty little town that has a great mercado – with lots of pottery.  Most is for cooking and household uses – not a lot of art work although the workmanship is very nice.  I bought a couple of pieces – a rectangular serving dish with separations (for different salsas, etc.) and a napkin holder (contenimiento servietta  ).

                                 Of course, the church steeple - the town center

Pottery pottery everywhere you look

I love this blue ceramic pottery.  Barb Sherman has lots of it in her home in California.  It is very hardy and beautiful.  It's made in this region of Mexico.  I'm given thought to making it my dishes for the RV......Hmmm

Outside a new restaurant in Concepción de Buenos Aires, owned by a friend of Sal's cousin.  This is where we ate a delicious lunch (almuerzo) 

The street outside the restaurant - different type of cobblestone

Ruth and Kevin outside the entrance and a close up of the lamp over the entrance

Sal and Barb took Sal’s cousin and his wife (Chema and Irma).  (I had met them last Saturday in Valle de Juarez where they own a restaurant and Chema cooks fresh ‘carnitas’ (kind of like pulled pork) right outside his restaurant on Saturdays for market day – delicious).  

It was fun to be with them as they took us to a favorite restaurant [see above] for almuerzo (actually ‘dinner’ eaten about 1-2 in the afternoon).  I had carne asada (thinly sliced and barbecued steak – a very traditional dish) - very good and filling snd I even took some home for the ‘kids’ - they were appreciative.

End of a market day in Concepción de Buenos Aires

A little siesta before packing up the wares - another day finished

I love this area of Mexico; it’s ‘real’ Mexico.  There’s just so much to see and learn about this wonderful part of the world.  I’m happy I read James Michener’s “Mexico” early in this adventure as it gave me some valuable background but I can’t begin to say I know much at all about this ancient land and it’s history.  I recognize names:  Juarez, Zapatista, Morelos, Villa, Allende; but what do I know about them? Not much!  I know I can’t see it all in one trip; yet I want to make an effort to see and learn as much as I can this trip because who knows what’ll happen later.

It's coming to the end of the dry season - the rains will come soon to quench the thirst of this country

 Barb Contreras talking with Paula Gale and Doug Beglaw at the clothesline.  Laundry completely dries in about two hours in this warm dry breeze

Scenery around Valle de Juarez

 Lago Chapala on the way to Valle de Juarez and Mazamitla

Below:  close up of horse and rider in pix above

Today was the day that the TELCEL office in Mazamitla was supposed to have the banda ancha for my MacBook; I asked Renate Hoven (a single German/American lady traveling alone with her little Bichon, Rocky) if she’d like to go with me.  Yes, she would; so Mario, el taxista, picked us up for the 5 mile drive to Mazamitla - it really is a “magical pueblo.”  We drove straight to the TELCEL office – No, the person who was to deliver it didn’t come this week; it’ll be there next Wednesday(!?!?!?)  Even though this was bad news – it kind of rolled off me;  Renate made a comment about how ‘cool’ I was with the disappointment – what good would it do to get upset?  Wish I could be like that more often!

Renate  is a slender, attractive and stylish lady who is 18 days younger than me!!!!  Her 70^th BD was on February 21!!!   She has a large house trailer in Casa Grande, Arizona, a resort community near Phoenix, but she says she gets bored and most enjoys adventuring solo in her Fleetwood Flair (23 foot Class A motor home), which she's been doing for almost 17 years! 

My new hand vacuum is a dream; I can’t believe the dust and crumbs and lint and grass I pick up with each pass over the couch and floor in this rig.  Also, today Nancy and Doug came over to install the low rent version of an awning, which didn’t exactly work out well.  It is up on the door side of the rig but when we tried to stretch it out to make a shady area over the patio, a “dust buster” wind came up all of a sudden and tore the blue tarp.  Drats - but ‘thank you’ Doug and Nancy, for the effort!  I really need to get an awning for this rig.  Doug and Nancy have become very good friends and ‘neighbors’ and I look forward to a long friendship.