Sunday, August 05, 2007
Note to Readers
To my readers, however few:
If you want to read the posts in chronological order, start at the bottom of the page and work your way up. Trust me, it makes much more sense that way.
Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments!
If you want to read the posts in chronological order, start at the bottom of the page and work your way up. Trust me, it makes much more sense that way.
Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday 11/25/06 Day 8
The Last Day In Mexico
Before I begin, I will warn my readers that if they do not like reading about big men with guns, then they should click here to skip the section, or just skip this post entirely and draw their own conclusions about how my vacation ended.
Our last day in Zihuatenejo did not go quite as I had expected. I expected it to be full of packing and plane rides. Those elements were present, however, more exciting things happened.
As I was in my room packing, I hear my dad yell from the room above, "Que pasa?" I heard some talking, some in Spanish, some in English. I went outside to see what all the commotion was about. My dad had come down into the courtyard and was looking over our wall. I looked over, and there was nothing interesting going on. I asked my dad what was so interesting. He replied that one of our neighbors was trying to cut down our bamboo trees. The neighbor, who will be reffered to as "Loco #2" for the remainder of this post, said that the bamboo trees were blocking her view of the beach.
Apparently, Loco #2 used the excuse that she had gotten our property manager's permission to cut down the trees. Even though our property manager is somewhat negligent of the comings and goings of our house, she would never give permission for something like that without consulting my dad first.
What had probably happened was that Loco #2 thought we had already left and that we would never notice that the trees were gone, or we would not be able to find out it was her who had cut them down. My dad caught her in the act and she only got away with removing one piece of bamboo.
My dad had told Elio to call the police and, soon after, a police car arrived. Two police officers in white uniforms got out. Each of them carried a huge sub-machine gun. They walked up the stairs to our neighbor's house and began to talk with her. I don't know what they said because I was too far away, but I think they gave Loco #2 a fine or a warning. After about 20 minutes of talking, the police men got into their car and left. I'm very relieved that they did not feel the need to use those guns because, if they had, we would have most definitely missed our flight.
Once all of that was wrapped up, we finished packing and loaded our belongings into two taxis. We waved goodbye to Elio and Yanet as the taxi pulled away from the gate and down the driveway. We were soon on the highway and speeding along towards the airport. The taxi had to stop at a checkpoint near the airport. We pulled into a little open space on the side of the road with a white building in it. Around the building were half a dozen police officers, each carrying a different type of gun. The only similarity between the guns was that they were all very big. We passed the checkpoint and continued on our merry way.
We arrived at the airport and should have known that we were in for a ton of confusion. As we were progressing towards the plane, they checked our bags at least five different times. At the place where we recieved our boarding passes, the man behind the counter must have been on his first day because he spent half and hour or more on our group. He got confused about which bags were ours, how many bags we had, whether or not a purse was carry on or checked luggage, etc. We were eventually given to another person to handle. She was not as bad as the first person, but not very much better. She was reading the scale as she weighed Jon's bag and read 50 kilos. However, the scale was actually displaying 50 lbs. 50 kilos is roughly 130 lbs, so she said that the bag was way over the weight limit of 50 lbs. It took a long time for my older brother to convince her that the scale was in pounds instead of kilograms.
While I was watching our group work through their various problems with the second helper, I noticed that another family had gone up to the first helper and was checking their bags. They finished before Jon was done explaining about the difference between pounds and kilograms. The family left, and 20 seconds later, the helper sprinted after them, having forgotten to give them their boarding passes.
We finally finished checking our luggage and set out towards the gate. Everything went smoothly until we had boarded the airplane. Once on board, we realized that Melissa's mom was not with us. We searched the airplane and did not find her. The flight attendants would not let anyone off the plane once they were on, so the pilot volunteered to go look for her. He brought her onto the plane and told us that she had been browsing in the stores located near the terminal.
The plane took off and we experienced an average amount of turbulence, but arrived at the Atlanta airport ahead of schedule.
We got off the plane and then were horrified to find out that Melissa's mom had left her bags on the plane. Melissa was going to go get them when the pilot told her that nobody could go back onto the plane once they had gotten off. The pilot volunteered again to go and get the bags. The copilot left before the pilot had returned. He was laughing and had apparently figured out that this was the same woman who had been shopping right before takeoff.
We spent another two hours getting through customs and finding our bags. We found our car in the immense parking lot and drove home.
After that you can guess what we did. It was almost 9 o'clock at night and we were all very tired after a long day of traveling. Because the Internet Guy never did come, I posted some blog posts that I had written over the trip. If you have not already, you can read them below. We ordered pizza and then went to sleep.
Just if you were wondering, all of the posts put together are twenty pages long. Muhahahaha.
If you decide that you do not want to be called a chicken for skipping the part with the big men with guns, you can click here to go back to it.
Before I begin, I will warn my readers that if they do not like reading about big men with guns, then they should click here to skip the section, or just skip this post entirely and draw their own conclusions about how my vacation ended.
Our last day in Zihuatenejo did not go quite as I had expected. I expected it to be full of packing and plane rides. Those elements were present, however, more exciting things happened.
As I was in my room packing, I hear my dad yell from the room above, "Que pasa?" I heard some talking, some in Spanish, some in English. I went outside to see what all the commotion was about. My dad had come down into the courtyard and was looking over our wall. I looked over, and there was nothing interesting going on. I asked my dad what was so interesting. He replied that one of our neighbors was trying to cut down our bamboo trees. The neighbor, who will be reffered to as "Loco #2" for the remainder of this post, said that the bamboo trees were blocking her view of the beach.
Apparently, Loco #2 used the excuse that she had gotten our property manager's permission to cut down the trees. Even though our property manager is somewhat negligent of the comings and goings of our house, she would never give permission for something like that without consulting my dad first.
What had probably happened was that Loco #2 thought we had already left and that we would never notice that the trees were gone, or we would not be able to find out it was her who had cut them down. My dad caught her in the act and she only got away with removing one piece of bamboo.
My dad had told Elio to call the police and, soon after, a police car arrived. Two police officers in white uniforms got out. Each of them carried a huge sub-machine gun. They walked up the stairs to our neighbor's house and began to talk with her. I don't know what they said because I was too far away, but I think they gave Loco #2 a fine or a warning. After about 20 minutes of talking, the police men got into their car and left. I'm very relieved that they did not feel the need to use those guns because, if they had, we would have most definitely missed our flight.
Once all of that was wrapped up, we finished packing and loaded our belongings into two taxis. We waved goodbye to Elio and Yanet as the taxi pulled away from the gate and down the driveway. We were soon on the highway and speeding along towards the airport. The taxi had to stop at a checkpoint near the airport. We pulled into a little open space on the side of the road with a white building in it. Around the building were half a dozen police officers, each carrying a different type of gun. The only similarity between the guns was that they were all very big. We passed the checkpoint and continued on our merry way.
We arrived at the airport and should have known that we were in for a ton of confusion. As we were progressing towards the plane, they checked our bags at least five different times. At the place where we recieved our boarding passes, the man behind the counter must have been on his first day because he spent half and hour or more on our group. He got confused about which bags were ours, how many bags we had, whether or not a purse was carry on or checked luggage, etc. We were eventually given to another person to handle. She was not as bad as the first person, but not very much better. She was reading the scale as she weighed Jon's bag and read 50 kilos. However, the scale was actually displaying 50 lbs. 50 kilos is roughly 130 lbs, so she said that the bag was way over the weight limit of 50 lbs. It took a long time for my older brother to convince her that the scale was in pounds instead of kilograms.
While I was watching our group work through their various problems with the second helper, I noticed that another family had gone up to the first helper and was checking their bags. They finished before Jon was done explaining about the difference between pounds and kilograms. The family left, and 20 seconds later, the helper sprinted after them, having forgotten to give them their boarding passes.
We finally finished checking our luggage and set out towards the gate. Everything went smoothly until we had boarded the airplane. Once on board, we realized that Melissa's mom was not with us. We searched the airplane and did not find her. The flight attendants would not let anyone off the plane once they were on, so the pilot volunteered to go look for her. He brought her onto the plane and told us that she had been browsing in the stores located near the terminal.
The plane took off and we experienced an average amount of turbulence, but arrived at the Atlanta airport ahead of schedule.
We got off the plane and then were horrified to find out that Melissa's mom had left her bags on the plane. Melissa was going to go get them when the pilot told her that nobody could go back onto the plane once they had gotten off. The pilot volunteered again to go and get the bags. The copilot left before the pilot had returned. He was laughing and had apparently figured out that this was the same woman who had been shopping right before takeoff.
We spent another two hours getting through customs and finding our bags. We found our car in the immense parking lot and drove home.
After that you can guess what we did. It was almost 9 o'clock at night and we were all very tired after a long day of traveling. Because the Internet Guy never did come, I posted some blog posts that I had written over the trip. If you have not already, you can read them below. We ordered pizza and then went to sleep.
Just if you were wondering, all of the posts put together are twenty pages long. Muhahahaha.
If you decide that you do not want to be called a chicken for skipping the part with the big men with guns, you can click here to go back to it.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Friday 11/24/06 Day 7
I do not need to describe our breakfast to you because all you need to do is scroll down the page. There, you will find a very enthusiastic description of the fruit, pan dulces, etc. etc. You would be much better off reading that than trying to convince me to describe it again, because all you would get out of me would be complaints about how repetitive breakfast has been.
A little while after breakfast, my father took Jon, Heidi, Dylan, and I to an Internet Cafe to do what we cannot do at home because our wireless Internet is broken. To get there we took a bus instead of a taxi. This bus was much less cramped compared to a taxi, and if we had tried to fit five people into a 4-person taxi we would have felt very much like a Mexican family. On our trip to the center of town, the bus stopped at two other places. At one stop it picked up a man carrying cans and boxes and spray thingies. We figured that he was an exterminator. He had an odd habit of opening his mouth a little and sticking his tongue out of the right side of his mouth, perhaps to try to lick his right eyeball. Fortunately, so I would not have to look at him, he sat in the very back of the bus, where I was not. The exterminator got off the bus at a hotel. I barely noticed him leave because the bus only slowed and did not stop while he got off.
We reached the center of town and got off the bus. It stopped to let us off, probably because we were Americanos tontos who had no idea how to disembark from a moving bus without breaking our necks in the process. The bus ride only cost 5 pesos per person. So for five people, that’s $2.50. It would have probably been around 30 pesos ($3) for one taxi, and twice that for two (duh).
After a little bit of walking we reached the bank. There we exchanged some dollars for pesos. We found an Internet Cafe. My dad took a really long time to check his e-mail (probably because he had about 30 new messages and needed to reply to almost all of them.) I had a few minutes to post what blog entries I had completed. As my readers may have noticed, I posted the entries for 11/21 and 11/22. I would have also posted 11/23, but I procrastinated and had not finished it yet.
We left the Internet Cafe and walked to the market. There I bought several small trinkets to give to several people, at least 4 of whom are reading this right now. Everything was beautifully crafted and most of it was hand made, and the best part was that it was dirt cheap.
Our group split up, Dylan, Dad, and I took a taxi back to the house while Jon and Heidi went around town a bit more.
If there is a very special coincidence and one or more of my readers ever finds themselves renting Villa Del Mar and they are in a taxi bound for the house, then the directions to give the taxi driver are as follows:
1. Playa la Ropa, cerca de La Gaviota restauraunte.
2. Izquierda y derecho.
3. En el fin del calle, izquierda y arriba.
4. Los puertos estan a la derecha.
If you memorize these directions, and say them in understandable Spanish (even if you don’t have a clue what they mean), along with many instances of pointing fingers and making odd noises, you should be able to get to the house relatively easily every time.
Once we had returned to the house, we had lunch (ham and cheese sandwich) and then got into the pool. I find it odd that, for the week we’ve been here, the pool has stayed very cold, even though it is sitting in the sun and just happens to be warm for any other family who rents the house.
After that I tried to do some homework, but got distracted and did something else with my two brothers. Whatever we were doing, it developed into creating a code using the alphabet as numbers, multiplying, dividing, and changing the base of a word (confusing, I know). I will not tell you more details on this code, because I may use it later and I don’t want my readers to be able to translate my messages into something understandable.
We were interrupted in our code making by the arrival of dinnertime. We had made reservations at a very fancy restaurant called “De Donde Eres?” Our neighbor, Tanya, had recommended it to us. We arrived promptly at 7 o’clock and took our seats at a long table with 7 places. The restaurant was a small place with a very small staff, so the owner was the one who took our orders. She was a very nice Italian woman who seemed to love what she did. She was always smiling and laughing when she talked to us. There were only three different dishes served each night at that restaurant, but they were all very exquisite and complicated. We ordered two of each for everyone to share.
After 20-30 minutes of waiting, the food came. First there was a soup called “Daal,” which had many vegetables in it. We were not given spoons, so we drank it straight ut of the bowl. It was actually very good. Next there were camarones (shrimp), which were very spicy, and good. The rice, potatoes, eggplant, chicken, and everything else came while we were starting on the shrimp. Needless to say, they were all very good (and spicy).
We had finished the shrimp and were almost done with half of what was left on the table. We waved the woman over and told her we would like more shrimp. She hesitated for a moment and then replied, “Ah, the situation with the shrimp has gone dramatically bad!” This sentence made us all laugh and it meant something like “There are no more shrimp, cooked or raw, in the building.” We told her that that was all right, and enjoyed the rest of our dinner without any more spicy shrimp.
Once they had cleared away all of our dishes, they brought out dessert. It consisted of a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream on top. It was delicious. With all the factors taken into account, this restaurant gets an A+ in my book.
We returned home and my older brother opened an Excel spreadsheet on his computer. He showed me that you could do more than just write things in little boxes in that program. We used it to make a translation program for our code that I have already described 5 paragraphs ago.
Nobody has come to even look at our Internet problem all day. My dad called someone at about 10 in the morning and he said he’d be over “right this minute” (The Internet Guy). <-- (Quote thing for Ms. Chiang’s class)
Today was our last full day in Mexico and I think we used it well. I have really enjoyed this trip and I’ll wrap it up in tomorrow’s post. How will it end? Will the flight be delayed? Will the Internet Guy finally show up, but find that he was too late? Find out in the final post, coming on Saturday, the 25 of November.
A little while after breakfast, my father took Jon, Heidi, Dylan, and I to an Internet Cafe to do what we cannot do at home because our wireless Internet is broken. To get there we took a bus instead of a taxi. This bus was much less cramped compared to a taxi, and if we had tried to fit five people into a 4-person taxi we would have felt very much like a Mexican family. On our trip to the center of town, the bus stopped at two other places. At one stop it picked up a man carrying cans and boxes and spray thingies. We figured that he was an exterminator. He had an odd habit of opening his mouth a little and sticking his tongue out of the right side of his mouth, perhaps to try to lick his right eyeball. Fortunately, so I would not have to look at him, he sat in the very back of the bus, where I was not. The exterminator got off the bus at a hotel. I barely noticed him leave because the bus only slowed and did not stop while he got off.
We reached the center of town and got off the bus. It stopped to let us off, probably because we were Americanos tontos who had no idea how to disembark from a moving bus without breaking our necks in the process. The bus ride only cost 5 pesos per person. So for five people, that’s $2.50. It would have probably been around 30 pesos ($3) for one taxi, and twice that for two (duh).
After a little bit of walking we reached the bank. There we exchanged some dollars for pesos. We found an Internet Cafe. My dad took a really long time to check his e-mail (probably because he had about 30 new messages and needed to reply to almost all of them.) I had a few minutes to post what blog entries I had completed. As my readers may have noticed, I posted the entries for 11/21 and 11/22. I would have also posted 11/23, but I procrastinated and had not finished it yet.
We left the Internet Cafe and walked to the market. There I bought several small trinkets to give to several people, at least 4 of whom are reading this right now. Everything was beautifully crafted and most of it was hand made, and the best part was that it was dirt cheap.
Our group split up, Dylan, Dad, and I took a taxi back to the house while Jon and Heidi went around town a bit more.
If there is a very special coincidence and one or more of my readers ever finds themselves renting Villa Del Mar and they are in a taxi bound for the house, then the directions to give the taxi driver are as follows:
1. Playa la Ropa, cerca de La Gaviota restauraunte.
2. Izquierda y derecho.
3. En el fin del calle, izquierda y arriba.
4. Los puertos estan a la derecha.
If you memorize these directions, and say them in understandable Spanish (even if you don’t have a clue what they mean), along with many instances of pointing fingers and making odd noises, you should be able to get to the house relatively easily every time.
Once we had returned to the house, we had lunch (ham and cheese sandwich) and then got into the pool. I find it odd that, for the week we’ve been here, the pool has stayed very cold, even though it is sitting in the sun and just happens to be warm for any other family who rents the house.
After that I tried to do some homework, but got distracted and did something else with my two brothers. Whatever we were doing, it developed into creating a code using the alphabet as numbers, multiplying, dividing, and changing the base of a word (confusing, I know). I will not tell you more details on this code, because I may use it later and I don’t want my readers to be able to translate my messages into something understandable.
We were interrupted in our code making by the arrival of dinnertime. We had made reservations at a very fancy restaurant called “De Donde Eres?” Our neighbor, Tanya, had recommended it to us. We arrived promptly at 7 o’clock and took our seats at a long table with 7 places. The restaurant was a small place with a very small staff, so the owner was the one who took our orders. She was a very nice Italian woman who seemed to love what she did. She was always smiling and laughing when she talked to us. There were only three different dishes served each night at that restaurant, but they were all very exquisite and complicated. We ordered two of each for everyone to share.
After 20-30 minutes of waiting, the food came. First there was a soup called “Daal,” which had many vegetables in it. We were not given spoons, so we drank it straight ut of the bowl. It was actually very good. Next there were camarones (shrimp), which were very spicy, and good. The rice, potatoes, eggplant, chicken, and everything else came while we were starting on the shrimp. Needless to say, they were all very good (and spicy).
We had finished the shrimp and were almost done with half of what was left on the table. We waved the woman over and told her we would like more shrimp. She hesitated for a moment and then replied, “Ah, the situation with the shrimp has gone dramatically bad!” This sentence made us all laugh and it meant something like “There are no more shrimp, cooked or raw, in the building.” We told her that that was all right, and enjoyed the rest of our dinner without any more spicy shrimp.
Once they had cleared away all of our dishes, they brought out dessert. It consisted of a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream on top. It was delicious. With all the factors taken into account, this restaurant gets an A+ in my book.
We returned home and my older brother opened an Excel spreadsheet on his computer. He showed me that you could do more than just write things in little boxes in that program. We used it to make a translation program for our code that I have already described 5 paragraphs ago.
Nobody has come to even look at our Internet problem all day. My dad called someone at about 10 in the morning and he said he’d be over “right this minute” (The Internet Guy). <-- (Quote thing for Ms. Chiang’s class)
Today was our last full day in Mexico and I think we used it well. I have really enjoyed this trip and I’ll wrap it up in tomorrow’s post. How will it end? Will the flight be delayed? Will the Internet Guy finally show up, but find that he was too late? Find out in the final post, coming on Saturday, the 25 of November.
Thursday 11/23/06 Day 6
My very odd and interesting Thanksgiving.
We all got up around 8:30. Breakfast was at 9 o’clock. We had the same thing. The only difference was that there were no bananas or watermelon. It was mostly strawberries, apples, and papaya. Of course, the papaya tastes like throw-up, so if you count that out, it was mostly strawberries and apples sliced into little pieces. There were barely any pan dulces left. Melissa (my sort-of-step-mom-but-not-really) has not been to the store to buy any more. Breakfast was not as special as it was at the beginning of the trip. Now that I think of it, there were no eggs either.
Once we finished breakfast we left for Bara de Potocí. Our neighbor, Tanya, lent us a truck to use. Tanya is an American who lives in Zihua most of the time (I think). She’s a very nice lady, but somewhat on the eccentric side. Tanya’s house is filled with life-sized statues of people (a very odd style of decoration, but very interesting.) However, I mentioned that she was a nice lady. To show this characteristic, she lent us her car so we did not have to pay 700 pesos for two taxis.
The truck was a very old Pathfinder. The trunk, we were told, would not close if you opened it. Because of this, we did not open the trunk for fear of paying a monstrous repair bill. However, it was a bit difficult to not open the trunk because there were only five seats in the car. My little brother and I had to ride in the trunk. This required climbing over the back seats and lying down side by side in the trunk. Because the trunk would never close if it were opened, we had to be extra extra careful not to bump into the door because we were not sure how tightly it was closed. Along the hour long drive, my brother and I felt like corpses the Mafia had thrown into the trunk so they could take us to a far away place to dispose of.
We reached the small fishing village of Bara de Potosí at about 10:30 or 11:00. We got out of the car and I stretched my legs a lot. We had parked behind a restaurant that was on the beach. It was one of about ten to fifteen identical restaurants located side-by-side stretching across a portion of the beach. We set our stuff down at a table and took a walk down the waterline. As we were leaving the restaurant we saw half a dozen people following us carrying necklaces, hats, baskets, and all other types of trinkets. They caught up with us and proceeded to try to sell us their wares. The ladies (Melissa, her mom, and Jon’s wife) bought lots of stuff. (After all, what else do women do other than shop?) Once the ladies were finished shopping the vendors carried their items towards the next closest American tourist. We continued our walk. The beach at Bara de Potosí was much less crowded than La Ropa beach. I only saw about twenty people over half a mile of sand.
After we had walked a ways and come back, we ordered appetizers at the restaurant. We ordered chips with guacamole and tiritas (raw fish cut into little chunks and marinated in some type of sauce.) On the menu, under appetizers, was something called “papas a la Frances.” We knew that it translated into French fries; however, whoever had translated the menu had not known that for under “papas a la Frances” the English words “Popes to the French” were written. We ate our appetizers and then we did something. Whatever it was we did, it was not very interesting because I’ve forgotten what it was.
Oh yes, now I remember. We took a boat ride around the nearby lagoon and looked at the birds. It was not very interesting; no wonder I forgot what it was.
We returned to the restaurant and ordered our main course, the fish of the day. It took 30 minutes to prepare, but the finished product was two huge, cooked fish. In total, they weighed 4 kilos (roughly 10 pounds). All seven members of our party were well fed by these two fish, which, along with the appetizers, only cost a total of 1000 pesos (100 dollars)!
Now, this is what will really blow your minds (especially you Mom). After lunch there was a tattoo artist walking around. He gave a little kid at a table near us a tattoo on his back. We know that a caring family would never allow their child to get a permanent tattoo, and the kid was not screaming in pain, so we deduced that the man was giving paint-on temporary tattoos. Two members of our party were very interested in this. Jon’s wife, Heidi, got a tattoo of a dragon on the bottom of her back. After that, my little brother got the Chinese symbol for energy tattooed onto his left arm. I know this may be shocking or it may have just passed through one ear and out the other so I will say it again. My little brother got the Chinese symbol for energy tattooed onto his left arm. I wish I could see my mom’s face when she reads this. If I could, I would hook a camera up to the computer and take a picture and then I’d put it on this blog. Hey, everyone who reads this. If you see my brother within the next month or two, ask him to show you his tattoo.
Once Dylan and Heidi’s paint-on tattoos had dried, we all piled into the truck again. We decided to take a scenic route along the beach to get back to our house. This turned out to be a very bad decision, as there was no road at all and only a wide dirt path. Fortunately for me, Melissa had offered to switch seats with me, so I got to sit in the last row of seats. Melissa and Dylan sat in the back. We found out that this car had no suspension to speak of (for my readers who do not know car talk, suspension is what keeps a car from going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down on a bumpy road. Don’t feel bad. I had to have it explained to me too.) Because there was no suspension, we felt every bump, dip, hill, and pothole we passed. Dylan and Melissa felt it most, but I don’t think my readers would be very interested in any complaints they made. After all, this is the story of my trip to Mexico.
Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. The question should be rephrased into “Why did the chicken attempt to cross the road?”
Q. Why did the chicken attempt to cross the road?
A. I don’t know, perhaps the chicken does not even know. Anyways, it was a bad decision because he almost got himself run over by a truck with a broken trunk and no suspension as it drove down a dusty road that really was not a road at all. As if the driver did not have enough things to worry about and then you add in random chickens that want to cross the road for no apparent reason. It’s enough to drive one insane.
When we finally got back to the house it was late. It was like 7 o’clock late. We had spent most of our Turkey Day on the beach, and we had eaten fish instead of turkey. I know that today has been the most interesting Thanksgiving in my life. I look forward to next year’s Thanksgiving so that I can compare it with what has transpired today.
The Internet guy did not come while we were away. We’re beginning to doubt whether the Internet will ever be fixed.
We all got up around 8:30. Breakfast was at 9 o’clock. We had the same thing. The only difference was that there were no bananas or watermelon. It was mostly strawberries, apples, and papaya. Of course, the papaya tastes like throw-up, so if you count that out, it was mostly strawberries and apples sliced into little pieces. There were barely any pan dulces left. Melissa (my sort-of-step-mom-but-not-really) has not been to the store to buy any more. Breakfast was not as special as it was at the beginning of the trip. Now that I think of it, there were no eggs either.
Once we finished breakfast we left for Bara de Potocí. Our neighbor, Tanya, lent us a truck to use. Tanya is an American who lives in Zihua most of the time (I think). She’s a very nice lady, but somewhat on the eccentric side. Tanya’s house is filled with life-sized statues of people (a very odd style of decoration, but very interesting.) However, I mentioned that she was a nice lady. To show this characteristic, she lent us her car so we did not have to pay 700 pesos for two taxis.
The truck was a very old Pathfinder. The trunk, we were told, would not close if you opened it. Because of this, we did not open the trunk for fear of paying a monstrous repair bill. However, it was a bit difficult to not open the trunk because there were only five seats in the car. My little brother and I had to ride in the trunk. This required climbing over the back seats and lying down side by side in the trunk. Because the trunk would never close if it were opened, we had to be extra extra careful not to bump into the door because we were not sure how tightly it was closed. Along the hour long drive, my brother and I felt like corpses the Mafia had thrown into the trunk so they could take us to a far away place to dispose of.
We reached the small fishing village of Bara de Potosí at about 10:30 or 11:00. We got out of the car and I stretched my legs a lot. We had parked behind a restaurant that was on the beach. It was one of about ten to fifteen identical restaurants located side-by-side stretching across a portion of the beach. We set our stuff down at a table and took a walk down the waterline. As we were leaving the restaurant we saw half a dozen people following us carrying necklaces, hats, baskets, and all other types of trinkets. They caught up with us and proceeded to try to sell us their wares. The ladies (Melissa, her mom, and Jon’s wife) bought lots of stuff. (After all, what else do women do other than shop?) Once the ladies were finished shopping the vendors carried their items towards the next closest American tourist. We continued our walk. The beach at Bara de Potosí was much less crowded than La Ropa beach. I only saw about twenty people over half a mile of sand.
After we had walked a ways and come back, we ordered appetizers at the restaurant. We ordered chips with guacamole and tiritas (raw fish cut into little chunks and marinated in some type of sauce.) On the menu, under appetizers, was something called “papas a la Frances.” We knew that it translated into French fries; however, whoever had translated the menu had not known that for under “papas a la Frances” the English words “Popes to the French” were written. We ate our appetizers and then we did something. Whatever it was we did, it was not very interesting because I’ve forgotten what it was.
Oh yes, now I remember. We took a boat ride around the nearby lagoon and looked at the birds. It was not very interesting; no wonder I forgot what it was.
We returned to the restaurant and ordered our main course, the fish of the day. It took 30 minutes to prepare, but the finished product was two huge, cooked fish. In total, they weighed 4 kilos (roughly 10 pounds). All seven members of our party were well fed by these two fish, which, along with the appetizers, only cost a total of 1000 pesos (100 dollars)!
Now, this is what will really blow your minds (especially you Mom). After lunch there was a tattoo artist walking around. He gave a little kid at a table near us a tattoo on his back. We know that a caring family would never allow their child to get a permanent tattoo, and the kid was not screaming in pain, so we deduced that the man was giving paint-on temporary tattoos. Two members of our party were very interested in this. Jon’s wife, Heidi, got a tattoo of a dragon on the bottom of her back. After that, my little brother got the Chinese symbol for energy tattooed onto his left arm. I know this may be shocking or it may have just passed through one ear and out the other so I will say it again. My little brother got the Chinese symbol for energy tattooed onto his left arm. I wish I could see my mom’s face when she reads this. If I could, I would hook a camera up to the computer and take a picture and then I’d put it on this blog. Hey, everyone who reads this. If you see my brother within the next month or two, ask him to show you his tattoo.
Once Dylan and Heidi’s paint-on tattoos had dried, we all piled into the truck again. We decided to take a scenic route along the beach to get back to our house. This turned out to be a very bad decision, as there was no road at all and only a wide dirt path. Fortunately for me, Melissa had offered to switch seats with me, so I got to sit in the last row of seats. Melissa and Dylan sat in the back. We found out that this car had no suspension to speak of (for my readers who do not know car talk, suspension is what keeps a car from going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down on a bumpy road. Don’t feel bad. I had to have it explained to me too.) Because there was no suspension, we felt every bump, dip, hill, and pothole we passed. Dylan and Melissa felt it most, but I don’t think my readers would be very interested in any complaints they made. After all, this is the story of my trip to Mexico.
Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. The question should be rephrased into “Why did the chicken attempt to cross the road?”
Q. Why did the chicken attempt to cross the road?
A. I don’t know, perhaps the chicken does not even know. Anyways, it was a bad decision because he almost got himself run over by a truck with a broken trunk and no suspension as it drove down a dusty road that really was not a road at all. As if the driver did not have enough things to worry about and then you add in random chickens that want to cross the road for no apparent reason. It’s enough to drive one insane.
When we finally got back to the house it was late. It was like 7 o’clock late. We had spent most of our Turkey Day on the beach, and we had eaten fish instead of turkey. I know that today has been the most interesting Thanksgiving in my life. I look forward to next year’s Thanksgiving so that I can compare it with what has transpired today.
The Internet guy did not come while we were away. We’re beginning to doubt whether the Internet will ever be fixed.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Wednesday 11/22/06 Day 5
I am getting very tired of this breakfast. It is the same thing, over and over again. I am guessing that we will have the same thing tomorrow. For some reason, it is different from eating cereal every morning. I don’t have an explanation, except that maybe Honey Nut Cheerios are simpler and (of course) less healthy than fresh fruit and bread, although I’m no nutritionist.
After I ate breakfast, the Internet was still down so I could not post yesterday’s blog. We had Elio call an Internet repair guy. Elio said that a guy would come to look at our problem around 10 o’clock.
9:30
10:00 - Él esta tarde.
10:30 - Nada
11:00 – “ ”
12:00 – Donde esta el hombre de Red?
12:30 – We left the house to go to a restaurant called Any’s Tamales. There they served (obviously) tamales, along with other Mexican food (ex. tacitos, quesadillas). We ate lunch and then took a taxi back to the house.
I have noticed something. Every time we go somewhere in a taxi, I sit in the middle, back seat. For some reason I get the seat with no seatbelt and, because I am tall, I must block the driver’s view of what is behind him. Not that the Mexican cab drivers care what’s behind them. The ones I’ve ridden with don’t seem to care what’s around or in front of them either. They just pass on either side of cars as if the streets were racetracks. I have not seen many traffic lights in Zihua. In fact, now that I think of it, the only one I’ve seen was that one in the airport. Sometimes I wince as a taxi I’m in speeds through an intersection and I see moving cars on either side of me. However, Mexican drivers must be used to that sort of thing seeing as nobody had crashed into, or so much as honked a horn at us (yet).
2:00 – Nothing special. That Internet guy still hasn’t come.
3:00 – My brother and I got into the pool. We did not do much. What is there to do in a tiny pool with nobody except your sibling (who we will pretend you are slightly annoyed with at this moment)?
After I got out of the pool I read my book. I read a lot. I read for at least several hours. I lost track of the time. I was reading a very good book called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. It is something of a Harry Potter for adults (or so it was described to me by several sources).
My reading was interrupted by dinner. Dinner was nothing special tonight. Everyone else was going out to some restaurant with some Americans who happened to be around. Meeting someone new and becoming acquainted with them, all the time knowing that you will never see them again and really should not care about their trip or their cat or whatever they want to tell you about was not a very appealing adventure to my brother and I. For this reason we stayed at the house and had macaroni and cheese. My brother and I spent the dinner discussing various ways to combine the words macaroni and cheese to make a new name for the dish. We came up with maceese, meese, chacaroni, and other ridiculous sounding things (All of this was an attempt to occupy our time.)
After our dinner of weird words I returned to my reading. I was overjoyed when I finished my book. This achievement elevated me to the only member of the “I Finished Reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell Club.” It would surprise my readers if they found out how many people have attempted to read that book. One person on that list is my Algebra II teacher, Mr. Hudson, who read the first 600 pages and put it down because of its boringness. Also, several students have also approached me to tell me that they attempted the read, but failed. These attempts have included listening to it on tape, having it read to them, and reading it plainly (although this person was only able to get to page 10 before stopping.) Some may think “Wow! He must be an excellent reader to be able to get through a book such as that!” Other, more observant people may think “What a fool. If so many people found it so boring, why did he endure through those long pages instead of finding something else to read which he enjoyed.” I’m not sure whether I consider myself a determined reader or a determined fool, but I prefer if people call me the first.
I plan to read Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events next due to several recommendations.
That Internet guy never showed. We’re going to ask Elio to call again tomorrow. I’ll just have to wait to post this. Oh well. I’m sure I will have dozens of comments worrying about what has happened and where my great works of writing have been for the past two days. I just hope it won’t be 3 days.
Tomorrow we’re going to a fishing village named Barra De Potosí. That should be interesting.
After I ate breakfast, the Internet was still down so I could not post yesterday’s blog. We had Elio call an Internet repair guy. Elio said that a guy would come to look at our problem around 10 o’clock.
9:30
10:00 - Él esta tarde.
10:30 - Nada
11:00 – “ ”
12:00 – Donde esta el hombre de Red?
12:30 – We left the house to go to a restaurant called Any’s Tamales. There they served (obviously) tamales, along with other Mexican food (ex. tacitos, quesadillas). We ate lunch and then took a taxi back to the house.
I have noticed something. Every time we go somewhere in a taxi, I sit in the middle, back seat. For some reason I get the seat with no seatbelt and, because I am tall, I must block the driver’s view of what is behind him. Not that the Mexican cab drivers care what’s behind them. The ones I’ve ridden with don’t seem to care what’s around or in front of them either. They just pass on either side of cars as if the streets were racetracks. I have not seen many traffic lights in Zihua. In fact, now that I think of it, the only one I’ve seen was that one in the airport. Sometimes I wince as a taxi I’m in speeds through an intersection and I see moving cars on either side of me. However, Mexican drivers must be used to that sort of thing seeing as nobody had crashed into, or so much as honked a horn at us (yet).
2:00 – Nothing special. That Internet guy still hasn’t come.
3:00 – My brother and I got into the pool. We did not do much. What is there to do in a tiny pool with nobody except your sibling (who we will pretend you are slightly annoyed with at this moment)?
After I got out of the pool I read my book. I read a lot. I read for at least several hours. I lost track of the time. I was reading a very good book called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. It is something of a Harry Potter for adults (or so it was described to me by several sources).
My reading was interrupted by dinner. Dinner was nothing special tonight. Everyone else was going out to some restaurant with some Americans who happened to be around. Meeting someone new and becoming acquainted with them, all the time knowing that you will never see them again and really should not care about their trip or their cat or whatever they want to tell you about was not a very appealing adventure to my brother and I. For this reason we stayed at the house and had macaroni and cheese. My brother and I spent the dinner discussing various ways to combine the words macaroni and cheese to make a new name for the dish. We came up with maceese, meese, chacaroni, and other ridiculous sounding things (All of this was an attempt to occupy our time.)
After our dinner of weird words I returned to my reading. I was overjoyed when I finished my book. This achievement elevated me to the only member of the “I Finished Reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell Club.” It would surprise my readers if they found out how many people have attempted to read that book. One person on that list is my Algebra II teacher, Mr. Hudson, who read the first 600 pages and put it down because of its boringness. Also, several students have also approached me to tell me that they attempted the read, but failed. These attempts have included listening to it on tape, having it read to them, and reading it plainly (although this person was only able to get to page 10 before stopping.) Some may think “Wow! He must be an excellent reader to be able to get through a book such as that!” Other, more observant people may think “What a fool. If so many people found it so boring, why did he endure through those long pages instead of finding something else to read which he enjoyed.” I’m not sure whether I consider myself a determined reader or a determined fool, but I prefer if people call me the first.
I plan to read Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events next due to several recommendations.
That Internet guy never showed. We’re going to ask Elio to call again tomorrow. I’ll just have to wait to post this. Oh well. I’m sure I will have dozens of comments worrying about what has happened and where my great works of writing have been for the past two days. I just hope it won’t be 3 days.
Tomorrow we’re going to a fishing village named Barra De Potosí. That should be interesting.
Tuesday 11/21/06 Day 4
We had a big day planned. We were going snorkeling at a place called Manzanio beach. A boat would pick us up at 9:30 and the boat would take us to the beach.
Before we left, we had to eat breakfast. Breakfast consisted of the same thing as yesterday’s breakfast. In fact, yesterday’s breakfast consisted of the same thing as the day before’s breakfast. I now realize that we’ve been having the same thing for breakfast over and over again, eggs, pan dulces, orange juice, and fruit. I’ve also realized that we have the same type of conversation each day at breakfast; we have a boring, morning conversation. Perhaps breakfast time has fallen into a causality loop and is doomed to happen again and again, in the same way, for forever and a day.
After we finished our familiar breakfast, we got our snorkeling stuff together and waited. Around 9:35 we saw captain Hector’s boat headed towards us from across the bay. We left the porch and stood on the beach right in front of our house. Hector pulled up to the beach, turned around, and backed into ankle deep water, where he waited. We waded out to the boat and loaded our equipment. We had chairs, snorkeling bags, and Elio (who was coming with us) brought some spears for fishing.
Once we were all aboard the boat set off for the mouth of the bay. Once we were out of the bay we had a 30-45 minute boat ride down the coast (or up the coast; I could not tell which direction we were going.) We approached Manzanio beach, which was a small stretch of sand and rocks along the coast. On either side of the beach were large rocks, which marked off the boundaries. There was barely 15 feet of sand between the water and dense foliage. A lot of the beach was not sand, but rock, and most of the rock was not rock, but pieces of coral washed up on the shore.
Captain Hector reminded me most of a Mexican Santa Clause. He was chubby and had a very long, white beard, which gave him the appearance of Santa. He was smiling a lot and he whistled while the boat moved along.
Once we had set up our chairs in the shade, we got into the water to snorkel. It was a bit hard to snorkel because, at the time of our arrival, there were two other boats (one of them quite large) full of tourists wanting to snorkel also. While we were in the water we kept bumping into these people or mistaking them for members of our own party. After 30 minutes to an hour of snorkeling we got out of the water and went to our chairs on the beach.
The grown-ups felt content to sit in their chairs and just look at the beach, a practice I felt was very boring. I would have been happy to do the same though (because I was in a boring mood) but for some reason nobody thought to bring more than four chairs. Seeing as there were four grown-ups (Melissa’s mom did not come with us) each of them got one chair. My brother and I were forced to sit in the sand, or on our towels in the sand. I attempted to take a ciesta in the shade, but my brother was too restless. He continuously asked if he could bury my feet in sand, and when I said no, he proceeded to throw sand on my legs until I got up and made him stop. Because of these distractions, I was not able to get anything productive done in the hour or two that we spent sitting on the beach.
Another thing my brother did to occupy his time was torturing hermit crabs. There were dozens of them in the sand around our chairs, you just had to look hard enough to tell if what you were looking at was a crab, or just a shell. Hector showed Dylan a neat little trick, which involved placing the hermit crab close to your mouth and exhaling slowly on it. This coaxed the crab to stick its head and legs out of its shell. Once most of its body was our, Dylan would make it crawl around his hand until it fell off the side. Dylan would then pick it up again and repeat the process. After doing this for a while, he decided to dig a hole, pull two crabs out of their shells, and put a single shell in the hole with them. The idea was to have the crabs fight over the shell. Fortunately for the crabs, Dylan was not able to remove them from their shells (although it was unfortunate for one crab because Dylan accidentally ripped this crab’s leg off while trying to pull it out.)
Once everyone was done sitting and sleeping (and when Dylan had gotten bored of torturing crabs), Hector fed us lunch. He had prepared raw sailfish cut into tiny chunks with vegetables and a sauce, all mixed together. It was actually pretty good, contrary to my initial assumption. I was sitting down with my second bowl when I dropped it in the sand. What a sad moment! All that good food, wasted. Thankfully, my dad let me use his bowl to get some more. I think Hector was a little bit puzzled that I got some food, then sat down, then came back for more in less than a minute.
Once finished with lunch we all went snorkeling again. All of the other boats had left, so we had the entire place to ourselves. We could see a lot more now that we were alone and could go anywhere we wanted in the water. There was not much difference between this location and our previous snorkel spot. In fact, we saw many of the same types of fish, mainly the glowing butt fish and the yellow-black fish (upon closer observation, these yellow-black fish had a bit of red in them). Unlike last time, the yellow-black with a bit of red fish did not follow us everywhere we went.
The only real difference between this trip and our last one was that there was coral here. There was, actually, lots of coral. There must have been miles and miles of coral along the bottom of the ocean. The way the sun shone down through the water and the light danced across the coral was amazing. It had the appearance of waving lines of light across the rocks and coral.
When I was looking at the coral and the fish around it, I saw a section of coral that looked bleached white. The appearance of this dead coral saddened me, because in an unknown amount of years the entire reef might be dead and all the fish life that makes the reef their homes would either die or try to find a new place to live.
After we had all examined the coral and fish, we returned to the beach and packed all of our things. We waited for the boat to come close enough to board. Elio had been fishing on the boat and when he saw us ready to go, for some reason, he jumped off the boat and started swimming towards us. Hector’s assistant was on the boat, and he drove it to shore. Poor Elio! He must have been so embarrassed when the boat got to shore before him and we were half done loading our stuff when he arrived.
We departed from Manzanio beach and began our journey back to Playa la Ropa. Once we had left the area, we began seeing fish jumping. Hector dropped two fishing lines into the water and let them trail behind the boat, as his assistant tried to maneuver the boat as to drag the lines through the fish. We caught a total of 2 fish on the boat ride back. Both were called Bonita, and were grey-blue and plump. When we approached the bay, Elio and Hector reeled in the lines and we sped through the water. Hector took the boat right in front of our house, as he had done before. My dad paid him and we returned home.
It was about 4 in the afternoon, and we decided we had done enough for the day. We hung out at the house for a while, and then decided to get in the pool. However, my little brother Dylan was the only one who actually got all the way in the water. It was too cold for the rest of us and we only put our feet in. Soon after, we all got out, much to the disappointment of my little brother.
After that, our Internet connection died. We have wireless Internet for the house, however it is plugged into an outlet that only gives power when a certain lamp is turned on. You can imagine the confusion when someone turns a light off and all the laptops in the house say “CANNOT CONNECT TO INTERNET.” For some reason, the connection just died when someone accidentally cut power to the Internet box and it didn’t come back. That is why I have not posted this yet (but when you read it, that last sentence should say “That is why I did not post this on the day it is listed as.”)
Today’s Vocab
Guess what these words mean in a comment. No dictionaries.
El Red
bonito
playa
barco
pez
Before we left, we had to eat breakfast. Breakfast consisted of the same thing as yesterday’s breakfast. In fact, yesterday’s breakfast consisted of the same thing as the day before’s breakfast. I now realize that we’ve been having the same thing for breakfast over and over again, eggs, pan dulces, orange juice, and fruit. I’ve also realized that we have the same type of conversation each day at breakfast; we have a boring, morning conversation. Perhaps breakfast time has fallen into a causality loop and is doomed to happen again and again, in the same way, for forever and a day.
After we finished our familiar breakfast, we got our snorkeling stuff together and waited. Around 9:35 we saw captain Hector’s boat headed towards us from across the bay. We left the porch and stood on the beach right in front of our house. Hector pulled up to the beach, turned around, and backed into ankle deep water, where he waited. We waded out to the boat and loaded our equipment. We had chairs, snorkeling bags, and Elio (who was coming with us) brought some spears for fishing.
Once we were all aboard the boat set off for the mouth of the bay. Once we were out of the bay we had a 30-45 minute boat ride down the coast (or up the coast; I could not tell which direction we were going.) We approached Manzanio beach, which was a small stretch of sand and rocks along the coast. On either side of the beach were large rocks, which marked off the boundaries. There was barely 15 feet of sand between the water and dense foliage. A lot of the beach was not sand, but rock, and most of the rock was not rock, but pieces of coral washed up on the shore.
Captain Hector reminded me most of a Mexican Santa Clause. He was chubby and had a very long, white beard, which gave him the appearance of Santa. He was smiling a lot and he whistled while the boat moved along.
Once we had set up our chairs in the shade, we got into the water to snorkel. It was a bit hard to snorkel because, at the time of our arrival, there were two other boats (one of them quite large) full of tourists wanting to snorkel also. While we were in the water we kept bumping into these people or mistaking them for members of our own party. After 30 minutes to an hour of snorkeling we got out of the water and went to our chairs on the beach.
The grown-ups felt content to sit in their chairs and just look at the beach, a practice I felt was very boring. I would have been happy to do the same though (because I was in a boring mood) but for some reason nobody thought to bring more than four chairs. Seeing as there were four grown-ups (Melissa’s mom did not come with us) each of them got one chair. My brother and I were forced to sit in the sand, or on our towels in the sand. I attempted to take a ciesta in the shade, but my brother was too restless. He continuously asked if he could bury my feet in sand, and when I said no, he proceeded to throw sand on my legs until I got up and made him stop. Because of these distractions, I was not able to get anything productive done in the hour or two that we spent sitting on the beach.
Another thing my brother did to occupy his time was torturing hermit crabs. There were dozens of them in the sand around our chairs, you just had to look hard enough to tell if what you were looking at was a crab, or just a shell. Hector showed Dylan a neat little trick, which involved placing the hermit crab close to your mouth and exhaling slowly on it. This coaxed the crab to stick its head and legs out of its shell. Once most of its body was our, Dylan would make it crawl around his hand until it fell off the side. Dylan would then pick it up again and repeat the process. After doing this for a while, he decided to dig a hole, pull two crabs out of their shells, and put a single shell in the hole with them. The idea was to have the crabs fight over the shell. Fortunately for the crabs, Dylan was not able to remove them from their shells (although it was unfortunate for one crab because Dylan accidentally ripped this crab’s leg off while trying to pull it out.)
Once everyone was done sitting and sleeping (and when Dylan had gotten bored of torturing crabs), Hector fed us lunch. He had prepared raw sailfish cut into tiny chunks with vegetables and a sauce, all mixed together. It was actually pretty good, contrary to my initial assumption. I was sitting down with my second bowl when I dropped it in the sand. What a sad moment! All that good food, wasted. Thankfully, my dad let me use his bowl to get some more. I think Hector was a little bit puzzled that I got some food, then sat down, then came back for more in less than a minute.
Once finished with lunch we all went snorkeling again. All of the other boats had left, so we had the entire place to ourselves. We could see a lot more now that we were alone and could go anywhere we wanted in the water. There was not much difference between this location and our previous snorkel spot. In fact, we saw many of the same types of fish, mainly the glowing butt fish and the yellow-black fish (upon closer observation, these yellow-black fish had a bit of red in them). Unlike last time, the yellow-black with a bit of red fish did not follow us everywhere we went.
The only real difference between this trip and our last one was that there was coral here. There was, actually, lots of coral. There must have been miles and miles of coral along the bottom of the ocean. The way the sun shone down through the water and the light danced across the coral was amazing. It had the appearance of waving lines of light across the rocks and coral.
When I was looking at the coral and the fish around it, I saw a section of coral that looked bleached white. The appearance of this dead coral saddened me, because in an unknown amount of years the entire reef might be dead and all the fish life that makes the reef their homes would either die or try to find a new place to live.
After we had all examined the coral and fish, we returned to the beach and packed all of our things. We waited for the boat to come close enough to board. Elio had been fishing on the boat and when he saw us ready to go, for some reason, he jumped off the boat and started swimming towards us. Hector’s assistant was on the boat, and he drove it to shore. Poor Elio! He must have been so embarrassed when the boat got to shore before him and we were half done loading our stuff when he arrived.
We departed from Manzanio beach and began our journey back to Playa la Ropa. Once we had left the area, we began seeing fish jumping. Hector dropped two fishing lines into the water and let them trail behind the boat, as his assistant tried to maneuver the boat as to drag the lines through the fish. We caught a total of 2 fish on the boat ride back. Both were called Bonita, and were grey-blue and plump. When we approached the bay, Elio and Hector reeled in the lines and we sped through the water. Hector took the boat right in front of our house, as he had done before. My dad paid him and we returned home.
It was about 4 in the afternoon, and we decided we had done enough for the day. We hung out at the house for a while, and then decided to get in the pool. However, my little brother Dylan was the only one who actually got all the way in the water. It was too cold for the rest of us and we only put our feet in. Soon after, we all got out, much to the disappointment of my little brother.
After that, our Internet connection died. We have wireless Internet for the house, however it is plugged into an outlet that only gives power when a certain lamp is turned on. You can imagine the confusion when someone turns a light off and all the laptops in the house say “CANNOT CONNECT TO INTERNET.” For some reason, the connection just died when someone accidentally cut power to the Internet box and it didn’t come back. That is why I have not posted this yet (but when you read it, that last sentence should say “That is why I did not post this on the day it is listed as.”)
Today’s Vocab
Guess what these words mean in a comment. No dictionaries.
El Red
bonito
playa
barco
pez
Monday, November 20, 2006
Monday 11/20/06 Day 3
This morning I woke up and ate breakfast. After breakfast I did absolutely nothing. It was great. I just did nothing. I feel happy about that.
After doing nothing for a while I did a bit more of nothing.
After two instances of doing nothing, guess what I did. More nothing.
Then I decided to go in the pool. Everyone got in for a while and then everyone got out. It was another great experience in my day.
We had lunch then, which consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches.
I decided to do nothing again.
Nothing...
Nothing...
This isn't a very interesting post.
Nothing...
Something. It was about 6 P.M. and dinner time. (Notice that all I've talked about in this post is food and nothing.) We all took a taxi to a fancy restaurant named Puenta Del Sol (Sunset Grill). We sat at a long table and waited for our menus. When the menus came we found what we wanted to eat. It was very exciting. It was then that we began to notice some of the finer details of the restaurant. It was small, only around 10 tables were inside. Only four of them were occupied. One side of the building was open to the air and there was a great view of the bay and the city on the other side. Because half of the wall of the building was not present, many small insects had made the restaurant their homes. Little bugs crawled across the table and plates, wondering where to start eating their fine meals before a large finger squashed them out of existence. The ceiling was a jungle gym for geckos, who crawled to and fro above the heads of unsuspecting eaters. On occasion, when he felt the urge, a gecko would drop some seasonings or a small potato from his rear onto the food the geckos felt needed a bit more flavor.
However it may seem I am degrading this restaurant, it was in no way a bad place. It was one of the finest establishments I have been to during this trip. The food, although it took an hour or two to prepare, was great. However, for some dishes the chef cooked right in front of the customers. These were spectacular. The entertainment of the flames dancing around and in the pans as things were cooked left the buyers clapping and shouting for more. The food that was produced by this was some of the best in Zihuatenejo. The bill, when it came, was a slightly large amount. The chef gave us the opportunity to leave the restaurant without paying a peso. If my little brother could beat the chef at tic-tac-toe then the chef would pay the check. Naturally, my brother lost the game and we walked away 2000 pesos poorer.
Today I learned why this town is called Zihuatenejo. It was originally named Zihuatlan which, in an ancient Indian language, means land ruled by women. Before the Spaniards arrived, the entire area was a matriarchal society. When the Spanish took over, they renamed it Zihuatenejo. The term nejo is a derogatory word, so you can guess what the full meaning of the name is.
Today's (and yesterday's) Vocab
calle - street
derecha - right
derecho - straight
izquierda - left
algodon - cotton
papas fritas - chips
maiz - corn
After doing nothing for a while I did a bit more of nothing.
After two instances of doing nothing, guess what I did. More nothing.
Then I decided to go in the pool. Everyone got in for a while and then everyone got out. It was another great experience in my day.
We had lunch then, which consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches.
I decided to do nothing again.
Nothing...
Nothing...
This isn't a very interesting post.
Nothing...
Something. It was about 6 P.M. and dinner time. (Notice that all I've talked about in this post is food and nothing.) We all took a taxi to a fancy restaurant named Puenta Del Sol (Sunset Grill). We sat at a long table and waited for our menus. When the menus came we found what we wanted to eat. It was very exciting. It was then that we began to notice some of the finer details of the restaurant. It was small, only around 10 tables were inside. Only four of them were occupied. One side of the building was open to the air and there was a great view of the bay and the city on the other side. Because half of the wall of the building was not present, many small insects had made the restaurant their homes. Little bugs crawled across the table and plates, wondering where to start eating their fine meals before a large finger squashed them out of existence. The ceiling was a jungle gym for geckos, who crawled to and fro above the heads of unsuspecting eaters. On occasion, when he felt the urge, a gecko would drop some seasonings or a small potato from his rear onto the food the geckos felt needed a bit more flavor.
However it may seem I am degrading this restaurant, it was in no way a bad place. It was one of the finest establishments I have been to during this trip. The food, although it took an hour or two to prepare, was great. However, for some dishes the chef cooked right in front of the customers. These were spectacular. The entertainment of the flames dancing around and in the pans as things were cooked left the buyers clapping and shouting for more. The food that was produced by this was some of the best in Zihuatenejo. The bill, when it came, was a slightly large amount. The chef gave us the opportunity to leave the restaurant without paying a peso. If my little brother could beat the chef at tic-tac-toe then the chef would pay the check. Naturally, my brother lost the game and we walked away 2000 pesos poorer.
Today I learned why this town is called Zihuatenejo. It was originally named Zihuatlan which, in an ancient Indian language, means land ruled by women. Before the Spaniards arrived, the entire area was a matriarchal society. When the Spanish took over, they renamed it Zihuatenejo. The term nejo is a derogatory word, so you can guess what the full meaning of the name is.
Today's (and yesterday's) Vocab
calle - street
derecha - right
derecho - straight
izquierda - left
algodon - cotton
papas fritas - chips
maiz - corn
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Sunday 11/19/06 Day 2
The birds woke me up. Their cries began early in the morning. There were short sounds, long sounds, high pitched sounds, and many other sounds that are too hard to explain with just words. The birds went on with their squeals and warbles for many hours, not stopping to wonder if they were disturbing the humans who had been slumbering below. After all, what can a human do to something he can not see, but only hear?
By the time I had gotten out of bed, Yanet had finished putting breakfast together. This morning, eggs were served, along with fresh fruit and bread. There were many varieties of fruit; the basket included bananas, strawberries, apples, watermelon, pineapple, along with all the other fruits you could name off the top of your head. In the bread basket there were croissants, muffins, and an assortment of pan dulces (sweet breads).
After breakfast, we all went down to the beach to go snorkeling. We brought our equipment from the house to the water, a walk that took thirty seconds total. Everyone donned their masks and snorkels, along with bathing suits and flippers. That is, everyone except Mellisa's mom who was not coming. Only one of our party was not wearing a bathing suit. My younger brother, Dylan, was testing out his mask and flippers in our swimming pool. As he was leaving the pool he was forced to take large, dramatic steps because of the flippers on his feet. The bathing suit he was wearing was, unfortunately, a bit small for him. In the middle of his step his bathing suit split down the middle. He walked, hunched over, to his room, with flippers still on, to get some pants. These he wore while snorkeling. At least it happened while still in the house and not on the beach in front of dozens of people. (Nobody cared that it was actually my spare bathing suit that Dylan was wearing at the time of this incident.)
Playa La Ropa was too crowded to enjoy snorkeling, in fact, had it not been crowded, there would have been hardly anything to see because the area near the beach is far too polluted for fish to live comfortably. We left our shoe on a big rock with lots of holes in it, ideal for leaving shoes in, that was situated on the beach. We entered the water with our masks on our faces and our flippers on our feet. We brought four boogie boards to rest on while in the water, if we got tired. (If you don't know what a boogie board is, then Google it!) We swam away from the beach, glancing down at the sparse sea life whenever we suspected it might be there. After a thirty minute swim we reached Las Gatas Beach. Las Gatas is only accessable by water taxi or swimming so we thought that it would be almost deserted. We were wrong. There were hundreds of people in the water. Perhaps the water taxi became a lot cheaper or a chunk of the population decided to become more athletic, but whatever the reason, it would not be a good snorkeling spot.
Las Gatas beach is a short stretch of sand with various family-owned restaurants behind it. The small area of water has a stone wall as a boundary. It is said that an Aztec king wanted a place for his daughter to play in the water without the huge waves and sea critters that come from the ocean. This king had a huge wall built to cut off the animals from entering the area and to block most of the waves.
To avoid the large groups of people in the water, we had to swim around the rock wall into the open water of the bay. There were no other people there. However, just below the surface, there were thousands of little fish, big fish, blue fish, red fish, and all other types of sea critters you could think of. I will name a few of these things I saw, but only a few. I could fill a hundred pages with what I saw in the first five minutes, but I will summarize.
A school of 30+ fish kept following our group. They were small, about 2 or 3 inches long. They had long yellow bodies with a black stripe along their backs. This school followed us from the corner of the rock wall, to the middle of the rock wall, and back to where we all started.
While we were looking around under the water, I found that the little fish following us had become distracted. They were trying to cram themselves all together on a big white spot on a rock. They wiggled and squirmed to try to touch what I guessed was their mouths to the rock. This led me to believe that there was some form of food present on the rock, and they all wanted a share. The way they all darted in and out and became a mass of black and yellow was amazing. They looked a bit like serpents, all coiled together, and moving quickly. Then, out of nowhere (actually, it was out from behind a rock), a huge blue fish charged the little ones. The small ones scattered everywhere, giving the appearance of an explosion. This foot-long blue fish circled the rock until the little fish returned to it, becoming a mass of yellow and black again. As expected, the blue fish charged them again and they scattered. The little fish continued to try to eat and the big fish continued to scare them off. They were still doing this when I left.
Because we had left our school of following fish behind, another school was obligated to follow us in the previous school's stead. These fish were colored pink and red. They were slightly fatter than our previous acquaintances, but their most striking feature was their glowing butts. They had what looked like an orb of light just in front of their tails. This group stayed with us until the first school realized that we had left, and caught up with us.
I sorely wish I had a waterproof camera to bring. I know that Isaac would have loved to see pictures.
Once we had seen enough we swam back to La Ropa beach, retrieved our shoes from the convenient rock, and returned to the house. Once there we got in the swimming pool for a little while, then ate lunch.
Every Sunday in Zihuatenejo there is a fiesta en el centro (party on the square). We decided to attend and see how the Mexicans partied. We took a taxi to the basketball court, where the fiesta was located. Once there, we experienced the Mexican craze for corn. There were corn tortillas, corn tamales, corn taco shells, corn on the cob, and then just plain corn.
After half an hour of observation we decided that Mexican parties were just like most American parties, dull. There was not much to do there once you ate, unless you wanted to listen to the music and talk. There were some people juggling fire, but they were not very good. One of them threw his flaming baton off the stage and, instead of catching it, it landed in the front row of the audience's seats. Fortunately, not many people were watching him and those who were had enough brains to sit in the back, so nobody was hurt.
We left the fiesta and walked to the market. This consisted of family owned stalls and small buildings filled with tons of miscellaneous items. The shop keepers all spoke English fluently and offered their wares to us in a language we all understood. The first shop we entered had beautiful wood carvings, jewelry, statues, masks, and other things, all of which were incredible (we were told that they were all hand made). My brother and I both bought hats there. The original price was 280 pesos (roughly $28). This was hugely overpriced, but in Mexico you are expected to haggle. My father and I were able to convince the shop keeper to lower the price to 200 pesos ($20). We proceeded to the next stall where we saw many of the same items. It was later explained to me that most of the shops on the same street corner are run by huge families so the artist who make these beautiful things give them to their children to sell. In one shop we saw two masks side by side. The one on the left was the face of a red man with horns. We asked the shop keeper who it was supposed to be. "The devil," he replied, "my father-in-law." We laughed and asked who the mask on the right was supposed to be. This mask was a skull with horns and a fish tail coming out of its head. "My mother-in-law" the man answered. In total we bought 2 hats, a hammock, and a very pretty blue painted plate that is a replica of an Aztec calendar.
We took a taxi back to the house. After we arrived we had a bit of ice cream. It was late and there was nothing else to do, so we all went to bed.
By the time I had gotten out of bed, Yanet had finished putting breakfast together. This morning, eggs were served, along with fresh fruit and bread. There were many varieties of fruit; the basket included bananas, strawberries, apples, watermelon, pineapple, along with all the other fruits you could name off the top of your head. In the bread basket there were croissants, muffins, and an assortment of pan dulces (sweet breads).
After breakfast, we all went down to the beach to go snorkeling. We brought our equipment from the house to the water, a walk that took thirty seconds total. Everyone donned their masks and snorkels, along with bathing suits and flippers. That is, everyone except Mellisa's mom who was not coming. Only one of our party was not wearing a bathing suit. My younger brother, Dylan, was testing out his mask and flippers in our swimming pool. As he was leaving the pool he was forced to take large, dramatic steps because of the flippers on his feet. The bathing suit he was wearing was, unfortunately, a bit small for him. In the middle of his step his bathing suit split down the middle. He walked, hunched over, to his room, with flippers still on, to get some pants. These he wore while snorkeling. At least it happened while still in the house and not on the beach in front of dozens of people. (Nobody cared that it was actually my spare bathing suit that Dylan was wearing at the time of this incident.)
Playa La Ropa was too crowded to enjoy snorkeling, in fact, had it not been crowded, there would have been hardly anything to see because the area near the beach is far too polluted for fish to live comfortably. We left our shoe on a big rock with lots of holes in it, ideal for leaving shoes in, that was situated on the beach. We entered the water with our masks on our faces and our flippers on our feet. We brought four boogie boards to rest on while in the water, if we got tired. (If you don't know what a boogie board is, then Google it!) We swam away from the beach, glancing down at the sparse sea life whenever we suspected it might be there. After a thirty minute swim we reached Las Gatas Beach. Las Gatas is only accessable by water taxi or swimming so we thought that it would be almost deserted. We were wrong. There were hundreds of people in the water. Perhaps the water taxi became a lot cheaper or a chunk of the population decided to become more athletic, but whatever the reason, it would not be a good snorkeling spot.
Las Gatas beach is a short stretch of sand with various family-owned restaurants behind it. The small area of water has a stone wall as a boundary. It is said that an Aztec king wanted a place for his daughter to play in the water without the huge waves and sea critters that come from the ocean. This king had a huge wall built to cut off the animals from entering the area and to block most of the waves.
To avoid the large groups of people in the water, we had to swim around the rock wall into the open water of the bay. There were no other people there. However, just below the surface, there were thousands of little fish, big fish, blue fish, red fish, and all other types of sea critters you could think of. I will name a few of these things I saw, but only a few. I could fill a hundred pages with what I saw in the first five minutes, but I will summarize.
A school of 30+ fish kept following our group. They were small, about 2 or 3 inches long. They had long yellow bodies with a black stripe along their backs. This school followed us from the corner of the rock wall, to the middle of the rock wall, and back to where we all started.
While we were looking around under the water, I found that the little fish following us had become distracted. They were trying to cram themselves all together on a big white spot on a rock. They wiggled and squirmed to try to touch what I guessed was their mouths to the rock. This led me to believe that there was some form of food present on the rock, and they all wanted a share. The way they all darted in and out and became a mass of black and yellow was amazing. They looked a bit like serpents, all coiled together, and moving quickly. Then, out of nowhere (actually, it was out from behind a rock), a huge blue fish charged the little ones. The small ones scattered everywhere, giving the appearance of an explosion. This foot-long blue fish circled the rock until the little fish returned to it, becoming a mass of yellow and black again. As expected, the blue fish charged them again and they scattered. The little fish continued to try to eat and the big fish continued to scare them off. They were still doing this when I left.
Because we had left our school of following fish behind, another school was obligated to follow us in the previous school's stead. These fish were colored pink and red. They were slightly fatter than our previous acquaintances, but their most striking feature was their glowing butts. They had what looked like an orb of light just in front of their tails. This group stayed with us until the first school realized that we had left, and caught up with us.
I sorely wish I had a waterproof camera to bring. I know that Isaac would have loved to see pictures.
Once we had seen enough we swam back to La Ropa beach, retrieved our shoes from the convenient rock, and returned to the house. Once there we got in the swimming pool for a little while, then ate lunch.
Every Sunday in Zihuatenejo there is a fiesta en el centro (party on the square). We decided to attend and see how the Mexicans partied. We took a taxi to the basketball court, where the fiesta was located. Once there, we experienced the Mexican craze for corn. There were corn tortillas, corn tamales, corn taco shells, corn on the cob, and then just plain corn.
After half an hour of observation we decided that Mexican parties were just like most American parties, dull. There was not much to do there once you ate, unless you wanted to listen to the music and talk. There were some people juggling fire, but they were not very good. One of them threw his flaming baton off the stage and, instead of catching it, it landed in the front row of the audience's seats. Fortunately, not many people were watching him and those who were had enough brains to sit in the back, so nobody was hurt.
We left the fiesta and walked to the market. This consisted of family owned stalls and small buildings filled with tons of miscellaneous items. The shop keepers all spoke English fluently and offered their wares to us in a language we all understood. The first shop we entered had beautiful wood carvings, jewelry, statues, masks, and other things, all of which were incredible (we were told that they were all hand made). My brother and I both bought hats there. The original price was 280 pesos (roughly $28). This was hugely overpriced, but in Mexico you are expected to haggle. My father and I were able to convince the shop keeper to lower the price to 200 pesos ($20). We proceeded to the next stall where we saw many of the same items. It was later explained to me that most of the shops on the same street corner are run by huge families so the artist who make these beautiful things give them to their children to sell. In one shop we saw two masks side by side. The one on the left was the face of a red man with horns. We asked the shop keeper who it was supposed to be. "The devil," he replied, "my father-in-law." We laughed and asked who the mask on the right was supposed to be. This mask was a skull with horns and a fish tail coming out of its head. "My mother-in-law" the man answered. In total we bought 2 hats, a hammock, and a very pretty blue painted plate that is a replica of an Aztec calendar.
We took a taxi back to the house. After we arrived we had a bit of ice cream. It was late and there was nothing else to do, so we all went to bed.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Saturday 11/18/06 Day 1
I got up early this morning, or, early for a weekend. We drove to the air port where we met the rest of our group. There are a total of 7 people in our group. There's me, my little brother, my dad, my sort-of-step-mom, her mom, my big brother, and his wife.
We went through all of the security stuff in the airport and got to the gate and boarded the plane. There were some really cool TV screens that came down from the ceiling, but they were not showing anything interesting. There was the GPS thing that told everyone where the plane was, but then they started showing a movie about football. I fell asleep and woke up when we were landing.
The airport we landed at was not as large as the one we left from. In fact, it was only a long building with several large rooms and a runway behind it. In total, I saw 1 plane other than the one we arrived on.
The first thing I realized as I stepped out of the plane onto the ladder (yes, they had a big ladder that went from the ground to the door) was that it was hot. Really hot. I was wearing long pants and a jacket because, as some readers may know, it was cold in Georgia that morning. I took off the jacket as soon as I could, which was while we were waiting in line to enter the building. We were in a total of 3 rooms while in the airport. There was the room we entered from the runway where they checked our passports. Then there was the baggage claim area. Before we could go into the next room they had to X-ray our bags again. After that we reached the door to the entrance room There was a big traffic light infront of the door. Unlike a normal traffic light, this one only had a green and a red light. Beneath the lights there was a button that looked exactly like the button you press to cross the street. A large sign pointed to the button saying "El Butón." We each were supposed to press the button, but my dad pressed it for the half of our group that I was in. The green light lit up and said "pass." I never saw what the red one said but I was later told that if the red one lit up then your bags and person would be searched. It was a pretty clever way to randomly screen people.
We left the airport and got into a white taxi truck. There were not enough seats in the truck for all seven of us, so I had to sit in the front between the Mexicanan driver and my dad. Apparently, the car was made to seat a person there because there was a small seat. This was probably because most Mexican families are large, with many kids. However, the car was also made under the assumption that most Mexicans don't wear seat belts because there was no seat belt for my sad excuse for a seat. I had to sit very still, with my legs forced into the small amount of leg room I had, and hope that this driver knew what he was doing.
There are two other members of our party who have not been introduced yet. Our two dogs, Milo and Adam (<- He was named that by his previous owners) are papillons. Papillon is french for butterfly. These dogs are called that because they have huge ears that perk up when they are excited (Apparently someone thought they looked like butterfly wings). Papillons are small black and white dogs with long fur. Adam has brown eyebrows like most other papillons, but Milo is something of a collection of "bad genes." He is too big and his bones are too dense for him to be a show dog like most papillons, and he doesn't have the "cute" brown eyebrows.
Milo and Adam had been sitting quietly in their doggy bags under a seat on the plane for 4 hours. They were very excited about being in a new place. While we were in the taxi going to Zihua, both of them were climbing around the truck, wanting to see everybody now that they were out of their small prisons. Adam climbed into my lap and stood on my legs to look out of the windsheild. After a little while he bent his head down and sneezed on our driver's leg. The driver made a weird sound, something between suprise and anger. He contained himself though, but he flinched when Adam sneezed again, even though I had repositioned him as to not upset anyone.
We drove up to the big wooden gate in the back of the house and unloaded the bags. Elio, one of the house's caretakers, let us in. We entered the courtyard while Elio took some bags to the upper house. So my readers aren't lost in the folowing paragraphs, I will give a breif description of the house.
The house is named "Villa Del Mar" and is located midway up a hill next to "La Ropa Beach." The house is divided into two sections. There is the lower house, which is accessible from the courtyard behind the house. Included in the lower house is a large room with two long couches. That room links to the dining room, a bedroom, and the front porch. The dining room connects with the kitchen and the porch. The porch has some couches and chairs. On one end there is a ciesta (Spanish for nap) bed. It is open to the air and a good place to sleep during the noon hours of the day. The area of the porch behind the bed connects with the bedroom. Infront of the porch is the swimming pool, a new adition to the house. It is a small pool, only 4-5 feet deep. It is an infinity pool, that is, one end of the pool does not have a wall so the water seems to blend with the ocean beyond. The water falls from the absent wall and is recycled back into the pool.
The upper house is connected to the ground by a long stone staircaise that winds through the courtyard. The staircase ends at a doorway to the kitchen of the upper house. Beyond the kitchen there is a living room with a lot of windows that can open to give a great view. Unfortunately, Elio had to nail those windows shut because some previous guests had gotten drunk and decided to walk on the roof. Beyond this room there is a bedroom. Past that is a hallway with a bathroom off to the side. At the end of the hall there is a master bedroom.
The courtyard has a stone path connecting the gate to the upper and lower house. Along this path is a well house. Inside is a telephone and a well, which has not seen use for who knows how long. There is another bedroom that is considered part of the lower house, but can only be reached from the courtyard. This is where my brother and I stay when we come here. Elio and Yanet, the house caretakers, live in a little house near the back of the property. When I first came here the caretakers lived in a single room hut with a small bed for two adults and two or three children. Seeing a huge spider crawl across the ceiling was not an uncommon thing. When my dad bought the house he had the little hut torn down and a new, better one built.
For a more detailed depiction of the house go here or here.
We settled into our rooms and then went out along the beach to find a resturaunt for lunch. Once we ate we strolled along the beach until we came to the crocodile's lair. There is a crocodile that lives on the beach in a lagoon that is seperated from the ocean by a thin strip of sand. I have been told that the crocodile will sometimes come out across the beach and go into the water. He will eat fish and he's been known to snap at a swimmer or two. The crocodile was not showing himself so we left. We returned to the house and got into the swimming pool. My big brother, Jon, is 26 but he still acts like a kid. He did cannon balls into the water and grabbed people's legs to pull them under.
Once everyone had had their fun in the pool, it was dinner time. Yanet had cooked some kind of chicken for us. Accompanying the chicken was a thick molé sauce and rice. We had water to drink and, of course, tortillas. Someone once said that if you want to make a Mexican meal all you need are tortillas, cheese, and meat. Almost all of those ingredients were present at tonight's dinner.
We went through all of the security stuff in the airport and got to the gate and boarded the plane. There were some really cool TV screens that came down from the ceiling, but they were not showing anything interesting. There was the GPS thing that told everyone where the plane was, but then they started showing a movie about football. I fell asleep and woke up when we were landing.
The airport we landed at was not as large as the one we left from. In fact, it was only a long building with several large rooms and a runway behind it. In total, I saw 1 plane other than the one we arrived on.
The first thing I realized as I stepped out of the plane onto the ladder (yes, they had a big ladder that went from the ground to the door) was that it was hot. Really hot. I was wearing long pants and a jacket because, as some readers may know, it was cold in Georgia that morning. I took off the jacket as soon as I could, which was while we were waiting in line to enter the building. We were in a total of 3 rooms while in the airport. There was the room we entered from the runway where they checked our passports. Then there was the baggage claim area. Before we could go into the next room they had to X-ray our bags again. After that we reached the door to the entrance room There was a big traffic light infront of the door. Unlike a normal traffic light, this one only had a green and a red light. Beneath the lights there was a button that looked exactly like the button you press to cross the street. A large sign pointed to the button saying "El Butón." We each were supposed to press the button, but my dad pressed it for the half of our group that I was in. The green light lit up and said "pass." I never saw what the red one said but I was later told that if the red one lit up then your bags and person would be searched. It was a pretty clever way to randomly screen people.
We left the airport and got into a white taxi truck. There were not enough seats in the truck for all seven of us, so I had to sit in the front between the Mexicanan driver and my dad. Apparently, the car was made to seat a person there because there was a small seat. This was probably because most Mexican families are large, with many kids. However, the car was also made under the assumption that most Mexicans don't wear seat belts because there was no seat belt for my sad excuse for a seat. I had to sit very still, with my legs forced into the small amount of leg room I had, and hope that this driver knew what he was doing.
There are two other members of our party who have not been introduced yet. Our two dogs, Milo and Adam (<- He was named that by his previous owners) are papillons. Papillon is french for butterfly. These dogs are called that because they have huge ears that perk up when they are excited (Apparently someone thought they looked like butterfly wings). Papillons are small black and white dogs with long fur. Adam has brown eyebrows like most other papillons, but Milo is something of a collection of "bad genes." He is too big and his bones are too dense for him to be a show dog like most papillons, and he doesn't have the "cute" brown eyebrows.
Milo and Adam had been sitting quietly in their doggy bags under a seat on the plane for 4 hours. They were very excited about being in a new place. While we were in the taxi going to Zihua, both of them were climbing around the truck, wanting to see everybody now that they were out of their small prisons. Adam climbed into my lap and stood on my legs to look out of the windsheild. After a little while he bent his head down and sneezed on our driver's leg. The driver made a weird sound, something between suprise and anger. He contained himself though, but he flinched when Adam sneezed again, even though I had repositioned him as to not upset anyone.
We drove up to the big wooden gate in the back of the house and unloaded the bags. Elio, one of the house's caretakers, let us in. We entered the courtyard while Elio took some bags to the upper house. So my readers aren't lost in the folowing paragraphs, I will give a breif description of the house.
The house is named "Villa Del Mar" and is located midway up a hill next to "La Ropa Beach." The house is divided into two sections. There is the lower house, which is accessible from the courtyard behind the house. Included in the lower house is a large room with two long couches. That room links to the dining room, a bedroom, and the front porch. The dining room connects with the kitchen and the porch. The porch has some couches and chairs. On one end there is a ciesta (Spanish for nap) bed. It is open to the air and a good place to sleep during the noon hours of the day. The area of the porch behind the bed connects with the bedroom. Infront of the porch is the swimming pool, a new adition to the house. It is a small pool, only 4-5 feet deep. It is an infinity pool, that is, one end of the pool does not have a wall so the water seems to blend with the ocean beyond. The water falls from the absent wall and is recycled back into the pool.
The upper house is connected to the ground by a long stone staircaise that winds through the courtyard. The staircase ends at a doorway to the kitchen of the upper house. Beyond the kitchen there is a living room with a lot of windows that can open to give a great view. Unfortunately, Elio had to nail those windows shut because some previous guests had gotten drunk and decided to walk on the roof. Beyond this room there is a bedroom. Past that is a hallway with a bathroom off to the side. At the end of the hall there is a master bedroom.
The courtyard has a stone path connecting the gate to the upper and lower house. Along this path is a well house. Inside is a telephone and a well, which has not seen use for who knows how long. There is another bedroom that is considered part of the lower house, but can only be reached from the courtyard. This is where my brother and I stay when we come here. Elio and Yanet, the house caretakers, live in a little house near the back of the property. When I first came here the caretakers lived in a single room hut with a small bed for two adults and two or three children. Seeing a huge spider crawl across the ceiling was not an uncommon thing. When my dad bought the house he had the little hut torn down and a new, better one built.
For a more detailed depiction of the house go here or here.
We settled into our rooms and then went out along the beach to find a resturaunt for lunch. Once we ate we strolled along the beach until we came to the crocodile's lair. There is a crocodile that lives on the beach in a lagoon that is seperated from the ocean by a thin strip of sand. I have been told that the crocodile will sometimes come out across the beach and go into the water. He will eat fish and he's been known to snap at a swimmer or two. The crocodile was not showing himself so we left. We returned to the house and got into the swimming pool. My big brother, Jon, is 26 but he still acts like a kid. He did cannon balls into the water and grabbed people's legs to pull them under.
Once everyone had had their fun in the pool, it was dinner time. Yanet had cooked some kind of chicken for us. Accompanying the chicken was a thick molé sauce and rice. We had water to drink and, of course, tortillas. Someone once said that if you want to make a Mexican meal all you need are tortillas, cheese, and meat. Almost all of those ingredients were present at tonight's dinner.
Friday, November 17, 2006
11/17/06 I will Leave Tomorrow
Tomorrow, early in the morning, I will depart for the airport and embark on a 4 hour long flight to a little town called Zihuatanejo. Zihuatanejo is on the pacific coast of Mexico, about halfway down the country.
My dad bought a house there two years ago and has been renting it to people. We are going there for the Thanksgiving break. It is really a beautiful place, and I am looking forward to sitting in the sun, swimming in the surf, and walking along the beach.
We have a direct flight from Atlanta to Ixtapa, a nearby city. The plane leaves at 10:15 A.M. We will get there at 1:20 P.M. Zijua is in another time zone; it's one hour earlier there.
I don't have much more to write about, seeing as I haven't left yet, but I'll say more once I'm there.
My dad bought a house there two years ago and has been renting it to people. We are going there for the Thanksgiving break. It is really a beautiful place, and I am looking forward to sitting in the sun, swimming in the surf, and walking along the beach.
We have a direct flight from Atlanta to Ixtapa, a nearby city. The plane leaves at 10:15 A.M. We will get there at 1:20 P.M. Zijua is in another time zone; it's one hour earlier there.
I don't have much more to write about, seeing as I haven't left yet, but I'll say more once I'm there.
