A Miracle of Sorts

Buenas dias!

I never imagined that not posting for almost two weeks would generate such a stir. I have received quite a few emails from people wanting to make sure we are safe and sound here in Mexico.

Believe me, we are fine.

We have been very busy..............that is all.

So, it will take some time for me to bring you up to date and I promise, I will post again soon. I do not want anyone worrying needlessly about us!



Now, take a look below at that beautiful sunrise, layers and layers of pretty colors!

It is colder here at night and harder to get up in the mornings. Daylight is peeking through around six twenty, right about the time Cookies starts licking my face........................ he is a wonderful alarm clock.

Ian has come and gone.....when he came back with us last week, Cookies ran right to him and tried to climb up his legs and into his arms. Ian enjoyed his little room and Cookies slept with him every night and followed him around the casa and yard. He really did not let him out of his sight.

We had to lock Cookies inside the first few days when we left the house because he wanted to follow Ian right out the gate.

When Ian and KD were here in August last year it was so hot we did very little. So we made up for it while Ian was here. Walks to and around town, shopping in the Mercado, eating out at some new sidewalk vendors we had not tried before, a trip to the Tiangus, to La Aduana, the beach at Huatabampito, the parade for the Dia de la Revolution.....................and on and on.

Take a look at some of the photos.

Below, we are eating barbacoa ( barbequed beef) soup with a friend at a stall near the arroyo.

Ian and Senor are watching Yolanda weigh shrimp. We want two kilos, about four pounds.

Yolanda gets her grande camarones from the Sea of Cortez. Senor could eat them every night.





Now, Ian and Senor appear to be reading the local paper, El Imparcial, while waiting for Huevos Rancheros at Cocina Economica. This is a wonderful little cafe at the bottom of our street. The white board on the wall tells what is available for the morning.

Below, vendors line the alameda on the day of the Revolution. Vendors are there every day, but for this celebration, a few more have set up tables and tarps. One vendor is even trying to make cotton candy.

We are waiting with the rest of the crowd for the parade to begin.

Here is the fruit cocktail stand. You can buy a large cup of fruit and if you want, the vendor will sprinkle it with salt and salsa. I always have both on mine. Senor won't even have the fruit.


Finally, after a very long wait, the mayor, in the blue shirt and tie, with his wife to his right and over one hundred municipal workers behind him starts the parade.

The focus of all parades here are the children. Many of them were dressed in native costumes, or like Spanish aristocrats, or mustachioed Pancho Villas. Still many were in their school uniforms.

The girls below are nurses and carried small clear doctor bags.



These are the young aristocrats.













These are the older aristocrats.



Lots of cheerleaders and pom pom shakers were in this parade. They danced to the Mexican version of 'Hey, Mickey", my favorite song from Bring it On. Surely you saw that movie, it's about a bunch of cheerleaders who have competitions and of course, their egos get in the way and then, there are boys, they get in the way, too.

The boys are always the buglers and the girls are the drummers. They have been practicing for three weeks now, the same song, over and over. You can hear them all over town as the wind carries their notes.

We saw in this parade many sporting activities. We did not realize how many teams there are for different sports. The biggest sport in Alamos appears to be gymnastics. There were probably ten different groups performing flips and jumps and cartwheels and as many putting together pyramids.

The pyramid below is being formed by one of the COBASH (high school) teams. There probably were seven different teams.

Lots of clowns and dolls on stilts.

Below the bomaderos (fire department) begin to put together their pyramid as the fire truck keeps moving. We saw volleyball teams, boxing teams, baseball teams, basketball teams and soccer teams. Many of these teams also constructed pyramids. We saw so many pyramids I might rename this parade......Dia de La Pyramid.

Ian and Senor pooped out and walked home after the parade, but I followed the crowd to the Palacio, where each group in the parade then performed on stage for the mayor and his wife, who sat at a wooden table to the side of the stage. It was like seeing the parade again, but in slow motion.

I have many more photos and will try to get them on flikr one of these days.

The following day we took a long trip to the Tiangus (Sunday morning market) and in the afternoon Ismael came and repaired Ian's computer which had a virus. In the states, Ian had been told to dish out three hundred dollars for the repair. Ismael repaired it for under twenty and as he was leaving Senor mentioned we do not have wireless. Ismael was astonished, especially when we told him why. If you recall..................Senor forgot our password.

Ismael walked back to the bedroom and did something for less than a minute on our laptop........................now we have wireless.

On Tuesday, we went to Yvarros, a small fishing town on the sea and bought some perch from one of the bodegas. We took the back road out of Alamos, toward El Fuerte and went to the town of Masiaca and then, to the sea. If you are one of those persons who still insists the back road out of Alamos is paved all the way to Highway Fifteen, or even to El Fuerte, believe me, it is not........................dream on...........................

Shrimp and ponga boats in the bay at Yvarros.




The perch lady below, in her bodega. Senor is trying to strike a deal. He gets three kilos of perch for eighty pesos. That is good, but that is alot of perch.

Then, on to the beach at Huatabampito, where Ian stands out at the water's edge. What is he thinking, I wonder.............where are the girls in bikinis, where are the palapa huts, the pineapple drinks..............................

Later he commented to Senor how nice it was to not have any vendors coming around selling jewelry or ironwood dolphins.


We added to the seashell collection.



Then, Ian said it was too hot for him.



Back at the casa, Ian rode new old bike around the yard, afraid to go out in the street because I refused to take off the pink flowers. Cookies followed him like a dog.


The nearby town of La Aduana hosts a huge three day celebration beginning on Friday, the twentieth. We went out on Thursday to check out the preparations.

Cookware and dishes seem to be a big hit here. There were at least ten stalls with this stuff.

Everyone walks to La Aduana for this festival. They walk for miles, they come from Navajoa, which is fifty kilometers away. How in the world do they carry all this stuff back home, I wonder.


Lots of fancy bread in this stall.

Lots of pretty sweets in this one.


This is the church at Las Aduana. On November twelfth, there is a procession from Alamos, that begins at four in the morning. People walk to the church, Nuestra Senora de la Balvanera. After arriving at the church around seven pm, a religious ceremony is held and the traditional deer dance is performed. Throughout the following week, pilgrimage is made from all over Southern Sonora, by foot, by thousands of people to the church, and of course, the three day festival which includes alot of Tecate.

It is the cactus below that makes La Aduana so popular. Legend says that Mayo Indians saw a woman on top of the cactus. They tried to reach her and help her down, but suddenly she was gone, and in her place, was a huge vein of silver. It was a miracle.

I guess the miracle was that a mine was created and silver came from it and thousands of people flocked to both La Aduana and Alamos, making it a very wealthy area.Of course, later Aduana and Alamos both became ghost towns.

Below are a few photos of the old silver mine.







And the rolling, velvet hills that surround this small town of four hundred people.

So, of course I cannot list all of the things we did with Ian. It was a wonderful time.

Cookies was a basket case when we returned home from the airport, without Ian in tow.

He meowed for days. He still goes in during the day and sleeps on Ian's bed. We have to pry him away at night and force him to come into our room. It would be too easy for him to get trapped in that room. But time will help him feel better.

Me?

I miss Ian terribly, but again time will work wonders................

Senor?

He is busy working on the casa, but I saw how hard he hugged Ian when they said their goodbyes.

Tomorrow will be a new tradition of sorts, for us............... Our first Thanksgiving, without KD or Ian. If you remember, last Thanksgiving Senor and I flew to Colorado, where both kids were in the same college. That was convenient and it was wonderful. Now, even they are far apart, one in Colorado and one in Washington. But they have good friends to spend the holidays with. They will be happy.

Fortunately, we have very good friends here who have asked us to spend Thanksgiving with their family. We are lucky. We will be happy.

After Christmas last year, we planted our little Christmas pine in the back yard. Last night I decorated it with little tiny lights.

Senor said..........................that is illegal................ we have not even had Thanksgiving yet.

I said.........................does not matter...............they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here.

Then I put on a Christmas cd, much to his chagrin..........................

Last year, I could hardly listen to a Christmas song. I really had a hard time not getting to spend Christmas together as a family.

So, maybe this is a good sign, a miracle of sorts, that I have already listened to a Christmas cd and have already decorated a little Christmas tree.

Say goodnight, little Christmas tree in the yard.................................adios, Linda Lou