WWOOFing at Green Acres

Here we are in beautiful Aticama! I got a touch of “la tourista” in San Blas, and we waited around all afternoon in the zocalo until 3pm to take a taxi out of town. The friendly cabby chatted it up with me on the way to Aticama, and we got there a bit early. We waited in the shady plaza. It was right on the rocky beach and we watched giant pelicans fly right in front of us. While waiting, a herd of cows was driven through the middle of the road along with all the car traffic. About 20 minutes later, the signature purple Chrysler van rolls up, 2 other WWOOFers hop out, and we hop in. They were just in town to shop, and on the way back, Amaranth told us to pick up any supplies we’d need at the mini-super.

Green Acres is truly a tropical paradise. About 1.5 miles out of town, it’s a 10 square acre sanctuary of beauty and tranquility. We learned that a hectacre is not 100 acres, but about 2.5 acres. We were greeted at the gate by the farm’s roving dog pack. There’s 7 of them, all rescued, and they are sweet as can be. Lucy, Sparky, Opie, Penny, Winky, Emily and Dupie! They also have a large pen of roosters, chickens, ducks and geese. All are pets, and none get eaten. The farm grows primarily mangos (to sell) and then every kind of herb, green, vegetable, and medicinal plant you can imagine (for themselves). Most of the farm’s water comes from rain collection and a mountain river source. But in dry times like now, the river is very unreliable. They conserve water as much as possible. The whole farm has a terrific view of the Pacific ocean and the surrounding beach.

There are four permanent residences on the property. Wally designed and every one of them himself. The “Casita” is essentially a camping trailer on a foundation. Exterior roofing, shower, kitchen and furniture has been added, and the whole thing has been screened in. That’s near the bottom of the property. Two other WWOOFers are staying their with their little boy.

A bit lower is a little home for an old grouchy Mexican named Lorenzo. Amaranth & Wally took him in because he really had nowhere left to go, and they thought he was a good gardener. Turns out he’s not a good gardener… or good at much of anything except sitting around. We only briefly met him, but he has a reputation around here for showing up late, doing very little work, complaining about everything, and botching the jobs he does do. Wally and Amaranth call him Larry, but he doesn’t know that.









We live in the “Cono.” It’s a nine sided guest home build mainly of concrete. It has two floors, two beds, one bath, and one kitchen. We are currently the only ones living here, but were are expecting a young woman from New York on Sunday. They rent out the rooms for $500 a week, or just stick WWOOFers there if it’s empty. We have a great kitchen, it’s cool all the time from the windows, and a passion fruit tree right outside our door! We’re truly very comfortable. We chose the bottom floor because it’s much cooler (though the top floor has a magnificent view of the ocean). There’s a huge plaster replication of Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel painting on the ceiling.







Last (but certainly not least) is the home of Wally and Amaranth. This place is truly a palace! Winding staircases, arched doorways, furs and whalebones, a Jacuzzi overlooking their orchards, painting studio, yoga room, computer room, library and more! The whole thing is cooled by the breeze. It’s a three-story home that Wally built in stages. The most impressive part is the kitchen and patio on the third floor. It’s all open air, gorgeously decorated, with a strong sea breeze and the smells of Amaranth’s most recent creation. When one eats lunch, they get a magnificent view of the town, the sea, and the sky, framed in palm leaves, hammocks, and brilliant tropical flowers. It truly is a something out of a fairytale.

Life on the farm is productive and ends relaxed every day. Wally is in his 60’s and wears the same outfit of a hat, Dickies overalls and the same crusty shirt. He’s Caucasian and was clearly a handyman in his younger years. He loves to drive this bright yellow mish-mash car with no doors, a Porsche body, and huge elevated tires! Style and power! Amaranth is a small, gentle Japanese-American whose first language is English. Neither of them are fluent in Spanish, but they get by very well. Nevertheless, they supposedly have a terrific reputation around town, largely for their open hearts and generosity to everyone. Amaranth abhors to hurt anything with a pulse, and her food is always vegetarian. She’s a terrific cook, as well, making abundant, diverse lunches that she serves every day at 1:00 sharp. We always say a quick blessing and sip on passion fruit juice and her latest creation with a greens-salad that was picked just hours ago. She’s a painter and intense foodie from what I can tell. She’s always relating things to raw foods, super foods, pickling, and fermenting. They always have lots of funny stories to tell, and they have been incredibly gracious.

We quickly befriended our WWOOFing neighbors, and we already feel like close friends. Their names are Bard and Zoey. They’re from Albuquerque NM, and they own a perma-culture business there. They are in their thirties. They spent two years in Zambia with the Peace Corps, and have WWOOFed in other countries like Australia. Their landscaping knowledge has been very helpful in guiding our projects. We work with them all day and at night we enjoy cocktails made of citrus, passion-fruit and tequila, while we work together to make a group dinner. Mostly we’ve been feasting on these giant blue prawns that Aticama is known for. They are so sweet, caught fresh off the beach, and run about $4.50/lb. What a deal! They also have a precious 1 ½ year old named Bard, but they call him “Little Bard” or “L.B.” for short. He’s always dirty, always having fun, and always exploring. It’s great to have him around to keep us lighthearted.




We wake up at 6:30am each day. The roosters start going crazy at 4:00am, and at 5:30 the lady on the loudspeaker gets crackin’. Apparently, the town has a lady that, for 10 pesos will blast whatever message you want throughout the city, and can be heard loud and clear from everywhere on the farm. She hollers about anything from advertisements for juice stands and tamales, to “Happy Birthday Maria, your parents home you love the cake they got you”, and “Benjamin, please come home. You’re breaking mama’s heart.” She blasts each one 5 or 10 times a minute or so apart. So far, we’ve worked primarily on cobbling a driveway up to house. The four of us have laid 65 feet of cobbling in three days. We dig into the rock with pickaxes, haul boulders over, fit them into place, and cover them with dry cement. It’s hard work and HOT, come 9:30am. We quit around 11. We also have been clearing banana leaves, building a palapa (straw hut), and planted, bordered, and seeded a vegetable garden.

Aticama is our favorite town so far. Small, beautiful, and the locals are all so friendly. I'm alreadybuddies with a dozen locals like Alba, Nini, Jesus, Angel, Lupita, Patricia, and Carlos. They love to chat, and it just takes a smile or a laugh to have them call you by name on the street.

We'll leave you with a final photo. This is Julia in the back of a Mexican's pickup truck driving into town! I started chatting with a guy that was waiting for a taxi with us. No taxi or bus came, and eventually his buddy rolls up. He says to hop in, and we did! Just look at that smile!

We love you all back home! You'll hear from us again within a week, maybe twice. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Hasta luego!

--Philip

More Bikes Than Cars

Last night we went to McDonald’s! No...not the McDonald’s with the golden arches and meat of questionable origin and quality. I’m talking about the 50+ year old restaurant that’s just a block away, was founded by American expats, and is staffed by Mexicans. They have a massive list of Nayarit specialties, and it was one of the three restaurants that Norm said he’ll eat at. We asked if we could sit upstairs, and when we got there all the chairs were on the tables, and only the bartender was present. He immediately jumped to attention, sat us by the balcony (with a great view of the town and street below), and proceeded to guide toward an excellent dinner and evening. The place was dead… I mean dead. We got some “queso fondido”, a michelada & bottled water, and then asked Juan (our server) why nobody was there. We immediately became friends, and we talked about the menu, the town, his family in Guadalajara, and even what teams were playing on the TV. It was truly a beautiful night. We watched all kinds of colorful characters on the streets below as we enjoyed fresh fish from the Pacific, cream of oyster stew, homemade totopos (chips), and Modelo Especial (Modelo seems to be the favorite beer around here). Eventually more people began to arrive, and Julia could only do her best to bear the heavily synthesized Mexican love songs blasted overhead. She said “I could probably stay in Mexico much longer if it wasn’t for the music.” It would seem they do karaoke a lot of the time, but the business didn’t warrant it last night. We watched down below as the candy sellers and kids selling refreshments made their way home, new tourists freshly arriving with their luggage and smiles on their faces strolled down the street, and a pack of Americian highschool boys wandered down the road (Modelos in hand) with no clear idea of what to do with themselves or the beer (lots just got dumped out, and cans got crushed, without the gumption to litter). There was this one guy in a white truck that drove by at least four times. He has these massive speakers on the roof of the cab that were blasting some local pop station. The point? No idea. But Julia accurately pointed out “Mexicans are willing to go the extra mile.”

It would seem our night would end with peace, satisfaction, and a feeling of love for our fellow man. We crawled into bed, feeling lovely, and tried to go to sleep. About an hour later we were woken back up.It was around 9pm, and we started hearing this very loud, very bass-y music coming through our walls. Turns out, our hotel is right across the road from the local disco! From 9:00 until 4:30am (yes, I looked at my watch) this bone-rattling oompapa music kept us from sleeping much. On top of that, Julia had acquired a nagging shallow cough. She had the night before too, but when we turned off the air conditioner, it went away. But tonight (with no AC) she hacked and hacked without stop until morning (one cough per 15-30 seconds by my count). As we left our room in the morning, our upstairs neighbors said “A bit noisy last night, wasn’t it?” I hope disco isn’t popular on Sundays!

Speaking of Sundays, today is the beginning of San Blas’ International Migratory Bird Festival! The whole zocalo is prepared for the event, with a massive stage, tons of fold up chairs, and big boards with the schedule of events. Lots of tourists from all around the world are arriving too. Julia is really excited, and hopefully we’ll get to partake in a little of the action.

Our day started out with another visit to the mercado where Julia enjoyed a gordita harina (basically a fried flour pillow), and we sipped on fresh juice. One guy sitting next to us was cleaning a bizarre looking fruit, and I discovered that “Yakka” doesn’t mean “yucca” at all… it means “Jack fruit” ! Julia wasn’t brave enough to try it, so we sipped on a lovely blend of strawberries, pineapple and carrot juice.

We rented a couple bicycles today ($4.00 a day) and did as the locals did… riding to our destinations. The bikes are a bit rickety, and we had some tire issues. Still, it is a faster way to get around, and it seems true that bikes outnumber cars in this little beach town.
Julia was feelin a bit under the weather today. We spent a little time at the beach, and I went swimming. I think I caught one wave for every crab I stepped on. They’re everywhere, big, and cranky! I tried to convince Julia they just wanted a hug, but she wasn’t buyin it. Every so often a group of guys would come by with nets and a cooler and scoop them right out of the water! Yum! I can’t wait until we have our own kitchen down here. Julia was ready to head back, so we packed up and rode to the hotel. She decided to crash in the room, and I wandered around the town. I had the best tacos I’ve had yet at a little family place on the zocalo. Tortillas made in house, grilled on the griddle, and stuffed with your choice of fillings like tongue, tripe, and carne asada. Myself, I tried one with shrimp, one with marlin, and one with chicken. Que delicioso! You also got to help yourself to their topping bar, with 6 homemade salsas, pico de gallo, cabbage, pickled onions, radishes and limes. I overloaded all of mine with as much as they could hold (yes, one did break). At $.0 80 US per taco, I’ll definitely be coming back. I sat and watched the taxi queue that was forming 3 feet away and enjoyed watching them interact. When one taxi left the queue, the more fuel-efficient cabbies would just push their car forward without ever turning it back on. Mexican efficiency right there for you!

I also just got off the phone with Amaranth from our farm! We had a lovely chat, and she informed me that they only have dial-up internet, and most of the workers drive 10 minutes into San Blas for a faster internet connection. That means we will only be able to update this blog once or twice a week starting this Tuesday. So don't worry, we're not kidnapped! And we will be updating regularly, we promise.

--Philip

San Blas

Above is Julia showing that "Estancia Las Flores" indeed lives up to its name! Yes, we've made it to San Blas in one piece, and we have fallen in love. Okay, so getting here was something of an ordeal, but we'll get to that in a moment. For now, we're happy, full of sun, sand, fish, tequila, and joy.















Yesterday we woke up bright and early, ate some "questionable" looking pork tacos from a rickety street cart. Julia bit the bullet, and we chowed down right there on the sidewalk. (Still no "Tourista"!) We did a tiny bit of strolling and grocery shopping, but we were honestly ready to get out of Puerto Vallarta. The town is crawling with hawkers, beggars, clueless tourists, and an extra helping of Mexican filth. We asked the hotel receptionist when the bus to the bus station comes. She says "Oh, all the time. Every 5 minutes." We camp at the right spot... and 45 minutes later (right when were ready to throw in the towel) here it comes! We rode to the station, purchased tickets to Tepic and got aboard our bus. It was definitely the most comfortable seats we've sat on here, and they had AC. Julia was greatly relieved! It was a twisty, 4 hour bus ride through the jungled mountains. Every 20 minutes or so, the bus would stop and someone would jump on selling food, drinks, and other goods. We finally pulled into Tepic (quite carsick), purchased our tickets to San Blas, and the lady told me it left in two minutes! We ran as fast as we could... but we missed it! So, we bought a ticket for the next one (an hour later), pulled up some stools at a little food booth, and munched the hour away. Delicious quesadillas, "burritos", pepsi and salsa! I also was educucated on what "pierna" and "sincronizadas" are (pork and a combination of pork/chicken). We used the pay-per-use banos and watched little Mexican chiquitos bumbling around.



--Philip


Ok MY turn to write now. :) It has been quite an experience for me these past three days I have to admit. I've pretty much run the gamut of emotions, but I can happily say that now, here in San Blas I am quite at peace. We had a rather interesting ride here, with us confused about which bus we had to take in order to get here from Tepic, and it was an interesting ride in it

self. The bus driver had the most interesting side-kick, a man who looked about 30ish with swinging arms, a bit of a belly and a nasty cold. He would just stand at the front of the bus chatting it up with the driver, at one point actually stopping the bus in order to hit on a lady just standing on the side of the road as well as breaking out a little mini tv to get a signal in the bus.


After a rather bumpy and winding road, passing little colonies of towns with little dirty children and chickens and pigs, we finally arrived in San Blas. We got out of the bus, grabbed our luggage that of course had migrated to the very back of the holding cell under the bus, and stepped into the street. We had not a single clue where we were, I start feeling the panic creep up on my face and there across the street we see the zocalo (the middle square of the town) and I see a rather white, middle aged woman looking at us from across the street with the look of pity on her face. She comes up to us and directs us to a group of three people sitting in the zocalo on a bench, one, we are told, is "Norm" and will be able to answer all our questions. Lo and behold Norm and his wife Janet are ex-pats who hacve lived here for 42 years. With them was the sweetest little Canadian lady, Inge. We chatted it up abit with them, and they not only pointed us to our little hotel, but also directed us as to where was best to eat and so forth. We went to our hotel to clean up and also buy some new bug spray, because apparently the OFF we brought with us actually ATTRACTS the bugs. This was the discussion that brought us to this conclusion. As follows:

Janet- You got bug spray? Us-Yeah Janet-I'd put it on right now Us-Oh ok ::shuffle in bag to get out the OFF and start spraying it:: Janet-Is that OFF? Us-Um, yeah Janet-That actually attracts the bugs ::stop spraying::

I thought it was rather humorous. We then learned MUCH to my delight that the rumors we had heard in Puerto Vallarta were true, Humpback Whales are here right now off the coast mating and having little (ok, not that little) babies. If you know anything about me, you know that I about fainted with delight at the prospect of going whalewatching. Norm offered to help put us in contact with someone who can take us out. I will update you on how that turns out. Mark my words, I will make this happen.


So after we chatted with them, we headed off to a nice dinner, then to bed. This morning we woke up around 7:30 and headed to the local market that Inge had mentioned to us for morning grub. Boy were we excited, we made off with two huge drinks of fresh (as in just squeezed in front of us) orange quice mixed with blended whole bananas, papaya, strawberries and pineaple. De-LISH. We also had a yummy "torta" basically a chicken or pork mixture topped with lettuce and tomato on a bollilo. With our tummies full, we bid Inge farewell and headed to the beach.

It was about a mile walk from our hotel down to the beach. Playa de Borrega. It's just beautiful, not only was it almost deserted, but right when we got there I spotted a pod of dolphins hanging out just like a quarter of a mile into the ocean. Naturally I thought they were whales at first and almost had a fit, but Philip calmed me down with "they're dolphins" and I could breathe again. They were way fun to watch, as were the couple of young mexican kids out surfing. Philip was pretty much green with envy as we watched them catch every wave coming in and out. They aren't big, but fun looking enough. I am sure Philip will want to try this as soon as possible. And I am also sure I'll get some good pictures out of it. We walked a long way down the beach and back. We had no towel so we mostly just waded and then sat in the sand for a while. For lunch...oh boy...a whole fried fish served with tortillas and fixins, along with a fish torta, a Corona for Philip, a freshly macheted Coconut for me and a cocktail glass full of oysters for Philip. And it was all about 10 dollars, thats Mexico my freinds.

So in all, we are quite happy here in San Blas, where the bikes outnumber the cars and yummy food a plenty. We go to our farm on Tuesday, but I am sure more adventures await us here in San Blas.



Until next time,

Julia