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.

Bits and Pieces of Oaxaca

This will be our last blog from this journey as we are heading home tomorrow. We hope you have enjoyed them as much as we have putting them together.

This is one of the many couryards in the most expensive hotels in Oaxaca, the Camino Real. The cost is between $330 and $5oo a night. It would be fun to stay but our budget would not survive very long.

We just discoveed this place this year and it has been a gold mine. It was started by the many expats who live in Oaxaca and has many books that they loan out. Also 4 free computors. It cost less than $10 to join for the month we were here but worth it

This was Easter Sunday in the courtyard of the church across the street from our apartment. They were to be in yet another procession. The frme on the basket of the girl on the left is covered with various types of fireworks and would be lit, somewhere on the procession route. the girl on the right just has flowers in her basket, not near as exciting.

And here they are, in all their finery, before the baskets.

This guy was also part of the procession

This market is along the edges of the central park. It is not their all the time but was set up all during SemanaSanta and this week following it still is there. It was very busy, selling all the things that Oaxaca is famous for, textiles, pottery and wooden figures.

This was the first time we had every seen this type of artist at work. He is using thread and a curved needle to create a work of art.

The church is called La Solidad and is suppose to be the most important church in all of Oaxaca.

We dont usuaally give money to buskers on the streeet but Nancy fell in love with this little girl and her piano accordian. She was very good and had a deep voice, a surprise coming from a little girl. Nancy tipped her well.

It seems that in any city in the world there is a place where drummers hang out and it alwasy seems to be the same place where people who make beaded things for sale, also hang out. In Oaxaca, this was in a small park a short distance from our apartment and every night we could listen to the drums and if we were there, we could watch the people dancing.

That same park was also used for a skateboard park if there were not to many people in it. This was one such time and I took a number of photos of the boy on this skateboard and then sent them to him. He was so thrilled that I would take the time to do this and and I got most wonderful email of thank you in return.

He was pretty good.

What a Show, Easter Sunday Evening

We had been hearing much during the day about a fireworks show in the evening and once again it was to take place on the street in front of our apartment. We were coming home for our afternoon nap and sure enough, they were getting ready for the fireworks right in front of our apartment and in the churchyard across the street. It was amazing. It all started with long sticks of bamboo, many bags of black powder, much plastic tubing and roles of a nylon type ribbon that they used to tie everything. This first photo shows one of the many structures that were built to hold the home made fireworks. There were maybe 20 such structures in all, some bigger, some smaller, the biggest maybe 3 m in diameter, the smllest maybe 1 m in diameter.

And here are the home made firecrackers that make it all work. There were many 100s of them, some big, like these ones and some smaller. They were all joined together with black powder filled tubes.

This shows the top structure of explosives that was to go on the tower first.

These cubes are about 1m cubed and are tied together with the nylon ribbon to make the tower.

Again, the homemade bombs and bombs they were. My they were powerful and noisy.

One of the smaller designs that will go into making the total tower.

Another photo of the top structure, the biggest one, and here it is in place.

Each piece of the tower was about 1m high and as each one, 8 in all, was put in place, more firework pieces were added to the tower.

Here they are adding another meter to the base of the whole tower. It was lifted with a very precarious jack but there were 4 ropes from the top and people hanging on to keep it balanced. The red stuff is all fuse, and all filled with black powder.

I had to lay on the ground to get this one but shows a bit the many, many firecracker structures that were tied onto the tower

The show was to start at 9:00PM and I so badly wanted to be there to see them light the fuse, in fact I even wanted to lite it...... but no such luck. We waited around, both in our apartment and in the church courtyard just watching all the goings on and by 9:00PM we were tired and really wanted to go to bed. But we hung in there and at 10:00 PM the boss came and lit the fuse and the following ten photos show some of what happened. It was very smoky and very loud and hard to get in too close. There were no roped off places where the crowd could not go, only the heat and the noise and the smoke kept people from getting too close.

It was an absoutely spectacular show, with not one custom made firecacker, not one electric circuit and no computor to time it all. It was just ingenuity and a big of guts.



















WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it took about one half hour from beginning to end. What a show!!!

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