El Quelite with the whole gang

I love our friends here at Las Jaibas - they are always up for fun. This time 12 of us carpooled & motorcycled to El Quelite for a special afternoon of entertainment and food and fun. We all met up at a great restaurant - amazingly painted and decorated like nothing I've ever seen before. Even the bathrooms were spectacular - the urinals in the mens room are carved out of trees - the sink in the womens room, same thing.... but enough bathroom talk....

Act 1: Ancient fire dances.... we saw 6 young bucks all painted up and feathered up to run and dance and portray the dances of their ancestors. We saw a deer dance, an eagle dance and an amazing display of fire. Yowza!

Act 2: Cock fighting demonstration. Can't tell you anything about this since I wouldn't watch, but from what I heard, no one was hurt. But really, cockfighting???? Jeez....

Act 3: A demonstration of the ancient ball game (ulama) they played around here and at the sacred pyramids. The ball (which is a solid mass and quite heavy) can only be hit with the hip. Looks a lot like soccer meets hacky sack. And these guys looked like pros. We were all quite impressed. It was wicked fun to watch. They played on the street, and were careful not to get hit by the occasional auto.

The food was great. We all had a blast. Its already on my list to do again next year. I even know what I want to order (coconut shrimp). ;-)

Big Chile Cook off

Another fun day in our lives. I was one of 14 cooks who participated in the Las Jaibas RV Park first annual Chili Cook off. We were unable to find any canned or frozen green chiles, so Hal and I bought some fresh ones and had ourselves a chile roast on the patio....

We got to taste all the different chilis - each one was unique - mine was the only one that was not red ;-)

The grand prize winner, interestingly enough, gave out tequila shots and free chocolate. The second place winner gave out free beer. I am a little suspicious, but after watching the American voting style of the Bush administration, I am beginning to understand more and more.

We had coverage from the local newspaper (guess which photo was in the paper) and we spent the afternoon surrounded by smiling, happy people who made a lot of yummy sounds. And, we made around $400 for the local orphanage.

Next year, we will be giving out free bong hits.

Git on yer bike and ride......

One of our favorite days EVER in Mazatlan... we took our bikes to the malecon (the boardwalk that parallels the beach) this morning and rode the whole length of it and back - around 14 miles total. What an amazing ride. I couldn't ask for a more perfect route. Flat! And on one side, the Pacific ocean. On the other, the city of Mazatlan. We went by so many beautiful statues, we went by beaches, fishing boats, islands, vendors, busy parts of the city and more quiet parts of the city. We started at the north end of the malecon where it is pretty wide - almost as wide as a 2 lane street - and at the south end, we had a picnic and then, rode back. The weather was perfect, the scenery was perfect, the whole darn day was pretty perfect....

Gentle changes

In the past week, we've noticed some subtle changes in the weather (definitely getting warmer at night - high 50's), the days are notably longer, the beach is calling us more and more, and life goes on....

Hal has been working at tarot readings and teaching his meditation class - work that he loves and that is changing the world. I am starting to get serious about my list of crafts and projects. We both had massages yesterday - life is good.

We will be working on getting some photos up. We have been sticking petty close to home lately. Last week, we scrubbed our bus, washed our windows, did some paint touch-ups.... We are not only taking care of ourselves, but also our sweet little home.

We are still going to Spanish classes once a week and we found a very fun live band to boogie to. And we still get together with our rv park buddies every friday evening for happy hour.

Big buzz for this week is the first annual Chile Cook-off at our rv park. Stay tuned for photos of that - we have 13 different cooks aiming to win the coveted plastic crown.

The internet has gone from bad to very bad. Makes phone calls almost impossible, emails are pretty hit or miss and the blog.... well, we'll see.

A Common Week

We've been having a "normal" week recently. Our friend Joy left on Sunday and we have been doing an assortment of activities since then: a dental appointment, meeting a friend at our favorite cafe down the road (The Looney Bean), reading, beach and swimming, washed the bus and repainted a few areas on it, lunch with friends, Spanish class, art opening downtown, battling with the recently problematic internet connection, grocery shopping. No pictures to include with this report.

Some Assorted Photos

Madonna Slept Here

We visited an old hacienda that used to make tequila. It's been renovated into a beautiful bed and breakfast type ranch. We had lunch there and heard that Madonna rented out the whole place over the holidays for her family and friends. We could see why.

Museums

Here's some photos from several museums in Mexico City.