January 2, 2017 – Christmas and New Year.
Well, things got pretty busy around here with ‘National tourists’ until just before Christmas, then everything quieted down. Christmas Day was very quiet. Great, we thought; the ‘Nationals’ have gone home, and now we have the place to ourselves again. When we got up on the 26th, the place was packed with buses, and there were people everywhere. There were actually traffic jams at all times of the day. The cab drivers say it will stay this way until New Year’s Day, then they will all go home.
Looking left.
Then right.
Some pretty cool paint jobs on these buses.
So, we thought, let’s go to one of those beaches a bit out of town, where maybe it’s a bit quieter. Debbi has a list (of course!), so we just picked one, hailed down a cab at 09:00, and off we went to Playa Maguey (Ma-gay). Very good idea, it’s a nice medium-sized beach about five kilometers from town (a $3 cab ride) where you go downstairs for about fifty feet vertical, thread your way through the palapa bars and restaurants, and there you are! We got waylaid by a guy who rented us an umbrella, table, and chairs at a great location for $7 for the day, Deb got us a pitcher of limonada, and we were set.
Maguey. A quiet, pretty beach.
Yeah, NOW.
Until about 11, that is. Then about a zillion people showed up, and we finally gave up when this yappy Chihuahua drove me (Deb) nuts, and I was going to… never mind..we abandoned ship at about noon. We decided that it’s the Nationals (a more polite term than ‘Mexicans’) time to have a holiday, so we’re just going to lie low and stay off the beaches until everyone goes home! We never went to the beach again until five days later, and when there was only a million left.
On the good-news front, our friend Enrique and his family were over for Christmas drinks a few nights back, and they invited us over for New Year’s Eve. It should be fun to see how they celebrate it. Deb is bringing Deviled Eggs, homemade refrigerator pickles, roasted red peppers, and smoked oysters. There is a tradition of each person eating twelve grapes in the last twelve minutes of the countdown, 1 grape per minute. With each grape, a wish is made. I was going to buy the grapes, but they were not in good shape. Bought Champagne instead. Another tradition is to put nine grains of rice and nine grains of various kinds of beans in front of the front door, and on the other side, you put twelve coins. At the stroke of midnight, you sweep out the beans & sweep in the coins. We didn’t do either one, but it is a tradition that they have done in the past.
This is Kristal (32), Enrique’s beautiful wife. I don’t know if this is the correct spelling or not. Kristal has a cupcake business.
This is Enrique (29) and Enrique Jr (2). Enrique is our Mexican landlord, while our real landlord works in the U.S. at a winery. Enrique teaches boxing to 5 – 12-year-olds three times a week, plus works as a tour guide and has a security contract for rich Americans to guard their houses while they are back in the U.S.
Enrique’s younger brother, Daniel (12) on the left. Enrique has another brother who works in the US at a furniture factory, but could not make it home this year.
Kristal worked her tail off pretty much all day preparing the meal, looking after the kids, and entertaining the in-laws.
The Deviled Eggs were a hit, but the real hit was the smoked oysters that I managed to find. They had never tasted anything like them. I put everything on a bed of sprouts, and the kids loved the sprouts more than anything.
This is Enrique’s father and Kristal’s younger sister, Deanna (12), and the little one behind her is Enrique’s daughter, Estrella (4).
The traditional supper ended up being served at 11:30 pm. We thought that maybe the meal would be around five, maybe six, but Enrique was only arriving home at that time. So his first phone call was to say come over about pm..the 2nd call was to say not until 11:00 pm. When he asked what our traditional time to eat was, and I said usually late afternoon, he laughed and asked why so early. I told him because it was too damn cold to wait any longer. We eat to keep warm. He laughed.
The leg of pork, Lomo, cooked for seven hours in chillies, vinegar, brown sugar; BBQ chicken thighs &legs and wings, along with steamed vegetables of zucchini, chayote, & potato.
The boys are watching ‘futeball’.
Kristal is opening the pink Champagne. Little did we know that Enrique’s Mom is totally against all alcohol. Oops, so the second bottle was not opened. We forgot the orange juice.
The whole bunch. Enrique’s mom is in the red and his sister in-law in black, along with her daughter (5).
After dinner, hugs, and kisses all round, it was time to go outside and let off some fireworks. This is always fun in Mexico as there are basically no rules. So we had the kind that you stick in the ground and that shoot up 100′ and do something cool. Enrique made it even better by just lighting them and throwing them up in the air, and then they would go anywhere. Since we were in an apartment complex, ‘anywhere’ usually meant the side of someone’s building, although one ended up under a parked car, which was pretty interesting. After several near-death experiences, it was time for hugs all round, and then we headed off home, arriving at 2 am. A very interesting evening! No photos because it’s dark out.