A Family Post

Nancy is resting, Dennis and Glenn are out and about and I had some time to do a short blog with a couple of photos of our home here and a short trip we took to the center of Guadalajara yesterday

You can tell by the orange juice it was after breakfast. The toilet paper is used for napkins and blowing noses.
It is so nice to have wirless internet. Not once this journey have we had to find an internet cafe and then figure out how to function in it. Glenn did not bring his lap top as he is on his way to Peru to surf so we are sharing two computors with 4 people so they stay pretty busy.

It is just a 20 minute, 40 cent bus ride from here in Tlaquepaque to the center of Guadalajara and each time we go we like it a bit more. I am not sure what they were looking at but something that held their interest.

Downtown Guadalajara has many walk streets which Nancy and I love. They seem to be all very busy and great places for people watching. This is one such street.

And here we are all walking down a very similar street.

More of Tepic and on to Tequila

We meant to get this post out to you the day after our last post but too many children have arrived and have kept us sort of busy doing other things. It just shows the rest of our 4 day journey to Tepic with a stop at Tequila on the way home.

And one other bit of information. The past few days it has been a bit cool with highs of only 20 degrees C so we have to find a top shirt to go out. What a bummer. Today is very nice but the first part of next week it will get cool again so we are heading to Colima, a small city 3 hours away in the direction of the coast where the highs will be 26 and 27 degrees C and we can leave our top shirts here.

From the last post, this is a photo of a bingo game, that was part of the celebration that was going on in the central park. Young and old alike were all having such fun.

Nancy and I did a day trip to San Blas. We were not so very impressed as it is a bit of dump but it did have one very nice and very expensive hotel. This photo is part of the central courtyard of the hotel.

And this one shows its pool and some of the gardens.

While we went to San Blas, Dennis went hat shopping in Tepic and this is what he ended up with. It is a bit small for him so he doesent wear it so much until he figures out how to stretch it.

For almost every meal that we ate in Tepic we ate at the same restaurant. It was good and it was cheap and very local. And at times we had live entertainment. This is a group that seranaded us one early morning at breakfast time.

We have moved on to Tequila and our hotel was on the central park and Nancys and my room had a balcony that overlooked the central park. It was so very beautiful but not so busy as some central parks.

Mexico has a number of towns and cities that have been designated "magical towns" and Tequila is one of those towns. And it is very neat and tidy and a bit magical.

Just an interesting lady sitting in the park in Tequila.

Tequila is most know for just that, "Tequila". The surrounding country side is covered with the Agave plant of which Tequila and Mescal are made. This picture is of a very famous distillary where they make "Jose Cuervo" Tequila.

This was our breakfast place in Tequila. It is in the eating area of the central market. Most eating areas in central markets are a bit questionable but this one was very neat and clean, just like the rest of Tequila.

We think that somewhere in these blogs we told you that Glenn was also going to come to Tlaquepaque and spend a few days with us. About 3 sleeps ago he came and so now we have two of our sons to look after us. He is most fluent in spanish so now we get no surprises.

Will get some photos of him in our next blog.

A Short Journey to Tepic

We were getting too comfortable in our apartment so we decided to branch out, venture to the wild side and go see some new towns. There are many towns we had not visited just a few hours from here and one we chose was Tepic, actually a city of 200,000, just an hour from the coast and 3 hours by direct bus from here.

Leaving our apartments that were paid for and having to pay hotel bills in other towns caused us a bit of concern but what the heck. The journey there was very fast on a new 4 lane toll road with no stops and took exactly three hours but coming home was a different story. We wanted to stay in another town, Tequila, for one night so had to take a local bus and this bus did not go direct. We saw a lot more country side, many more towns and actually quite enjoyable as we broke it into two days but the total time was 6.5 hours to do the same distance.

We so love the Mariachis and this particular group (there are more of them than just these two) were playing for a couple at a particular table. They looked to be a grandmother and her grown grandson of about 25 years.


We have moved on to Tepic and photo is self describing. Kids and mud....... having fun.

Nancy and Dennis are trying to buy a hat for Dennis. There are many for sale in this part of the country and mostly in the cowboy style. Also boots and belts and all other paraphanelia that goes along with cowboys and cowgirls.

Shoe shine alley in Tepic. And there were lots of alleys just like this. All those cowboys do need to keep their boots shiny.

There seems to be quite a large indeginous population in this part of Mexico and this particular family fits that catagory. And they enjoy the parks as much as we do.

There was a bit of a celebration going on in the central park in Tepic and the following photos show various participants getting ready. The first two are of a cute dancer who would soon be center stage.

And two more very pretty dancers who's biggest admirers were their families. The park was swarming with aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas and neices and nephews and moms and dads.

The boys for this particular dance needed mustaches and here is mom getting one ready for someone too young to grow one.

Just two girls waiting for their time to be famous.

We have more photos of this journey, too many for this blog so you will more than likely get another one tomorrow that will show and tell about Tequila.

And exciting news for us. Son number 2, Glenn, is coming tonight and will be here over the weekend. Lots of visiting coming up.

A New Camera and Our Son Has Arrived

We mentioned last blog that our camera had crashed and we were intent on getting a different one. New ones are very expensive here in Mexico as they are all imported and for warranties sake we wanted to buy a new one in Canada. So one day we set off for the center of Guadalajara to try to buy a used camera. Certainly our first thought was the "black market" where all things stolen can be found for sale. We thought we might even get some good photos on our purchased camera. After a short visit with a very nice gentleman in the park in Guadaljara we soon realized that the "black Market" was not the place for two naive gringos to go so he phoned a friend and gave us the address for a pawn shop and told us how to get there. So two hours later, after one bus ride, a 2 km walk and 50 questions we arrived and bought a camera. There were no guarantees but so far it works and the photos are not too bad. It is a Panosonic and the cost was $58 Canadian. Then we had to buy batteries and a battery charger and that added about another $10 to it but now we are set, we hope.

And even better than that is the fact that Dennis, our son from Australia has arrived. He came last Sunday and Nancy and I went to the airport to meet him. We don't get to seem him so often so the month he will spend we us here will be so wonderful.

Just a photo of the inside of our apartment. It is really quite large and we like it a whole lot. It has a great wirless internet connection and good TV with a number of english news and movie channels.

This is the outside of our apartment in Tlaquepaque and those three windows are one side of our apartment. I love sitting out there as for most of the day it is in the sun. Nancy does not like it so much. It is just too hot for that girl.

The very busy center of Tlaquepaque with lots of benches and we will likely have tried them all (more than once) before we leave here.

These two little boys are in the care of their fathers whose jobs happen to be park sweepers. They are moving from one spot to another and the boys were happy to get a ride.

There are more than one bird seller in and around the park in Tlaquepaque. We wonder what animal rights people would have to say about this.

The central park in Tlaquepaque with the church in the background.

Tlaquepaque is well known for its varied and expensive handicrafts which we no longer need to buy. Our house has become a museum over these past 20 years with articles from around the world. This photo is from one of the many places that sell those types of things.

And here are more of the handicrafts of this area.

We were in the central park in Guadalajara, the weather was exceptional, birds were singing and there are smoochers in the park.

Every year we travel, Nancy's watch breaks and these two ladies are the happy sellers of a new watch.

One of the many markets in Guadalajara. This one is mostly known for electronic stuff but my they had lovely fruit and other things.

Dennis spied a lovely restaurant overlooking the park and here we had a most delightful lunch. It was a smorg of which there are many in this part of the world and we certainly did justice to it.

One of these first days, when we think we have enought time we are going to do a trip for a few days. There is a city north and west of here about 3 hours called Tepic and Nancy and I have never been there and people who have have said good things about it. And from Tepic, just an hour away is a small coastal town called San Blas. This particular San Blas was very famous in the 60's as a place to be. We are told it is not quite so famous now and is a bit run down. We will see.

IN SEARCH OF WARMER CLIMATES

The decision was made a while ago to not spend the winter months in our new home in Lethbridge but Oaxaca, our last year hang out was a bit too cold for the winter months so we changed our destination to Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco in the country of Mexico.
We arrived about 10 days ago after bussing to Calgary, flying to Phoenix and then on to Guadalajara and taxing to our new apartment. It was 12:30 AM when we arrived here but our host Olivia was waiting for us and got us settled in a very nice, very large apartment that we will call home for the next 2.5 months. It has very good wireless internet and we have one laptop to use it on. It also has very good cable TV with a number of news channels.
Our life has been pretty quiet. We have done nothing too outreaching except take a trip via bus to the new bus station to get times when busses were leaving for some trips we have planned and another to the center of Guadalajara. We spent most of our time there trying to get our broken camera to work but to no avail, so here we are with no camera, a few early pictures that we will share but so enjoying the warm climate in our home away from home.
Our journey to the center of Guadaljara and back was certainly the most exciting thing we have done so far. The trip to the center was uneventful and only took 20 minutes. Coming back was a different story. We missed the place where we should have gotten off so had to do the total route with a very accomadating driver. We did get the full tour of Tlaquepaque for a total of 50 cents each but it was 2 hours later before we arrived back at our original bus stop. You would think we would not make such silly mistakes after so many years of travelling but we do. I grumbled and Nancy just laughed and wondered where we could get such a good tour for only 50 cents. And what else was there to do anyway



As in every Mexican town or city there is a central park and in every central park there are old men resting, playing cards or just visiting.

And other old men still need a job and this gentlemans job is to collect bottles from garbages. It also happens in every town and city in Latin America and we are sure other parts of the world also.

Two years ago when we spent some time in Tlaquepaque we found this wonderful restaurant and we found it again this year and to our dismay it is shut down. Kaput, bummer!!!!!!

An interesting way to unload a truck. We spent an hour watching this guy take the totes from the back of the truck (and it was full of totes) and pitching them across the street, between cars and pedestrians and bikers, to the other side of the street.

Where two men on the other side would collect them and take them into the store.

The guy who threw them worked steadily for the full hour and sweat was pouring down his face when he was through. He seemed happy to have us for his audience. It was fun.

Guadalajara is famous for Mariachi bands and there are many. This gentlemen just finished singing with a band and had come down off the grandstand to pay homage to this older lady who we think is his mother.

And this young lady took the place of the previous gentleman on the stage.

A not a very good photo of the Mariachi Band. We do like Mariachi music.

And followng the girl was this very handsome gentleman with a marvelous voice as well.

And the show is over and a bit of a better photo of the band.

So this is it until we get another camera and we think our son Dennis is going to bring one from Australia when he comes to visit this Sunday. Looking forward to seeing him and his camera.