Pop. 900 to Pop. 6 Million

Our time on the Nayarit coast has finally come to a close. But we didn't leave before we had a few more memorable experiences and made a few more great friends.

As promised, Julia finally got to see her whales on Saturday! We took a "lancha" out from San Blas (nobody ended up coming along), and it was a three-hour round trip. Departing early in the morning, it took us about an hour of uneventful searching before Julia finally spotted a flipper on the horizon! We blasted toward them, but once we got there, they'd moved on. It took us a while to figure out where they'd come out next. But once we did get near them, it was a tremendous experience. The whales were, um... huge, as Julia pointed out about 50 times. We even got misted by their spray once. On the way back, we drove right along with 3 big humpbacks and a pod of dolphins. At our closest, we were within about 15 or 20 feet of them as they crested. You could feel a primal dread and awe of such a massive beast so close. We were unable to get any good photographs of them (because you had about 2 seconds before they were gone again). However, we did get some terrific video on Grandad's videocamera that we'll show you when we get home. On the way back, we saw this brilliantly white stone island in the middle of the ocean (white from pelican poop) topped with a statue of the Virgen of Fatima.

We ended our final Pacific-coast weekend with another trip to the delicious Garza Canella restaurant. We enjoyed it just as much as the first time, including the (very spicy) arbol chile and chocolate cake.

Perhaps the best part of our final week on the farm was the arrival of some new WWOOFers. We were joined by Phoebe on Sunday. She arrived during a massage we were having from a local lady (whom we heard about through a local gringa we met). We instantly fell in love with Phoebe, who was to room with us. She was quirky, easy going, and a great help around the house and the farm. She managed a farm in Boston and she's only 22! Later that day, another couple, Jason and Victoria arrived too. They're from Washington D.C., and they were a hoot too. They'd been camping in California for the last few weeks, and were slowly making their way to Argentina. Jason is fluent in Spanish, but is as American as Julia or me. He'd spent a year in Costa Rica teaching English classes. We really enjoyed working with these three WWOOFers (and they were hard workers), cooking together, and sharing stories. We were kind of their tutors for the first couple days because Amaranth was gone and Wally stayed pretty busy. We'll definitely miss them, but it's good to know Green Acres will be in good hands after we've gone.

Thursday morning we departed. Wally was picking up Amaranth from Tepic, so he offered to give us a ride there in his van. We said our goodbyes, got our tickets, and were soon on our way to the state of Jalisco. Jalisco is the birthplace of many things Americans think of as "Mexican". It is the cultural home of mariachis, rodeos, and tequila! There were a couple movies played on the three hour bus ride, but I was more interested in the scenery. It quickly changed from lush tropical jungle to arid farmland. The brownish landscape was broken up by beautiful seas of greenish-blue agave plantations, as far as the eye could see. About an hour outside of the city, we entered Guadalajara. There were probably over 100 miles of endless suburban sprawl. Guadalajara is home to over 6,000,000 inhabitants, making it the second largest city in the country.


Taking a taxi from the Central, we arrived at our hostel about 20 minutes later. We checked in, and really were impressed. It's SO quiet compared to Aticama! There is wifi in the whole building, the beds are comfortable (I sleep on the top bunk), we get a free (if overly sugary) breakfast, and the reception is very knowledgable and helpful. We are in a room with 6 beds, but we are lucky enough to be the only ones there right now.

We quickly headed out on an evening jog to explore the city. What an enchanting place Guadalajara is! We are staying in a chic little barrio called "Nueve Esquinas" or "Nine Corners", that reportedly has the best birria restaurants in town. Birria is a type of stewed or roasted meat stuffed into tortillas with salsa, onions, beans, and chiles. Yes, it does sound alot like tacos. But we went to the place that is supposed to be the best. And boy was it GREAT! We shared a couple of plates, one with slow-fire-roasted goat meat, and one with tender lamb stewed in maguay leaves! We were talking about it for hours -- easily the best "Mexican" food we've had here yet.


Our place is also only about 4 blocks from the "centro". Thousands of walkers, lovers, and families stroll the area's endless plazas. Towering cathedrals loom over the cool gardens, and there are more statues and fountains than I could count. We caught a live performance from the city's excellent orchestra in one of the squares. The centro is also host to the legendary Mercado Libertad (a 4-story labyrinth of vendor stalls that covers 9 square city blocks) and a huge multi-story jewelry mecca. We visited both yesterday. Perhaps because of the lack of options we had in Aticama, or perhaps because we shopped for over 5 hours, we were finally overwhelmed by all the selection. In the Mercado they sell everything imaginable, from fruit to leather goods, whole pig heads to granola, video games to soccer shoes. And each stand comes equipped with an aggressive salesman or woman. We did get some great purchases though, including some jewelry for Julia, delicious meats, cheeses, fresh yoghurts and produce. Defeated, we fled back to the serenity of our room once more.

We're also walking distance from the city's primary food and bar scene. Last night we spent an hour hunting for the perfect bar, before settling into a hipster French-themed espresso bar and cocktail lounge. Today we went on a 2-hour long walk/jog through that area again (in search of a remote English-language bookstore). Through that search, we came to realize that Guadalajara has ALOT of restaurants and lounges from every culture. We found beautiful open air bistros, authentic looking Italian pizzerias and tratorrias, gobs of nice looking sushi restaurants, and even a Swiss restaurant! With a population of 6 million, I suppose we shouldn't be suprised that that culinary scene here is in the 21st century. We might be eating less Mexican food while we're in Guadalajara, simply because all the other stuff looks so good. So tonight it will probably be chianti and fettucini. Or... sushi and a Sapporo. Or maybe fusion nuveau Mexican...

In our last two days here, we hope to see a ballet folklorico, go to the Sunday antiques market, visit the beautiful Parque de Agua Azul, and more. We are still a bit overwhelmed... after all, this is the biggest city I've ever been in! It's so rich, sprawling, and huge, and yet it is still inviting and warm in the way only Mexico can be. I mean, last night we forgot our umbrella at a lounge, and the bartender chased us down 3 or 4 blocks to give it to us. God bless Mexico!

Saludos!

Philip

Tepic and back

Well well, this week we started out on a trip to the capital of the state of Nayarit, Tepic. It has about 300,000 people and…a Wal-Mart…which we shall be discussing later. I really wanted to go there due to the fact that a lot of the native Huichol people live there and have many stands where they sell their gorgeous handmade crafts. I’m including a picture of something we bought for ourselves. It’s a sun and moon in gorgeously vivid colors, and all those colors come from teeny tiny glass beads that are glued onto a wooden back. It’s all hand done. I also bought a ton of jewelry for myself and for gifts to bring back.

The ride to Tepic from Aticama was quite a stomach-churner, its all switchback through mountain jungle for two hours. Poor Philip got quite green, but luckily we got there a little earlier than expected and there was a beautiful park where we sat to let our stomachs settle before exploring. It was a bit jarring to be among so many people again. But nice at the same time, it felt so much more energetic. We first headed to the zocalo where there was a beautiful cathedral that we poked our heads into during Mass. It was standing room only, and we felt a little out of place, so we didn’t linger. We walked around for a while trying to find the place where most of the Huichol stands were concentrated. Luckily, right in the center, there was a tourist info center and someone pointed us in the right direction. There was a large row of stands all down this one street. Behind every stall was a line of kids/teens all traditionally dressed and working on dozens of crafts. Apparently the Huichol are very anti-assimilation. They really wear their traditional dress, worship their own deities, and live apart from most of the big cities. Philip got his first taste of haggling in Spanish. This has been something that we have been hesitant to do out of fear that we might insult someone. But in all our guide books it says that haggling for everything in a market to taxi rides is permissible and expected. And the thought of having to bargain in a second language is a bit intimidating, but he got the hang of it.

After I had gotten my fill of jewelry buying, we stopped and ate some cold barbequed ribs that we had made the night before. So…good. We actually came across BBQ sauce in a small store in San Blas and naturally we had to have it. Philip doctored it up really well and we ended up with the leanest, tenderest ribs we’ve ever had. Granted it took us about 4 hours to make, but we certainly didn’t care. It was so worth it. Oh, and I also had some of the best soft-serve ever in Tepic, and I am a self-proclaimed soft-serve addict. It beat my old fave DQ hands down. We also ate some bananas we’d brought that were actually from some of the wild ones growing on the farm. As soon as one of them starts to ripen on the stalk you have to bring them in and hang them inside, otherwise the birds get at them. And apparently whenever a banana tree makes a bunch of bananas, that’s the end of it, you chop the whole thing down, and it has to start all over again.

After our market trip we were determined to get to the biggest supermarket we could. Wal-Mart loomed so familiarly down the road, singing siren songs of more selection than we could dream of. We could not resist. The minute we stepped in, I could just feel our recipes that we’d come up with at the farm getting better. We stayed there for hours just salivating. We actually didn’t end up buying a ton as we would have to trek it all on our backs back home. But real yogurt, flour tortilla mix (they were deLISH btw), Jose Cuervo Tradicional, fresh mushrooms, whipping cream, and a big bag of cacahuates dulces (basically a praline peanut) came back with us. We also came back with, very strangely, a bag of totally un-sour limes…they were very strange and disappointing. We headed back home before dark so excited about all our new purchases.

Tuesday, we had a visitor. While Philip was making amazing fajitas out on the grill, he heard this piteous mewling noise off in the distance. It got closer and closer and finally a little spotted kitten with big green eyes showed himself hovering around the light from the house. He was really skittish and we tried to shoo him away to get him to go back home, but he was obviously lost and all alone. I finally lured him towards a saucer of milk and after the first little pat on his head, we were best friends. He LOVED us. The minute we went inside to eat and left him alone outside, he would cry and cry, even jumping up on the window sill wherever we were to see us. He followed our feet wherever we went outside. I was concerned he would cry all night and keep us up, but he stopped after a while after we went to bed. But when I woke up at 6:00 the next morning, there he was, crying at the door. We figured out that he probably belonged to a small house at he bottom of the hill from the farm. We knew they had a ton of cats there, and he probably just wandered up the hill and got lost. So the next day we took him down and lo and behold, there were a bunch of other kittens all his same size, and the minute we put him down, he seemed at home. We went back to check on him today, and there he was, happy as can be. Mission kitten rescue accomplished.
The rest of the week went by without much ado. Amaranth actually left last Sunday for Arizona to help her mom move there from Washington DC, so it’s just been us and Wally on the farm. In her absence, she asked for me to keep up the house for her, so that takes up an hour or two of my morning. And we have had to go sans her lovely lunches and fend for ourselves. Philip and Wally completed the hen-house. The goose laid an egg; a massive thing that took her a whole day to deliver, poor thing. Then Philip and I dug up a completely new garden in the back of the cono. It was very hard work, pickaxing and then getting all the clumps of grass out to make the new garden. Then we hauled ancient dirt from the chicken coop as well as ash from the fire pile to mix into the dirt to make it extra fertile.
As usual, there was there were many yummy meals cooked. I managed to make speatzle and meatballs with a mushroom sauce…yum. I baked cinnamon rolls from scratch which we then gifted to some of our friends down in town. Philip made a true fire-roasted salsa as well as a gorgeous pineapple/shrimp shishkebab ring, the aforementioned ribs, fajitas with the homemade salsa and homemade tortillas. Then tonight’s orange-beef stir fry. Yummy.
Wednesday we got another animal surprise. We were down by the casita at the bottom of the hill, and on my way back up to the cono I saw Opie (one of the dogs) barking like mad. I thought he was just being silly, barking at us because sometimes he doesn’t recognize us. I was yelling at him to hesh up when I saw something rather large moving through the grass in the space between us. It was a HUGE snake, the thickness of my arm and about as long as me. I could see that it wasn’t poisonous, a constrictor of some type (thanks middle school science Olympiad). I want to say it’s a boa constrictor because of the gorgeous pattern on its skin. I yelled to Philip to “come see this HUGE snake” “huge snake?”, I could hear the doubt in his voice. I felt much better when he saw it and made the appropriate impressed noises. The snake made its way into a stand of grass and got into a defensive position all coiled up. We stayed back enough just to get pictures, we'll add some on here, but you should click on it so you can actually see him, he blended in so well. Philip managed to get some video of him slithering around too. Then after about 10 minutes of gawking we left him alone. Philip saw him again later on and managed to get some video of him. But we haven’t seen him since.
Today we went to Casa Manana to get their Wifi and we managed to book our first hostle stay in Guadalajara. We will be staying at Hostal de Maria from March 5th through the 9th, it had great reviews and the last wwoofer Gina had stayed there on her way here and liked it very much. Going from Aticama pop. 900 to Guadalajara with 6 million people will be a big change. But there are so many things to do there. Gorgeous churches, museums, parks, huge markets spanning 30 city blocks, ballet floclorico, tequila distilleries, and hopefully our first Mexican theatre experience are all things we are looking forward to. And it is less than a week away now. After that we are planning a trip north to Zacatecas, then back down to Guanaguato, then to San Miguel De Allende for another stay at a different wwoof farm. But that one will only be for two weeks. After that…who knows? Hopefully we wont be broke and can get the chance to head down to Oaxaca. Time will tell.

Today we were supposed to get a new roommate, Pheobe. But as yet it is 8 oclock and dark and she hasn’t shown up yet. We shall see.

Saturday it's whale watching!

--Julia

A Week of Waterfalls

Hello again, faithful blog readers. It’s great to be able to post again and reconnect with everyone back home. Make sure to keep those comments coming so we can know how you’re doing too. And Charlie, if you’re reading this in San Blas, let me know!

My body is telling me something. My skin is a golden brown, and my Mexistache is filling in nicely. All this physical work and time outside is both invigorating and exhausting. I go to sleep completely spent each night, and wake up stiff but energetic each day at 6:30am sharp. My shoulders are tired from chopping wood for barbeques and swinging a pickaxe to dig trenches for chicken wire. My feet hurt from the steep 2 mile hike we take into town and back most days…sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. My palms are sore from swinging a machete at everything from bamboo to coconuts to banana trees (yes, I can chop an entire banana tree to the ground in one swing!). Every day at noon I shower off the layer of chicken filth and dirt that’s accumulated in my hair and in all my clothes… and underneath are the burns, scratches, bruises and bug bites that cover every inch of my skin. Literally every work day I haul hundreds of pounds of river stones from one specified location to another, either by wheelbarrow or by hand (Says Wally “What’s a day if you didn’t haul any rocks?”) Even the cuticles on my fingernails are shredded from the seven or eight hours I’ve spent threading fishing rope through sharp metal chicken wire. But the craziest thing of all is that I love it. I mean really love it. The feeling of a good day’s work on your muscles, the peace of the jungle at twilight, a dog by your side (preferably Opie, the three-legged wonder, or Sparky, the golden eyed Alpha male) and a beer in your hand – that’s a mighty fine thing indeed. I find myself each day, multiple times a day, thanking God for sending out into this beautiful land. We continue to have terrific adventures every day, and when Amaranth asked if we would stay an extra week in order to acclimate the new WWOOFers, (she’s leaving to help her mom move to Arizona)… we quickly said yes. Therefore, we will be staying until March 5th.

Remember us mentioning that Michelangelo reproduction on the ceiling of our house here? Well, the painter of that mural showed up 3 days ago to commission another picture in the home of Amaranth & Wally. We got to chatting, and I learned that he’s a nature lover. One thing led to another, and he ended up inviting me on a walk along the river to a beautiful valley he knows of. His name is Dante, and he’s 53. I checked with our hosts, and they said he’s trustworthy and everyone knows about his “nature walks.” We left around 4pm yesterday, and what an experience it was! He took off jogging, and I did my best to keep up with him. We ran a good 2 miles into the Aztec jungle, hopping from one path to another, jumping along river stones upstream, darting through barbed wire, and sliding down steep slopes. My thoughts alternated between “I feel like I’m on a hunt with a wizened Aztec warrior in the middle of the Mexican forest.” and “ I bet this guy’s going to lose me, and I’ll end up lost or macheted in a ditch somewhere.” Since I’m writing this, the latter obviously didn’t happen. Dante liked to stop along the river to dip his face in and drink. Every so often he’d warn me about this guy or that guy nearby who has a pack of dogs we might run into, or he’d let out a wailing grito (the Mexican cries you hear in Tejano music that sound a bit like a laugh). We finally ended up at a pool at the base of a beautiful waterfall. He stripped down and dove in with just his underwear on. He asked me to join him, but I declined (thinking, “Yeah, the second I do, he’ll run off with my shoes and shirt!). He slid down the waterfall, cooled off, then redressed and we headed back out. On the way back we ran into the dogs, and the owner, who graciously said we could use his road any time we want to return to the falls. Returning, we took a different route, and got a bit turned around. Upon asking a family in a truck that was picking fruit, they pointed the way, told us to jump in, and drove us there… through winding, forgotten roads, and past a little lake. Dante ate about 5 of their starfruits during the journey. We made it back before nightfall, and we had Dante over for a delicious spicy yellow curry and lentils that Julia prepared. We talked and laughed together as Julia practiced her Spanish, and then I escorted Dante back to town with my headlamp.

Speaking of waterfalls, Julia, Gina, and I visited a 70 foot high waterfall about an hour out of town. We booked the trip through the hotel in Aticama we use for internet. They hired a taxi for us with a preset rate (475 pesos, or around $35US for a 5 hour trip). We left Saturday morning from the hotel. He drove us out to a remote town, dropped us off, and he waited there the whole time until we returned. It was a treacherous climb down to the bottom, but once there, the girls swam, and I climbed up the rocks. The pool was supposed to be 40 feet deep, and boy was it cold!
We came back from the falls, cleaned up, and got ready for a fun day-after-Valentine’s Day dinner. Around seven in the evening we went to a restaurant called El Delfin, inside the Garza Canela hotel in San Blas. It was really exceptional, easily the best restaurant meal we’ve had here, and one of the best experiences together anywhere. The chef is a woman that trained under a 3-Michelin-Star chef in Paris, and this place is supposed to be one of the top restaurants in coastal-Mexico. We both started out with an appetizer, a curried seafood soup for me and an apple/avocado/goat cheese salad for Julia. Both fantastic. The wine list was…well…the only wine list we’ve seen in Mexico, so there’s not much to compare it to. The only wine by the glass was their house red and white, that was the only description, and Julia decided to get the white. The prices were amazing, about $3.50 US for a glass, which turned out to be quite enjoyable. Then entrees-- me with a seafood stuffed poblano swimming in a yellow saffron sauce, Julia with a tender chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese and pear comfit with what seemed like mashed potatoes, all in a cinnamon-coffee butter reduction. They were both divine. We ate as slowly as we could, thanking our very kind and attentive waiter for everything. We were quite satisfied, but we had to look at the dessert menu. How could Julia resist a lemon cake topped with bananas, a caramel sauce and house-made ginger ice cream? She couldn’t. It also came out with a selection of house-cookies, little anise-flavored crescents, much like teeny biscotti and white/dark almond fudges. They even sent us home with extra cookies-- in honor of “el dia de Santa Valentino”. Best part was, for three courses, coffee, wine, and beer, our tab only came to $50 – and that includes the tip!
Needless to say, we left quite stuffed and immensely happy.

Julia will finally get a chance to fulfill a lifelong dream. For her Valentine’s Day present, I promised we’ll go out and view the whales along the Pacific. There are lots of trips out there each day, but they cost a lot, so we originally decided against it. We’re going to work to put together a group of 6 to go out so we can all pay less per-person.

Gina (our room-mate) left on Thursday for Chiapas, Mexico. She decided to cut her stay short by three weeks (and we’ll be staying longer at Amaranth’s request). Our new roommate is named Phoebe, she’s 22, and she is supposedly the manager of a farm or farmers market in America. She's arriving in a week.

On Thursday we strolled into town laden with Julia’s famous coconut macaroons. We stopped and doled out care packages to our friends, and we’d stay and chat about Julia’s recipe, their families, and the quiet, quaint town of Aticama. Each day my love for the people grows. Wally and Amaranth have really opened up to us, sharing funny stories, recipes, and knowledge. Amaranth recalled to us the first time she went to her ancestral home of Tokyo, and how it felt to look like everyone on the street for the first time in 40 years. Wally’s eyes sparkled as he told me about his “Hollywood experience.” As we were salvaging old fence that was thick with twisting vines, he told me about the screenplay he wrote. He and Amaranth took the script to Hollywood, hired a company that held a mass “script-pitching” event, and he described his story to producers like John Malkovich. The infamously heartless L.A. left them misled, frustrated, and embittered, and he’s since soured on the whole screenwriting process. He’s going to let me read the script one of these days. Still, it was sad to see a seasoned, capable man like Wally walk away from something he seems to enjoy so much. He was a cook in the army, he worked crabbing ships in Alaska, he ran a junkyard, and he built his own house… but Hollywood was more than he bargained for. And the stories about the colorful WWOOFers they’ve had in the past 3 years have left Julia and me laughing ‘til we cried more than once.

Tomorrow we hope to be taking a day trip to Tepic. It is the cultural center of the indigenous Huichol Indians, famous for beautiful bead work. We only stopped there on our way to Aticama and didn’t see much, and it’s about a 2 hour bus ride. Hopefully we might be able to catch a van/taxi that leaves from Aticama rather than a bus, it would be much faster.

Be well, let us know how life is back home, and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Until then, as they say in Aticama, se le vaya bien!

~Philip