My Little Friends

These two little guys are sons of Arnie and Mary. Their parents own one of the little jewellry shops in town. They also have a table at the tianguis each week. Arnie and Mary are Jehovah's Witnesses so don't celebrate Christmas, but they said they wouldn't mind of I gave their sons each a small gift and some candy for Christmas. The boys were thrilled to get a couple of new toys and some treats. Every few days I take the boys for an ice cream because they are the nicest kids. Every day of year, they have to hang around from about 8 in the morning 'til around 8 in the evening waiting for their parents to finish work. They don't have any toys or anything to play with, but are always happy with smiles on their faces.

Piñatas in La Peñita

When we were in La Peñita the other morning, delivering our Christmas gifts to Patricia, one of her neighbours was loading his truck with all kinds of spectacular piñatas.

They had all been handmade by his wife and daughter.

They kept bringing out more and more piñatas.

More

And more

And more

They were all different shapes and sizes.

It was Christmas eve morning and this fellow was about to hit the streets of La Penita.

I'm sure this would be his best selling day of the year!

Just about every child in Mexico gets a Piñata for Christmas .
It was quite the sight seeing all those colourful piñatas blowing around on his truck as he drove away.

He even managed to sell some to the local candy store which would in turn up the price and offer them for sale.

Bill Gates buys Boca del Naranjo

Boca del Naranjo is a spectacular stretch of beach just a few of miles north of us. It used to be lined with many palapa restaurants until last year. The restaurant owners had been squatting on that beach for years, selling their BBQ'd fish and prawns to the locals and tourists on the weekends. We have taken all our guests to Boca de Naranja at one time or another for an ice cold cerveza and a stroll along the beach. Kids loved it there because there were always lots of crocodiles sunning themselves along the shores of the lagoon. Just before we left for home last year, the Mexican Tourism Board "Fonatur" announced that they would be developing Boca del Naranjo. Their plans were to build major resort hotels, villas, condos, residental lots, a golf course, shopping centres and more. It would be a class act all the way. Fonatur developed Cancun, Nuevo Vallarta, Cabo San Lucus and most other major resort areas in Mexico, so we knew they would turn Boca del Naranjo into something extraordinary. We were sad the day that Fonatur gated Boca del Naranjo, but knew that a major develpment would be good for local residents of our area. The day before Fonatur closed the gates to Boca del Naranjo and removed all the restaurants, we sat on the beach one last time with Jack and Else, friends of ours from Qualicum Beach. We sipped away at our cervezas and talked about how fortunate we were to have been able to occasional visit Boca de Naranja before it was to change forever. Today I was reading The Jaltemba Sol, our local on-line newspaper, and came across an article saying that Bill Gates has just purchased Boca del Naranjo. Click on http://www.jaltembasol.com/ and scroll down to read the article. Who would have thunk it? Just a few minutes away for us! Maybe, just maybe Boca del Naranjo won't be changing anytime soon.

We've Lost Our Beach Again

It must be the week after Christmas.
This is when the Mexicans holiday.
They stay home for Christmas eve and Christmas day and go to church.
And then they head out to nearby resort towns for a few days.

So once again, our beach is no longer ours.
Someone has set up a make-shift restaurant out in front of us.

Where they are selling fish, cocos, stuffed pineapples and other stuff.

Nothing looks too appetizing to me, and by the look of these girls' faces, the food doesn't taste all that great, either!

But I guess they are hungry!

Because they are back for more.

There are tarps strung on poles all along the beach.

It is cloudy, cold and dreary out there, but they keep on arriving.

Christmas Day Dinner

Although Bruce, Heather and I hadn't been feeling well for a few days, and still weren't feeling great, we decided to make the big effort to celebrate Christmas day.

I set the table with my finest to make things look festive.

Putting together dinner was easy because I had prepared everything a couple of days before.

While Bruce headed out to pick up our guests, I lit the fire in the living room.
I thought it would be nice to have some warmth and ambience when they arrived.

We sat outside on our new patio for a few minutes before dinner.
And we really tried to put on happy faces.
We chatted and watched the poinsettia blooms swirl around in the pool.

But it was cool, so we headed in to be near the fire.

The first course was a very small cup of leek and potato bisque which I thought would sit nicely in our tummies.

We ate our soup and pretended to sip at our wine.

The entré was a pork tenderloin which I had butterflied and stuffed with orange marmalade and blue cheese.
On the side, were wasabi mashed potatoes, roasted squash, creamed baby onions & peas and a gratin of cauliflower and horseradish.
I also served a compote of apples & pears and a blackberry/balsamic sauce to drizzle over the pork.
Everything looked lovely on the plates.

But, the 3 of us each took one bite of our meals and could go no further.
I guess the soup had started to register in our tummies.
We were all very polite and sat quietly and waited for Danny to finish his meal, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy.

Then I quickly grabbed the plates and scraped our dinners into the trash.

My dessert for the evening was a traditional gingerbread cake made with a cup of molasses and 1/2 a cup of freshly grated ginger, to be served warm with a light vanilla cream sauce.
I served dear old Dan some dessert which took only seconds to disappear.

Everyone knew it was time for Dan and Heather to head for their hotel.
I think we'd been seated at the table for all of about 20 minutes.
Right after they left, all hell broke loose in my tummy.
The only thing in it was a bit of soup, but it obviously wasn't sitting well.
I didn’t have a good night!
And neither did Bruce or Heather.

Merry Ho, Ho, Ho.

On a positive note, there are lots of leftovers to send home with Maria today.
And none of us will be gaining any weight this Christmas.

And, we do have a part bottle of Yellow Tail stashed away for another night.

We each remarked that we’d never seen a bottle of good wine last through dinner with wine left in the bottle.
We must be sick!
Normally we would have devoured that bottle of wine in no time and would have been looking for more!

We don't get the chance to have a really good wine down here very often!
Thanks, Renata and Kerry, it was a great thought.

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

The only thing I really wanted for Christmas this year was my two front teeth.

But no such luck! I didn't get them.

But Santa did bring me this beautiful amethyst and turquois bracelet.

I guess I'll have to try again next year for some teeth.

Que Sera, Sera.

Maria's Casa

We drove up into the hills Sunday morning to deliver Maria and Pedro's Christmast gifts.

They live at the end of a rough, dirt road that winds through the fields.

They own a large acreage which is remote and has no water, electricity or phone.

There are 3 palapa shacks on the property they call home.

This rundown shack is their casa. It is the larger of the 3 structures.

Some of the palapa roofs are covered with plastic because the palm fronds have disintegrated so badly over the years.

There are dirt floors throughout all the buildings.

And they have no modern conveniences of any kind.

This shack is where the feed, for the birds and animals, gets stored.

And this is one of the places where the chickens roost.

The chickens also roost in every room of the Maria and Pedro's casa.

Christmas Gifts from the Land

I think Pedro, Maria's husband, is relunctant to open his gift in front of us. I'm sure he is not accustomed to getting gifts from anyone.

When he does open his gift, I think he'll be pleased.

There is nothing like a new warm coat for cold evenings.

Before we left, Maria and Pedro gave us a wooden crate full of freshly picked pineapples and 3 large papayas.

These papayas were just starting to ripen.

But Maria found a few ripe ones for us.

All their pineapples appeared ready to be harvested.

They are so delicious when sun ripened and freshly picked.

None of their bananas were ready or I'm sure we would have been given a bunch of them, too.

I gave a couple of the pineapples and papayas away and made juice with the rest of the fruit.

I now have many small containers of frozen juice ready to pop in the blender for my aguas frescas.

Maria's Birds & Animals

Maria has 6 dogs. They keep they coyotes away from the turkeys, ducks and chickens.

She also has several ducks that waddle freely from one shack to another.

And many chickens that have the run of the place.

I saw chickens in the most unusal places.

There was a mommy cat outside searching for mice or whatever.

And 5 baby kittens huddled together inside.

I guess the warmest place was near the gas stovetop.

Then there were Mr. and Mrs. Gobble.

Who never stopped saying "gobble, gobble, gobble" the whole time we were there.

Do you think they sensed that quite possibly they could be someone's dinner soon?

All the birds and animals were like the Mexicans.

One big, happy family.