Mardi Gras in San Miguel

Our lovely neighbors, Maria Luisa and Jacinto, spend the two months leading up to Mardi Gras making clowns and paper flowers to sell in the Jardin. They have been making these traditional items for over 20 years and their work is detailed and imaginative. Here they are in their workshop with some of their clowns.









And here are some of their flowers ready to head to the main square.

Vendors of clowns and flowers line the square in front of the Parroquia for the days leading up to Lent.

Their young daughter helps them sell as well.Mardi Gras is a family celebration; no parades, floats, costumes or trading beads here. Blown eggs are filled with confetti or powder, sold by the bag, and cracked over the heads of friends and unsuspecting strangers alike. On Saturday night anyone is fair game and by dark the ground is littered with eggshells and confetti.
We went down on Friday night and discovered that Jacinto had a night job as well, that of burro handler for a troubadour group. The decorated "bar" on the back of the burro holds liquor for the singers who follow the troubadours around.
Once Lent begins on Wednesday February 25th, the the religious tone of the town becomes more serious culminating with the end of Holy Week (Semana Santa) and Easter. Of course there is always the Cuban Festival and the Indian Dancers and the Children's First Day of Spring parade so there is still plenty to do in San Miguel de Allende in March.

Hot Air Balloon Surprise

I opened my eyes yesterday morning and this is what I saw from bed...a hot air balloon peering in our window.

I went to the roof and shot this photo of the balloon sinking over the central square for a spectacular view of the Parroquia, the pink spires in the middle left of the photo below. (Click the photo to enlarge it for a better view.)
Speaking of good views, for the time being we have this splendid and newly improved view of the city. Our neighbor was having a boundary dispute and ended up removing a large tree which blocked our view of the church spires and the second domed church in a direct line behind it. We just learned that the property has been sold and will most likely soon sprout a big house to block our city view, but for the time being we are enjoying it.

This is what the Parroquia looks like from ground level.

To the Beach - Oaxaca style

No, that isn't a photo of us; it is Yoli and Victor our traveling companions enjoying the beach below our house.

Here we are.
We rented a casa on the Costa Chica of Oaxaca near Huatulco. I had to look it up on a map, too.
If you want to see where it really is, try Google Earth or Google Maps and search Salchi, Mexico. Lots of tiny beaches carved into miles of rocky cliffs. Our community turned out to be about a dozen homes owned and developed by Canadians down 8 km of really rough dirt road.

We have spent the last 5 days exploring the nearby communities of Puerto Angel and Huatulco, eating fresh fish under grass roof palapas on the sand.

One day we drove about 1 1/2 hours to some incredible waterfalls at Llano Grande, a working coffee plantation run out of the original hacienda buildings. I would love to have had Melissa's camera skills to capture the the over 40 waterfalls we could swim under but the light on the water was too much for my point and shoot.

Another day we took a small boat out of Puerto Angel to snorkel and look for whales but only succeeded in seeing beautiful swimming turtles and some ideal nearly deserted snorkel beaches. I wasn't disappointed about the whales because nothing will ever top the experience we had in 2001 in Bahia Magdalena, Baja, out of the tiny town of Puerto Lopez Mateos. We spent over an hour with a mother and calf literally under out boat. The mother lifted her calf to be petted; it was an otherworldly exeprience. I took this photo of the baby at another boat right next to us.
Another day we took an even smaller boat to see crocs. There is a lagoon right behind the behind the beach with dark black water due to the iron in the sand. We cruised in among the mangroves and saw several of these big guys and lots of birds and iguana.
Ultimately, though, it has been a trip about sitting in hammocks. I found this chair hammock in a "hammock factory" overlooking the beach. I liked this one but they didn't actually sell it; it was there for them to enjoy.
This one on our terrace was where we all spent a lot of time, Oaxaca style.