First Visitors!!!!

Last week our first visitors from middle North America came to visit us…our very good friends Pete and Angie from Roanoke.  It was a bit of a flip of roles from last March when we visited them in San Luis Potosi where they were living while Angie was on her Fulbright.

We packed a lot into the week, beginning with an birthday celebration of the late Mexican mural painter José Clemente Orozco at Hospicio Cabanas where Missy takes her painting class twice a week, and Orozco’s work is featured on the ceilings.  The celebration was complete with kids (including those from CODENI) painting their own Orozco-esque paintings outside, as well as Mariachi and tequila.

Unfortunately due to the rules of the arena, I was unable (as of now…stay tuned for pix from there in the future) to take pictures at the Lucha Libre event.  Though I have never been a fan at all of professional wrestling, this was unbelieveable. The four of us were shocked, hoarse and totally pumped to say the least when we left.

The next morning, without any planning we decided to head to the beach, in the state of Colima, and only because it is the closest beach to Guadalajara.  Rented a car (third time driving in the city in a week) and headed out.  After a quick stop in Cuyitlan, where there was nothing open, we were directed to the small friendly community of Paraiso, which became our home for the next couple of days.

There we quickly found delicious food, a horrible but cheap hotel, and met a few fisherman at the local bar, who after a few drinks together, invited us to join them at 7 am for their daily outing into the Pacific to check their nets.  Angie decided to take a late night dip into the ocean on the way home, and amazingly we remembered to set alarms and actually woke up the next morning.

The lancha trip was unbelievable.  Pete and I helped the men swing the boats around on the beach, and then we accompanied them through the large waves out into the sea, where our boat’s captain caught about 25 beautiful fish, including Huachinanga (Red Snapper).  We spent the rest of the day literally eating, sleeping or swimming before returning early the next morning to meet Angie and Pete’s former neighbors Bety and her daughter Adriana, who traveled to Guadalajara from San Luis Potosi.

We’re really looking forward to our next guests…hint hint….