Dealing with traffic -- and wheeled stuff

I spoke too soon. Guayabitos looked lazy and deserted. I totally forgot that we were entering one of the biggest clump of holidays that Mexico celebrates -- a combination of Children's Day (April 30), Labor Day (May 3), Cinco de Mayo (which really isn't that big a deal down here, but a good excuse to party), and Mother's Day (May 10). Whew! A whole week worth of celebrations. The place is packed! Buses and buses and buses on that snakey little road, while insane people with flashy SUVs stitch in and out between them. And HONKING big trucks that crawl up the hills and gather unimaginable speed over the crest. The safest thing to do is get behind something huge, stay there, and let it run interference for you. I really don't mind going slow. It gives me a chance to read the inscriptions on all the little crosses and shrines beside the road. There seem to be a lot of them.

That's just the highway. In town there is a popular sport we've named competitive left hand turning. Games break out spontaneously, and they're just SO much fun. It goes like this. You are first in line in a left turn lane, (going onto the highway, coming off it, it really doesn't matter). Do not believe for a second that you have a corner on making that turn without company. There's the guy to your right in the straight ahead lane who really doesn't have time to get in line behind all you suckers in the left turn lane, but doesn't think a thing about holding up all the straight ahead traffic waiting behind him. After all, he has about fifteen people in the bed of his pickup truck, and numbers should count for something, right? Then there are the kids on the bicycles and motorcycles straddling the faint white line between you and the guy in the pickup. Usually there's a girl on the back of one with an interesting tatoo across where her jeans should be but aren't. That can be a tad distracting. AND then there's the guy to your left -- YES! to your left -- headed the same direction as you, only into oncoming traffic. He smiles and shrugs as if to say Well, why not? Those people across the intersection aren't actually using these lanes until the light turns green. And if it does turn green before he gets turned, they can always go around.

Let's be clear on this. CLHT is definitely not a team sport. It's every driver for himself.

As I write this, my main driver and all time Guaybitos Left Hand Turning Champ is in Washington State. We are reregistering all our various wheeled things, also known as Larry's toys. Some of you are interested in this, so I will elaborate. (I myself would skip straight to the Virgin of Talpa stuff in the next post, but each to his own). To recap -- Larry traded his much loved Fat Boy Harley, which we left in California with a "For Sale" sign on it, for a jeep. He did that sight unseen over the internet with the help of a lot of friends. Then he had Harley withdrawal symptoms and started to hyperventilate. At last, a "deal" was found in Texas. Some kind of classic Harley wonder bike that we picked up last year. (I just remember we went with the guy to pay off the loan he had on it. We went to the Happy State Bank, which still gives me a kick thinking about the name. I had a boss one time who refused to be on the board of a new bank until they changed its name. A group of West Texas movers and shakers were planning on building it near the airport, and with a blind eye to irony tried to charter it as Terminal State.)

But I digress. The new/old/totally classic and wonderful Harley is in a storage unit in San Antonio waiting for Larry to whirl through the Midwest this summer with an old high school friend and eventually bring it home to Mexico in September. It is a 1998, and there's some kind of red tape provision that this year in Mexico foreign vehicles built in 1998 can be "regularized," that is, get Mexican plates, with minimal outlay of paperwork and pesos. This would be a HUGE plus, as Harleys are like gold down here. Maybe it has something to do with competitive left hand turning.

So......now we also have a trailer to put said Harley in....another deal....more help from friends. The trailer is parked at their house outside of San Antonio. So that makes three scattered wheeley things to keep track of. Plus Hummercita down here, still wearing its LOVDSEA California vanity plates. Pricey plates. Someone has to pay for all that pretty iceplant on the freeway medians out there, but since we're no longer residents, we went looking for the state which would give us the best deal -- taking into account not only price of registration, but also price of insurance, and how often you have to show up and have something inspected. We also needed a place in Washington to call "home." Since I had a photo of my sister Amy's back yard vista out over the Hood Canal and up to the Cascades as my screen saver for about four years, I feel like that could be home. And she "gets" this absentee stuff. She and John were in Thailand for seven years, but "officially" they lived in Texas. And the lady at the DMV in WA said OK with her. At any rate, we are now official Washingtonians. It's cheap. All told the fees on four vehicles -- including title transfers and sales tax on the trailer -- came to less than half what it costs to register Hummercita for one year in CA. But it definitely wasn't easy.

Well, maybe easier than competitive left hand turning, but not half as entertaining.

Introducing Rumer Godden -- She would be at home in Mexico

I've finally got "Blogger" up, just as I hear the six in the morning clang clang clang of the bell at the fishing village across the estero. It's taken almost thirty minutes to get through all the "updates" and assorted obstacles (in Spanish and in English, mind you) that impede the booting up process. Rumer Godden never had problems like this. She's my favorite British author and I've been reading her memoirs -- again. The volume I'm reading now, A House With Four Rooms, covers 1945 - 1977. She talks of getting handwritten manuscripts to competent secretaries who type them up on sturdy manual machines, not even electric. Maybe that's what my creative process needs -- less technology.

My mother-in-law Chloe and I shared a passion for Rumer Godden's books. (I can't just use her last name, as her sister Jon also wrote. Jon's books are terrifying, psychologically scary fiction that makes Stephen King look like a bumbling over-obvious oaf. I can't say I love Jon's novels, but they have stayed with me for years after reading them.) Like Chloe, Rumer left the earthly scene before email really caught on. It's hard to imagine either of them using it. Both were more sit-at-a-desk-in-a-morning-room-loved-fountain-pen-in-hand type ladies. I could never miss by giving Chloe pretty stationary for whatever occasion. She used it constantly, and some of my best mementos of her are notes she wrote, to me and to others. My favorite: "I just love Susan, Son. You're right. This is the one." It's been a bookmark of mine for years.

I've been re-making Rumer's acquaintance during these hot in the light, cool at night days as we slow down and come into summer. Do you know her? She died in 1998 at the age of 90, after having written around 60 books, the last published in 1996. Many of them were made into films -- Black Narcissus, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, In This House of Brede, Greengage Summer, and the classic Jean Renoir-directed The River. Her novels all have a strong sense of place, no matter where the setting. There are many: a Greek Island, a small country French hotel, a monastery in the Himalayas, a villa on Lake Garda, a mews house in the middle of London.


But the ones I've been most entranced with are the ones set in India where she spent so much of her youth and young married life. She writes of hot sun, tiled floors, brilliant flora, dangerous fauna, polluted rivers and sparkling sea, market smells, dust, tropical health hazards, indigenous religious practices. Long quiet afternoons when no one stirs. It could be Mexico. Here. Now.


Because the vacancy signs are out now in gaudy little Guayabitos. There's a suspension of activity that coincides with the retreat of shadows. The beaches are deserted. Doorways are open but empty. Even the pelicans are quiet in midday, standing impervious to the sun on the tiny little sand-islet in the estero behind our house.

The sand bar beyond is still intact and blocks the river's exit to the bay. It will take a raging summer storm -- or man's machine -- to make the breach. PROFEPA, the Mexican equivalent of the EPA, is not eager for this to happen. While the water of the estero looks beautiful, no one in their right mind would venture to swim there. The sewage treatment plant upstream is for all practical purposes, non-functioning. That water -- green, silent, inviting -- is deadly.

But for now the beach and the bay are safe, pollutants held captive by a strip of sand a few meters wide. Early morning, depending on the tide, the fishermen launch from the village, gun their boats and make it almost across. Scraping hull. Scrunchy stop. Shouts, shouts, shouts as all jump out and push, push, push into the salt water waves beyond. Once more the engine revs, the craft escapes. The pelicans, wheeling and squealing encouragement from above, settle once more on the round patch of sand they abandoned in an upward rush moments before. They stand now, circled like awkward feathered sentries caught off guard, shifting webbed foot to foot in the heavy hot air, barely a ripple breaking around them.

The evenings are more animated. White egrets bank around the river curve, skim the surface in flights of three, six, then ten, twenty, thirty, more, settling with great flapping of wings and noisy negotiations in the tree on the large island in the river behind us. We listen to them from the verandah. "You're on my branch! No mine, mine!" Their immense number is doubled by reflection in the water. They'll stay through the night if something doesn't disturb them. Last week at almost midnight, I lay floating on my back in the swimming pool, eyes closed, breathing and listening in the dark. A sudden noise and I looked upwards. Great white stars swirled madly overhead. Had the earth sped its orbit??!! The stars were so stable, stuck like jewels on black velvet when I'd first closed my eyes. No. It was egrets, startled from their perches revolving round and around, upward and outward in great circles, their great white wings reflecting light from the street lamps below. If they were squawking the wind carried their protests above and beyond my hearing. All was eerily silent. Except for .... laughter. Snickers floated across the dark water. Young men. Rocks. I pulled a towel around me and headed back upstairs.

This week we've been lighting candles on the verandah after the sun goes down, turning on the fans, and feasting on the results of a cooking binge I went through last weekend. We've been grazing in good company. Monday it was old friends Victor and Linda (there's a link to her blog on this site) meeting new friends Agnetha and Ezra -- the mother and son who will be renting our house for three months this summer while Larry and I wander around the States. My instincts were right. Victor and Agnetha share the same metaphysical wave length. The rest of us bobbed and drifted in their wake. Tuesday it was new friend Ann and her ex-husband but still good friend Elias, a giant cherub of a man who makes films about his native Mexico. There was also Juan, another film maker who is making a television series about the coast of Nayarit. And Roberto and Eddie, new friends I've known forever, ready to take the summer off and plan for next year's events at Xaltemba. Shades of the last ten years! I'm going to be curating a month of women's history events for them in March! Last night there was talk of movies and art and books. Elias, to his surprise, was a Rumer Godden fan, though he didn't know it. He knew the films. So did Juan. And Roberto had just been introduced through the short book, The River.

But Lucy is gone -- off for a week in Mexico City with her departing-back-to-England friend Selena. Selena looks like a twenty-something Iman, and for the past two and half months she brought a welcome bit of exotic glamour to our neck of the jungle. Half Sri-Lankan, she could easily have stepped out of a Godden novel. Besides that, she was sweet and genuine -- exactly what you'd expect Lucy's best friend to be. Lucy, when she returns, may be moving into the bedroom/study upstairs on the roof. We are, after all, her "official" address in Mexico. It will be nice to have her close -- watching the birds, swinging in the hammock, gazing at the stars. I'll bet she knows who Rumer Godden is. If not, I'll introduce her.

"On the fringe," -- Full tilt and full throttle

An email I got from a friend the other day got me thinking about Larry and me and a lot of the people around us. My response was sort of like this....

"I've been thinking about how you and xxx have talked about calling it quits. I wonder how many times Larry and I have had that conversation over the years – and it will be thirty-nine of them this summer. We are the case of polar opposites attracting, and it's not always comfortable.

Being married is HARD. It is NOT a rose garden. Or if it is, it is still hard work, with lots of scratches, punctures and manure. But it is so worth it. It’s a wonder-filled experience that helps us evolve. What greater adventure could we have than to find new ways to love and be loved?"

One of the sweetest things about being down here is witnessing the strong marriages around us. I'm talking gringos here. These are people who have stepped out into a foreign land together and are depending primarily on each other for companionship -- understanding, sympathy and comfort. Someone referred to Larry and me the other day as "you people on the fringe." They were talking about those who take risks, step outside the norm. I guess moving to Mexico would qualify, though more and more people seem to be doing it. I'd say, more and more people are "getting it." And that's what long-term companionship is all about -- "getting" each other, even if you are two totally and completely different individuals.

Letting other people be themselves and loving them unconditionally through their process of becoming.....whatever.....that is a mind-blowing spiritual practice of putting off ego. The added side effect is that the less ego we carry around, the more inclined we are to let ourselves go. That's when the creative juices start flowing. You might call it "self-expression." I think it's more Self-expression -- giving outlet to Creator Spirit in infinite, quirky and wonderful ways. It makes for a very supportive community.

I saw this last Sunday afternoon at Mateja's on the beach. It's a bar and grill, a gringo hangout. My friend Amy and her husband John brought their karaoke machine down and a good time was had by all. Mexicans, like Japanese, absolutely adore karaoke. I've got a previous blog about how music just seems to spill out of every doorway down here. Whether it's a party boat raucus and rowdy offshore, or a birthday party in the poorest part of La Penita, there's music -- full tilt and full throttle.

So we "fringe people" were just joining the Mexican mainstream, singing. Loudly. After all, we were in competition with the other loud music next door to the north, and the other loud music a few beach restaurants south. Amy sang lots of the sixties stuff she loves and does so well, and I sang a few Patsy Cline classics. (Hey, I was born in Texas. It's in my blood.) Then Mateja got her courage up and sang "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." I think it resonated with a lot of us who have many, many years invested in our marriages.

And then Kate got up and sang "The Master of the Stars," to her husband of just a few years. She sang it in that awful off key way that Cameron Diaz did when she was ambushed by Julia Roberts in "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- but there wasn't a dry eye at Mateja's because Kate meant every word of it. (You'll have to google the lyrics. It's a Clint Black country song. I hadn't heard it before, and I doubt if you have. And I SURE wouldn't recognize it from the way Kate sang it....but the lyrics were terrific.) And then I sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" to Larry. It was all SOOOO schmaltzy, and so much fun. We walked out holding hands.

It's invigorating to be around people who are loving each other extravagantly, "full tilt and full throttle," not stinting on affection and attention -- loving generously, tenderly, with an open spirit. Rejoicing. Singing. Dancing. That kind of love is like doing a cannonball jump into the deep end of life. Everyone around you gets splashed. Even people who haven't put a toe in the water get wet.

Don't hold back on one ounce of love. It's a blessing to your marriage, and a blessing to the world. With lots and lots of love to the both of you, always,
Susannah"

Into the hills and history

Where did the week go? Well, for one thing we spent a big chunk of it up in the mountains. We went with our neighbors Danny and Nancy up to Mascota, Talpa, and San Sebastian del Oeste. It's ugly, awful. Stay away. Never go there.

Yeah, right. The only thing saving it right now from an influx of land-hungry gringos and rich Guadalajarans is that the people in the mountains are "real proud" of their property -- a euphemism for saying they're asking nose-bleed prices. The only thing we could figure out is that all the natives think that now there's a paved highway connecting Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara through Mascota, and what used to be a day's drive can now be done in two hours, everyone in Mexico and the United States will be beating a pathway to their door. Well, maybe. But when someone is asking $8,000,000 pesos for a property similar to one that rents for $3,000 pesos a month....reality check, please! Renting is sure the better option for a while.

It's something to consider if we start spending more time down here through the summers. For now, and for short stays, I vote for Meson Santa Elena, where we spent two nights. The largest suite upstairs behind the patio was around $700 pesos a night. Breakfast was an extra $80 pesos, and it just kept coming and coming and coming. We sat in that chilly-in-the-shadows-heaven-in-the-sunshine patio from 9 to 11 in the morning, grazing through one dish after another, listening to great music and just enjoying each others' company. OK, here's what we got in the order received: Coffee spiced with cinnamon...fresh pineapple/papaya juice or the sweetest fresh orange juice I've ever had...a basket of crispy thin (anise-flavored?) cookies, cakes, and pan dulce...a fruit plate with fresh pineapple, yogurt, and granola....omelettes to order served with bacon, frijoles, and chilaquiles....plus all the little side dishes of chopped onion, chicharrones, salsa fresca, crema (not quite sour cream)....then (for dessert??!!) sweet corn tamales that were light and fluffy melt-in-your-mouth. And that coffee and orange juice just kept pouring forth.

Like I say, about 11:00 we waddled forth ready to explore Mascota. We didn't even make it the three blocks to the plaza before we found ourselves in a real estate office, and Danny being Danny and Larry and me interested bystanders, we made plans to meet up later that day. But first, after Mascota's plaza, I insisted we go to Talpa.

I'd been wanting to go since Hilda, my housekeeper, had told me about her plans. Millions of people visit Talpa every year, and this year Hilda, her son and her mother, plus husband Chano are making the pilgrimage. Tuesday May 6, they'll go to San Juan de Abajo, a small town outside of Puerto Vallarta, and begin a three day trek up the mountains and then down the dizzying Espina del Diablo (Devil's Spine), through a large orange stucco archway that says "Bienvenidos Peregrinos" which spans the narrow highway, and make it to the basilica in time for a Mass to the Virgin of the Rosary Friday afternoon, May 9. Having just driven that road, it is NOT something I would ever consider in my wildest dreams.

Neither would the dentist's assistant who filled me in on the whole Talpa scene while I was lying in the chair last Friday mouth agape. (Oh yeah. That's the OTHER thing that went on last week). She said that she had made the pilgrimage to Talpa, but that she rode in a coach which went ahead and set up camp for the pilgrims and provided them food and water along the way. Much better choice in my book. She told me some do the trek barefoot with nopales (that's prickly pear cactus leaves) tied to their shoulders. Again, not her thing. The most she's done is on her knees from the entry door at the basilica in Zapopan up to the altar. Slacker.

Zapopan, Talpa, and Mexico City -- those are the three MAJOR miracle virgin shrines in Mexico. They have major fiestas when there are millions of people who invade them, but they're pretty busy any time of the year. I took pictures. I'll get them onto Shutterfly in an album and talk more about this later. This kind of religion makes Danny, Nancy and Larry hinky as all get out. They indulged me. I kept saying you had to look at it like a cultural anthropoligist -- or an artist. I want to know how people tick -- what's going on in the hearts and heads around me in this country. My travel companions gave me tight little understanding smiles, nodded and made polite comments. They couldn't get out of there fast enough.

So we looked at property until the sun went down. Literally. Sometime in the late afternoon we ate again -- and I think once more LONG after the sun had gone down. It's a blur. I remember lots of thick rock walls crossing fields, adobe houses with tile roofs, and clouds of purpe jacaranda trees in bloom everywhere. It felt like Provence, only there the purple is in the lavender fields. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of growing lavender near Mascota?

I just couldn't face another marathon breakfast the second day. That's when we went to San Sebastian, whose praises I have already sung in a previous post. Nancy and Danny had never been, so we had to show them around the little town we love. The main difference this time is that the Hotel Pabellon has changed hands and I didn't find the atmosphere as welcoming. The Italian restaurant Minas Real wasn't open yet. But we did meet Debra of La Galera Hacienda Esperanza -- the place which had intrigued me on my two previous visits but had seemed unoccupied. Turns out she just opened for business this past January. And her guests in February -- Pat Smith and her artists' workshop -- the same group I went to Antigua with! There was one of Pat's paintings hanging in the living room. Pat does pick pretty places and she travels with nice people.

Pretty places. Nice people. We have no shortage of those. Home looked pretty good even after a short trip like that. And right now BED looks like the prettiest place of all. Night, All!

Spring cleaning, getting organized, running with the night owls

For now the last of the houseguests have fled, leaving in their wake much cleaner storage spaces and much larger disk space. Or at least a group of computers who are more inclined to play nicely together. My sister Amy installed the scanner I bought when we moved down here a year or so ago. You know, the one with the special attachment for scanning slides which I was going to do in all my spare time. Her husband John, after installing the very nice printer that came for free with the Mac I bought last November and which I hadn't yet taken out of the box, sat in my office, going through boxes of electronic spaghetti, asking me hard questions like: Do I really want to keep a Sony Walkman that only plays cassette tapes? Do I really have need for a laptop which has no slot for CDs and takes only little hard disks? Am I aware that ZIP drives are now considered museum pieces? Do I ever consider throwing ANYTHING away?

Well, John, NO, I don't! I don't have the brave in-your-face self-confidence to jettison stuff that looks important and electronic and has mysterious end pieces that might fit something sometime. And failing that, might possibly be used to tie back tomato vines...if I ever felt inclined to plant any. Honest! That's the reason I used to keep old panty hose. But on second thought let's not even begin discussing my lingerie situation, which is probably as archaic as my collection of electronic equipment. Rusty and dusty. That's me in so many ways.

So, I think I need to start blogging again. It's sort of like limbering up for the day, getting the creative juices flowing and the fingers moving on the keyboard. Besides, I miss you guys -- whoever you are reading this. I don't want to lose touch! The weather is warming up and I can now crawl out of bed again in the middle of the night to attack my keyboard without freezing my petukis off....whatever that is. Use your imagination. I do. From talking to my neighbors, I think every pre and post menopausal woman is up during the wee small hours letting her imagination go wild -- reading, writing, painting pictures. Shoot, Nina across the estero paints her WALLS -- deep red, sap green, violeta and mustard. (Maybe that's why she can't sleep -- the colors keep her awake!)

But Nina's headed north like many of our neighbors. It's getting quiet once more in the zona. Most of us here on Golondrinas, however, will be holding out until the end of May, slowing things down, taking it easy, taking time to paint, read and write. Hmmmm. Now, pass me that 1040 and let's see how creative we can REALLY get.

How I Spent Semana Santa

Hello everyone! This is Maria from Antigua, and I bought a BUNCH of stuff from her. How could I resist? Frankly I was on sensory overload most of the time I was away. Guatemala is another word for COLOR!!!!!

I've been trying to post some of the photos I took on the trip into an album on Shutterfly, and I'm not doing a very good job of it. It still needs work, but I'm about ready to throw in the towel for today. If you go to the link on the left side bar that says "Susan's Photo Albums" you'll find a NUMBER of albums....evidently I keep entering info and duplicating it. But pick the most recent one with 60 photos and play it as a slide show. You can slide right through and make it go fast. I didn't even post any photos from the painting class, the market in Chichicastenango, or any of the amazing flora and fauna.

I haven't figured out how to put the comments or descriptions in where they're supposed to be, so I'll give you a little background here on what I DID post. Mona Cavalli (a neighbor of mine from down here) and I travelled with a group from Puerto Vallarta to spend ten days painting with an artist who spends half her time in PV and half in Wisconsin. She rented a large casa on the outskirts of Antigua where most of the group stayed. That's the big white house you'll see in the first photo. We met there every day and painted in the garden and around the pool.

Mona and I, however, stayed in the Hotel Aurora right in the middle of town, just a couple of blocks from the main plaza. You can see what a pretty place it was. They served us breakfast every morning in that sunny patio area. The rate was $65/night for the two of us, for those inquiring minds who want to know! :-)

We were happy we were in town, because beginning Palm Sunday, there were processions at all hours of the day and night, and we were right in the middle of all the action. It was absolutely medieval and mysterious. We would hear the dirge like music coming from big drums, tubas and horns -- sometimes at 2:00 in the morning! Then we'd whiff the incense that came rolling up in great clouds of copal. I couldn't resist running to the front gate of the hotel to watch as purple robed figures swayed in unison carrying huge platforms with images of Jesus or the Virgin on top. (Guys carry Jesus, women carry Mary.) They walked solemnly through the streets and over carpets of flowers residents laid out as offerings. I hope you get a sense of how eerie and mysterious it all seemed from the photos. I felt like I was back several centuries -- and then I'd see the sunglasses, or the iPod earbuds, or see some of the members of the hermandades (fraternal orders) talking on or snapping pictures with their cellphones.

Enjoy the photos. They're colorful and interesting, no matter what shape the collection is in right now. I'm going down the street to play Mexican train dominoes!

Hello/Goodbye! ..... At least for a while

Score! Interest from an editor! Got to get my bottom in the chair and get busy with what to send and how to send it.

Looking at a host of houseguests. Sisters! At last! Emily, Jay, and Meredith come for a week this Saturday, and the first of April, Amy, John and JP come for a week. In between I'm spending ten days in Antigua over Semana Santa, painting. So, Hello/Goodbye. See you sometime in April!