December 13, 2012 – Paint Your Alligator
Deb has heard about another festival/event/happening that is taking place on Tuesday night down at the zocalo (central park with gazebo) in Villa Obregon, an adjoining town east of Melaque. It appears to be another part of the Festival of Guadalupe, which pretty much fills up the first 12 days of December every year to honor some guy that apparently saw a black, or indio, Virgin Mary in 1640. This was a stroke of marketing genius by some church official back then, but I must say that it beats the Death By Christmas Carols that we have to go through in Canada!
So we’re off to see the sights, and stop on the way for a great rib dinner. We’re learning, we split one order between us – it works perfectly! A big platter of ribs with all the trimmings and 2 glasses of wine, $12 including taxes and a healthy tip. On arrival at the zocalo, the place is busy as it always is during the evening; families use the zocalo to visit, eat, flirt, gossip, etc. In other words, that’s where the community hangs out in the cool of the evening. There’s a bandstand set up, but nothing much appears to be happening…. Deb spots some activity over by the bandstand, and it turns out to be a spot where kids can purchase a clay figurine and paint it with watercolors. Debbi immediately buys an alligator piggy-bank (gator-bank?) that’s eating a fish, and commences painting. Many of the children become intensely interested and freely offer suggestions as to the next color. She ends up with a green/blue/orange alligator eating a red fish – this is clearly a gift meant for the color-blind. We fill it up with all the spare change in our pockets, spin the paintbrush to see who wins it, and present it to a somewhat bewildered young man. He’ll figure it out.
Debbi painting her alligator. Definitely a group effort.
This young lady is VERY proud of her bright orange pig.
Exhausted from our marathon alligator-painting session, we stop at a street-side stand that is selling pineapple upside-down cake, flan, and cappuccino. We’re definitely up for that, particularly as the cappuccino is ‘con mas espuma’, which sounds much better in English as ‘very foamy’. Turns out that the music and dancing don’t START until 11:00, which is a bit much for us, so we wander home and call it a night.
Wednesday dawns bright and early, as it’s Shopping Day in Manzanillo! Off to the Melaque bus zone, which is composed of a terminal for 1st and 2nd-class buses on one side of the street, a terminal for 3rd-class buses on the other side of the street, a taxi stand, and a writhing mass of buses of all descriptions, plus city buses and the usual traffic that also uses the street. Do not be reading your text messages whilst crossing THIS street! First-class is roughly airline quality, second-class is about the same as Greyhound in Canada, and third-class is getting a bit long in the tooth but is still perfectly acceptable for short hauls. There is also an executive class (which we use for long hauls), which is like airline business-class. We use second-class for this trip as it’s leaving in 5 minutes, the trip is roughly 90 minutes one-way, and costs $3.50.
Our target of opportunity today is Sorianas, which is a big supermarket complex that sells food, clothes, hardware, toys, electronics, etc. It also has a ton of smaller stores attached, as well as an eight-theatre complex. Deb is pretty sure she has seen mattress-toppers there, and our backs are both pretty sore from the very hard beds we have; a common affliction in Mexico. Sure enough, there they are! So after a very brief tour of the aisles, we have three more shopping bags full of stuff, and we’re ready to go…. We’re coming back to Manzanillo in 7-10 days to overnight with our friend Dorothy, to see The Hobbit (YES!), and to conduct an early-morning raid on Walmart, so that’s enough shopping for now.
Arriving back just in time for happy hour (there doesn’t seem to be a bad time), we discover that we’ve been invited out to Senor Froy’s for dinner. The complex has reserved a table for twelve at this beach-side restaurant, and we are delighted to chatter away whilst swilling down tequila-everythings and beers, and eating ribs and prawns.
At Senor Froy’s with my main squeeze.
All good things come to an end, and it’s back to the complex for nightcaps beside the pool and into our comfy new bed.