Still on the move

After a walk on the beach into Guayabitos to pick up some things, I’m back in the door of my hotel room listening to the birds and the breeze in the palm fronds and generally enjoying a quiet day while Barb deals with domestic details, getting her kitchen counter modified to fit a new stove which she and Rod are buying this morning.  In the afternoon, they will meet with a lawyer to discuss details of land ownership and putting an extension on their casita.  After being rootless for so long, I almost wish I were busy with such matters, but in a few months I will probably be wishing I could teleport myself to exactly where I am.  Such is human nature.  So I will enjoy where I am while I’m here.  I do think that moving about has kept me from dwelling on sadness.  I’m reading a book now, River of Doubt, Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.  It’s really well written, and as I knew little of his life, very informative.  He was apparently a physically frail and asthmatic child whose father told him at one point that he had the mind but not the body and that without the latter he wouldn’t go as far as he should.  He told him it would take hard drudgery to make a body, but he could do it, and Teddy did. As a teen, he worked out incessantly. He came to relish exertion and ever afterward sought relief from sorrow and defeat in difficult physical challenges.  His journey down the Rio da Duvida in Brazil was the most difficult of those challenges. One of his earlier ones was after his first wife died of Bright’s disease.  Then he went to the Dakota  Badlands to travel and live under harsh circumstances.  When he returned, he said almost nothing of the death or the time spent except to make one comment, “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.”   

Barb and I are suffering through our second day of some kind of food poisoning.  We can’t figure out what caused it because we ate what Rod ate and he didn’t get it.  I threw up until my throat ached on Saturday night and so did she.  We’ve hardly had anything to eat since and still feel queasy, headachy and generally dragged out.  They will probably join me here in the afternoon for a rest by the pool.  Maybe we’ll even go in it for the first time.

Below are 4 shots that I took this morning as I walked along the ocean.  The fishermen keep their boats in the estuary that runs by Barb and Rod's place, but in the dry season the mouth silts over and to get out to fish in the ocean they have to roar the boat over the sand.  It you look carefully in the first shot, you'll see a stick with an old pair of under ware flying from the top of it just ahead and to the left of the boat.  This functions as the marker for the guy driving the boat as he revs the motor, takes a run at the sand bank and slides as far as he can over it.

Pictures of Guayabitos and La Penita

My hotel in La Penita ( you can just see the bike Barb lent me on the left, leaning against the column)

My hotel again.  The castle in the background is another hotel.

 A very friendly cobbler we passed on a walk through La Penita to the hills beyond.

The view back over La Penita, the ocean and an island in the distance from the top of the hill.

A young girl and her dogs on the far side of the hill as we walked down to the fields below.

A brick making operation on the flats.  The bricks are dried in the sun and then stacked to form their own kiln.  On Friday we are going back to see the firing.  They build fires in each of the openings and let them burn for about 30 hours until the bricks are fired and red in colour.

The master in blue, journeyman in the white wife beater and apprentice in yellow, standing over 4 newly made bricks.

A caballero who asked for a copy of this picture and won't be happy that I cut off his horse's feet

Mexican medicine,etc.

 My cold has finally been cured by time and the 3 medications I got in Manzanillo and took with lots of water, no alcohol and blind confidence.  I had meant to look up their names on the internet but typically didn't.  Now I'm working on my shoulder with less success.  Ken and Caroline walked me down to catch the rickety, blue and white Mojoneres city bus to the main bus station in P.V.  For the first time since I've been in Mexico this year, a person got on to try to sell something.  He was a well dressed young man whom I was going to look at but ignore until I understood that he was talking about a miracle cream that contained arnica.  I've heard about the wonders of arnica for years from Rosanda and Dick, but never tried it.  I perked up.  Now was my chance.  According to the man, it helps or cures stress, headache, aches in general, bruises, arthritis, chicken pox marks, incontinence (where you rub it for this I can't imagine) and inflammations of all sorts.  This particular bottle of mauve coloured cream also contains belladona and regularly costs 54.50 peso.  He was offering it to us for only 20 pesos.  Then he handed a bottle to almost everyone on the bus, and many more, including me, bought it than gave it back.  I have been rubbing it on my shoulder at least 3 times a day for 3 days now and can't say that I'm ready to lift anything heavier than a coffee cup with my right hand, but it does seem to hurt less when I move it than it has done since I fell on the ice in Kelowna.  I'm going to try it out playing tennis with Rod this afternoon.  He's usually a gentleman and gives me easy shots to the forehand, but if he whips one at my backhand and I stupidly go for it, that will be the real test of arnica.  On  Feb. 9 I have an appointment with the dentist in P.V. for a check up.  I'm looking forward to being in good shape when we go to Hawaii.

It is now 10:55a.m., and I am sitting in the doorway of my room in the Hotel Brisis del Mar in Rincon de Guayabitos, just a 2 min. walk through an empty lot and over a swing bridge from Barb and Rod's place.  

The hotel presents the contrasts so often encountered in Mexico, classic colonial style, clean white concrete arches, blue and white tile floors, lovely garden and pool, but lots of things don't work.  It's close to the ocean, but not the real tourist zone, so I'm the only guest at the moment and from the state of things there appear not to have been many people staying here in the last while.  My room looks fine and opens on to the garden and pool.  The morning sun rises over the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the hibiscus in the garden are lovely, but many things don't work.  Of 2 gas burners, only one lights, but I'm not doing much cooking.  The shower is tepid at best, but I go on so much about being able to swim in Lake Superior that I don't feel I can complain.  But  I drew the line when the bed lamp didn't turn on.  I love to read in bed, so I asked Jose, the man on night duty, to try to repair it.  He did, but not as I expected he would.  I went off to bike, walk, watch the Australian Open or do something with Barb and Rod.  When I returned a few hours later, I saw that the light worked.  Then, I went to take my laptop out of the bedside cupboard only to discover that it wasn't there, neither were any of the t shirts I had used to cover it.  I panicked (I still haven't learned not to) and ran to Jose to say someone must have stolen them.  He looked puzzled, and I discovered that my ability to speak Spanish was not as great as I had been flattering myself it was.  He said nobody could have come in.  I asked if Carlos, the person whose sex I can't quite determine, who has just been hired to look after the desk in the daytime could be trusted and he said, yes.  He then suggested that the things might be in the room I had stayed in on the first night because my room wasn't ready yet, whatever that means since the problems I listed above were still in my room when I moved in the next day.  I said that that was not possible because I hadn't unpacked in the first room, knowing that I would be moving.  I, however, was ignorant of the fact that as the lamp was bolted to the bed stand, Jose had moved them together into the first room and taken the two there together into my room.  He insisted we look.  I followed hopelessly, and presto, there were the laptop and t shirts.  What relief for both of us.  He then asked me to teach him English and I happily agreed.  Now if I work on my Spanish, he studies his English and I stay here for about a year, Jose and I shouldn't have any more communication problems.  That's not going to happen, I don't think.  As I get older, I learn less quickly and I'm less sure of what the future might hold.

Pictures of Manzanillo and Colima

The view from Danny and Rita's balcony in Manzanillo

The group of fishers, men and women hauled in the net together, on Miramar beach in Manzanillo

The bronze statue of a 'cargador de muelle' with tugboats in the background on the main sea walk in downtown Manzanillo

A picture of Rita, Danny and me looking into the sun on the day we walked around the city centre of Manzanillo

The fuming volcano outside Colima as seen from the archeological dig

The Best Western in Colima, one of the best restored buildings that surround the main square

A poster in the main square of the small town of Comala where we finally ate lunch after our tour of Colima, visit to the magic hill, etc. etc.  The church in the poster was right behind me but the square was too small and full of trees for me to be able to take a  good picture of it.

A small section of the Hidalgo family ranch.  The tall broken chimney in the background was once part of the sugar refining plant that was there.  It reminded me of one I saw in Cuba with Mela.

Travelling by bus and van

I’m on the bus just outside of Manzanillo heading back to P.V.  I had to go second- class because the only first class bus left at 12:23a.m.  Danny and Rita came to the stop with me.  It was sad to leave them because we had had a lot of fun together, but so far the trip back has gone better than the one to Manzanillo.  Leaving Vallarta was a fiasco.  I had over planned.  Ken accompanied me in the dark at 6:15 down the hill to the bus stop to catch the city bus to the main station on the far north side of town.  That was the only part that went well.  The bus to Manzanillo left the station about 15 min. late and drove slowly through town to the place close to the Baughan’s that I had been told it might not stop at.  It did and spent about 20 min. there picking up a motley collection of locals and gringos who hadn’t had the sense to be excessively concerned about missing the bus that I had had.  By the time we pulled out, it was 9:10 and all I had to show for my early rising was a free lunch, a Bimbo bunwich that could have been squeezed into a ball the size of a small apricot, a bottle of water and 2 chocolate chip cookies.  The late boarders didn’t get this freebie.  For the first half hour the sound from the kid’s movie that was playing blared through the bus in spite of the fact that there were earphones at each seat and there had been an announcement informing us of all the advantages of Primera Plus, including the fact that we could listen in comfort to either the movie or a choice of 2 music stations.  I was telling myself that it passed for a Spanish lesson, but one gringo got aggravated enough to go up and insist that it be lowered, and it was.  In contrast, today’s 2^nd class bus left on time and is well air conditioned and relatively quiet, just a background of Mexican music accompanied by the driver who snaps his fingers and beats the rhythm on the casing of his gear shift stick.  He also seems to be distracted by a young woman sitting in the front seat who laughs at almost everything he says. The ticket was cheaper, and I won’t miss the lunch, so I’m happy to this point.  The trip is supposed to take 2 hours more than first class, but as the latter was about 11/2 hours late, we’ll see what the future holds.

The scenery on the way down was not spectacular until we neared Barra de Navidad.  Then there were moments when you could see the ocean and the Sierra Madre Occidental.  The fields on either side for miles were coconut palms waving high over banana plantations, many bunches were already wrapped in newspaper and then plastic. 

Manzanillo is a big city, around 250,000 people, that extends for miles along the ocean.  It has about 3 bays with peninsulas and 2 or 3 main tourist sections, separated at one point by a thriving seaport, the largest on Mexico’s west coast. Danny and Rita’s condo is located high up on the 2^nd and smallest bay.  From the balcony you get a wonderful view of Las Hadas, one of the first big luxury hotels built in the early 70s.  Some scenes in the movie “Ten” were shot there. It’s fallen on hard times lately like many of Mexico’s tourist areas, and a Quebec couple we met on our tour to Colima told us that there were only 30 people in it at the moment.  The video of “Ten” was in the condo, and Danny and Rita watched it before I got there.  They gave me a fast showing of the high points which were quite ludicrous, especially one in which Dudley Moore tries to cross a strip of hot sand like the one we had burned our feet on the day we went to what is probably the best beach in Manzanillo, Miramar.

Danny suggested a tour to Colima, the capital of the state of Colima, which we took on Wednesday.  It was well worth it.  The guide was a bit of a martinet, and the scratchy sound system in the van combined with his accent which included an ‘e’ in front of every word beginning with ‘s’ and an almost complete failure to pronounce the ends of words made it difficult for everyone to understand him.  I had the advantage of sitting beside him, but even that didn’t make his every comment completely clear.  He did tell us some interesting information as we walked around; though, and we went to places we would not have seen otherwise.  The highlights were a ‘Magic Hill’ where you can put the car in neutral and roll up what appears to be,an incline.  Apparently the reason is a magnetic pull caused by the movement of magma under the area.  There are two volcanoes just beyond Colima, one of which is active and emits puffs of white fumes. They are about four thousand metres high and form a spectacular backdrop to the city, especially when you are in the archeological dig because the remains of the pyramids have only forest between them and the volcanoes.  We also visited a museum and a colonial ranch that had been the family home of a famous artist; we even had about 40 min. of free time to shop.  This is when I did something that could only be done in Mexico.

I went to a pharmacy because the cold that I have had since Jan.4 was finally wearing me down.  I was producing litres of ‘phlegma in the tubes’, as Marissa Barenson said in the movie, “Cabaret”, and now it was getting dark and causing a pain in my sinuses that felt like a minor toothache.  I wouldn’t have thought of doing this on a tour except that ours had begun with a trip to a pharmacy so that one of the women could buy Imodium for her husband.  At the time I thought that this was just another example of the many being inconvenienced by the lack of planning of the few, but now the idea of visiting a pharmacy on a tour seemed reasonable.  I couldn’t get an antibiotic without a prescription, but they suggested that I go next door to see the doctor, which I did.  I got right in, had an examination, got a prescription and was buying 3 different medications within 15 min.  I have no idea what I’m taking, but the whole thing including consultation cost only 225 pesos, and at the rate of 12 pesos to the dollar, that’s quite a deal.  I even had time to shop a bit and would have bought a dress like the one Caroline and I had seen in PV the week before if they had had it in black.  Then I walked quickly to our appointed gathering place lest I upset our easily irritated guide. I already feel much better, so thanks to Danny’s research and suggestion that we take the tour to Colima, I’m in much better health and much more well informed about one region of Mexico.

I’m safe back with the Baughans and Danbrook, in spite of the fact that the driver was even more distracted when the girl who laughed at his jokes got off and a younger one with the largest and least dressed breasts I’ve ever seen replaced her in the front seat.  Fortunately she fell asleep before the last 50km into Puerto Vallarta began because that’s a very narrow and twisting descent, which our man did with complete concentration and at a fairly good speed.  I was much more aware of the beauty of the approach from the south to Puerto Vallarta on the return than I had been on the drive to Manzanillo.  Highway 200 winds down between the ocean and lush hills, with fences dripping in bright orange and dark green honeysuckle bordering the properties on the sea side at many points as you get close to town.  I got out at the right stop this time and walked to the condo.  Second class took the same time as first and was more enjoyable.  

Pictures of La Penita and Puerto Vallarta

A termite trail up a tree to the nest.  I saw this on a walk with Barb and Rod to a beach near La Penita.

An excursion to an island off Rincon.  Find five broken boating safety codes.  This is one of many reasons why Mexicans don't need to spend hundreds of dollars getting the gear to do Xtreme sports.  Life is an Xtreme sport here.

Different types of white ibis and a black egret on the shore of the estuary near Barb and Rod's

Carolyn and Ken in their pool with the Puerto Vallarta cathedral tower in the background.

The same two with the ocean as backdrop.

Morning in Vallarta

I’m sitting in the dark at 6:45a.m., Sunday, January 26 in the Baughan’s living room in Puerto Vallarta, waiting to talk on Skype with Jay.  I’ve been moving around so much lately that I can’t figure out exactly what time it is in Korea at this moment, but I think I’m early.  As I typed the above, I realized that I didn’t have to remain ignorant when I had Google. I now know that the time in Incheon is 10:00p.m., so Jay is 15 hours ahead of here and probably not home yet. 

It was a noisy Saturday night in P.V.  Caroline made a good salmon dinner after which we sat around, finished our wine and chatted over the booming music that roared up from the outdoor theatre at the S. end of the Malecon.  The female singer’s voice, at first irritating, became increasingly attractive, conjuring up images of Shania Twain and Tina Turner.  Ken, Danbrook and I were finally unable to resist.  We left the house to see her but were only half way down the steps to the main square when all went as close to silent as it ever does in P.V.  By the time we got there, the stage was back to being the domain of the regulars, a big stocky man and a short stocky man, semi-mimes, kind of costumed, whose act manages to be frenetic and laid back at the same time.  They have a cheap sound system, which they sometimes turn on, and as both have good rhythm they move well to it as they joke with and heckle the audience.  At other times they attempt gymnastic tricks, which aside from some passable juggling usually fail, to the laughing delight of the mostly Mexican audience, who also understand their verbal jokes most of which we gringos miss.  We watched and laughed for a while and then walked along the Malecon and back again to the comfort, if not peace, of the condo.  Sleep was interrupted by sporadic loud music and the odd irritating car alarm, but it finally “knit up the raveled sleeve of care.”

Tomorrow I will rise even earlier than I did today to catch the bus for Manzanillo to visit with Danny and Rita.  The bus leaves the main station at the extreme north end of Vallarta at 7:45a.m..  After asking 3 different ticket agents, I now know as much as I ever will about the schedule.  It appears that the bus does pass and might stop at a church close to where I’m now staying with the Baughans, but I would have to be there as it arrived and flag it down.  This being too iffy for a person who requires the degree of certainty that I do, I will have all my gear packed the night before in the small suitcase Caroline is lending me, rise well before six, wash, grab the Yop-type drink and nuts I bought yesterday, take the suitcase,put on the pack and leave to catch a rickety city bus for the main station, about a 20 min. ride at breathtaking speed over rough streets.  Once there, I will relax and submit to their schedule, which is usually very prompt and convenient because you choose your seat when you buy the ticket so there’s no need to stand in line as you do for a bus in Canada.  If I’m lucky I might even get a Bimbo bread and ham sandwich and a box of heavily sugared juice.  They always used to give us a little bag lunch like that when we took a bus in Mexico.  Then I will sit back and ride in air- conditioned comfort through the city again and on for 4 to 5 hours to Manzanillo.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Manzanillo is like and to watching the countryside and shore south of Vallarta rush past me.

With Barb and Rod

Barbara Steers gave me the name of a man, Hector, who has a taxi service in La Penita. She suggested that I might want him to pick me up at the Hotel Rosita and drive me to their house.  I arranged everything with him by email, but finally, he couldn’t make it because he had a cold, so his brother Anthony took his place.  He arrived an hour late because of an accident on the road, but all went well once he did.  Anthony has a fruit juice stand in front of his father’s grocery in Rincon and wants to learn English so that he can explain his juices to gringos, and I want to learn Spanish to keep my mind alive and be able to talk to locals, so we spent the drive teaching each other.  He took me by his stand and introduced me to his mother, father and wife before driving me to Barb and Rod’s.  Today the three of us rode our bikes to Anthony’s stand to buy some juice to drink before riding to another beach.  We learned about 3 fruits we’d never heard of before and would probably never have tasted because they are not terribly attractive to look at, but they are supposed to be good for you.  We tried yaca juice mixed with orange, grapefruit and a bit of honey.  It was delicious, and I’m sure it’s going to help get rid of the cold I’ve got.  I’m a bit of a mess at the moment because my right shoulder still aches when I move it certain ways, and it’s almost 2 weeks since I slid and fell on some snow covered ice on the road home from Knox Mountain, and I have a full blown, with an accent on the blow, blew and blown, cold.  Fortunately Barb and Rod haven’t started yelling, “ Unclean, unclean” at me. 

Barbara bought a third bike to have for guests, so we’ve gone for a few good rides.  Friday, we went across the highway and back into the pineapple fields and mango plantations.  The roads are dusty, dry and rough.  It’s hard to believe that on either side such juicy fruits are growing, but they are, and the plants and trees are a variety of healthy greens.  Colorful flowers that look like pink, wild sweet peas climb up the thick gnarled branches that function as fence posts and blue morning glories bloom at places under the barbed wire.  The layered hills in the distance are a mixture of mist and steely blue.  The countryside is like Mexico itself, simultaneously bright and beautiful and poor and dusty.  On this ride we saw the yaca fruit that we drank at Anthony’s stand.  It was quite large, although not full grown, and hanging pendulously from trees.  But we didn’t know what it was at the time.

The casita at Barbara and Rod’s drips with masses of bright orange honeysuckle mixed with pink bouganvilla.  It’s always a shady, breezy place to relax in and watch interesting wild life.  I’ve been keeping my eye on a large iguana that lives at the moment in a palm tree behind the casita.  Last night we saw a crocodile in the estuary that runs beside it.  You can see many different types of heron, green, great blue and night, as well as hummingbirds and graceful, large, white egrets and ibis and many other birds that only Barb can name, so they shall go nameless in this blog.  At the moment, we are resting in the casita after a morning pedal to the bike repair shop, the coffee store, grocery store and the stand that sells shrimp.  Rod just spotted a strange looking duck and Barbara is trying to figure out what it is. 

After a few days alone in Vallarta, it’s good to be back with friends.  I’ve said it before, but life without Jim still seems a bit like half a life because I do things but don’t have anyone to plan them with or discuss them with later.  It’s as silent as the sound of one hand clapping.  However, thinking, writing and being with friends and relatives certainly helps. When you live alone, there is no need to compromise or take anyone else’s priorities into consideration, no one to argue with or to blame for.  No one hears your complaints so why bother making them.  You are responsible and that clarifies a lot of things.  But I miss the blur, the sharing of married life, the conversation and compromise, the arguments and embraces.  

 Me in Barb and Rod's garden, wearing the pant suit Jay sent me from Korea for Christmas

 

The iguana in the palm behind the casita

Barb and Rod in front of a strangler fig on the bike ride through the pineapple fields

 

Me in the crack of the strangler fig.  These trees grow around and eventually kill a tall palm that a bird has dropped a seed onto the top of.

 

Green yaca hanging from the lower branches of the tree.  When ripe, they are quite large, bumpy and brownish green.

 

A pineapple field surrounded by a barbed wire fence with hanging pink sweet peas.

 

My idea of an art shot of the beach we biked to from the restaurant where we ate.

Pictures

My hotel on the north end of the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta

 

Part of the view from the narrow balcony of my first room on the first morning

 

More of the view on the first morning.  

I include this so as not to be accused of putting lipstick on the pig.

 

The view on the 2nd morning from the balcony of the room I moved to 

 

Indigenous entertainers on the Malecon.  The man climbing stands on the top and plays a flute with a small drum at the end of it which he beats while the others swing slowly around until they touch the ground.  I've seen them before, but it's always spectacular to watch at least once a visit, 

especially when they do it at sunset.

Back to Vallarta

Bert drove me to the Kelowna airport at 5:30a.m. on Jan. 3, 2011.  The Westjet flight to Vancouver left at 7:15 and the Sunwing flight toVallarta left at 12:30.  I arrived in Vallarta at 7:30p.m. local time, having lost 2 hours in the air.  It was dark and the lights of the city were a pattern of gold lame.  Then the chaos began.  The Mexican government implemented a new law on Jan. 1, 2011.  All foreigners must go through customs at their first port of entry to Mexico. This meant that the people on our plane who were carrying on to Cabo Saint Lucas had to get off  before the rest of us with all their carryon stuff so that they could pick up their other luggage, put everything through customs, get back on the plane as quickly as possible and finish their flight.  We Vallarta passengers waited docilely in our seats until the last of them had gone and then filed into the airport pen.  In spite of  everything, the lines were still confused and  interminable.  Then some bright light opened 3 more gates causing a rush that mixed up the two herds even more.  It took measures just short of brutal to separate them again.  Finally, I got to my favorite part of the customs routine in Mexico, the green light lottery.  I got the green and was off to the races.  Run the gauntlet of timeshare people, check the taxi prices marked inside the airport, ask a white cab guy outside how much to Hotel Rosita (200 pesos which is 20 pesos more than was marked inside), tell him it’s too much, keep pulling my suitcase along the road as he finally lowers his price to 150, keep going in spite of his calling just because I’m pumped and pissed off, go on and on outside the airport until I regret having been so hot headed, finally see a yellow city cab, ask the price (80 pesos), get in dripping and breathless and enjoy the ride with the open window letting in a Vallarta breeze that cools even me down.  He was a good guy, and we had a taxi type conversation in Spanglish. I paid him 100 pesos and walked into the lobby of the Hotel Rosita.

I got a room with a ‘vista al mar’ as I had reserved, but unfortunately it also had ‘el ruido del camino’.  I went straight out for a walk along the Malecon, which was wonderful as it always is. But it made me so sad I began to see things and people as more sordid than they were and returned to the hotel, ordered a margarita and took it to the room.  Not a bad idea.  I drank it on the narrow balcony looking down on the Malecon and the ocean.  Since I’d been awake for about 20 hours, I was tired and turned out the light.   Then I lay in bed for ages, listening to the cars, the sirens, the cops’ whistles and the incessant music that had such a booming base it felt as if my heart was pounding to get out of my body.  There was also the washing of the waves against the shore, which I tried to concentrate on but with no success.  I was happy at least to be horizontal with my eyes shut and finally fell asleep around 3:00a.m., I think.  I woke just before 8, went out on the balcony and was enchanted again by Vallarta.  I took pictures, ate my ‘American’ breakfast of refried beans, scrambled eggs and something I really like, broken bits of yesterday’s tacos mixed with onion, tomato and cilantro.  Then I went for a long walk down the beach and back through the town.  As usual the walk got ‘the little gray cells’ working.  I decided, among other things to approach the desk and ask about changing rooms.  Mexican atmosphere is one thing, but no sleep for 3 nights is another.  I had wanted exactly the room I got, but as so often happens, when I got what I wanted it wasn’t exactly what I had thought it would be.  So I did ask and  am now in a bigger, quieter room.  I have to go out on the balcony to see the sea, but I can shut out most of the noise.  If I’d wanted complete quiet, I’d have gone to the Swiss Alps, which brings up the whole question of cleanliness, but I won’t get into that. 

I went to Dick and Ellen’s for a delicious lunch, tomatoes and fresh basil and cheese and chicken salad.  As with all my firsts in Vallarta this time, it was wonderful and sad to see them.  Their daughter Sarah was there, and I soon calmed down.  The 4 of us had a good chat and afterward Ellen and I got on the rattling old tunnel bus and went to a jeweler’s she knows of so that I could get him to make a medallion for Jay’s 30^th birthday using some gold Jay and I had plus Jim’s and Jay’s ‘dos pesos’ rings that Jim had had made when we were first here together when Jay was 15.  So it goes.

Pictures

 

A freighter from China at the dock in Vancouver

 

A skeletal, rusty iron canoe beside the path on the Mission Creek Greenway.  It reminds me of similar works I first saw while biking with Micheline on the path along the Ottawa River on the Quebec side.

 

The plaque that goes with the conoe

 

Mission Creek and path

 

A quotation from Joseph Conrad that I appreciated

This was my last walk along the Greenway before leaving for Vallarta tomorrow.

2011 begins

On Wednesday, Dec. 29 I woke up at 6:14a.m. and got right out of bed.  I had everything ready, so in half an hour was loading the car, taking a last look at the forsythia in bloom outside  my window and then giving Barbara and Terry a last hug.  It was still dark at 7 when I drove off.  The temperature was 1c.  and the roads dry.  I was in line for the 8a.m. ferry by 7:40; the ticket was only
$39.50, a B.C. Ferries Christmas special.  The crossing was the roughest I've ever had.  I spent a bit of time with coffee and a toasted sandwich at the computer station, but then I was tempted outside by the wind and the excitement generated by about 200 high school students who were also on the boat.  The wind was wild and the waves rocked the ferry to such an extent that the captain came on the mic. and told everyone that the top decks were closed and if they wanted to walk, they should hold on to the rails.

Vancouver roads were dry at first, but by Surrey there was heavy snow weighing down the trees and the dirty slush on the streets sprayed on to the windshield.  I was glad I had filled the washer fluid bottle in Victoria.  I blame the blurry windshield, but I'm sure my own wandering mind contributed to the fact that I got lost again, this time in Langley.  Again, as in my approach to Calgary, I was helped by a young east Indian man and his buddy.  Their instructions were clear, but I managed to mess them up and got lost again.  This time I stopped at a used car place, got more directions, followed them, concentrated like mad and popped out on to Highway 1 heading east.  I glanced at the car clock; it was 11:11, the lucky time that only comes twice a day.  I then saw a sign for Hope and realized that I had only gone 17km in almost an hour.  Perhaps I should get a Tom Tom as Jay keeps telling me, but by not having one I have learned about myself.   I'm as frustratingly distracted a navigator as Jim used to say I was and I used to insist I wasn't.   I've also met and been helped by some kind strangers.  by now the sun was shining, the road dry again and I was headed for Hope.  All went well until I was stopped in a long double line on the Coquihalla because of an accident.  It took almost an hour before I crawled by two wrecks, one still burning, and shot out the other side at 115km and hour.  The speed limit on the Coquehalla is 110 and everybody exceeds it, which may account for the accidents.  I had passed the burned out hull of a pickup on my way to Victoria as well.  But the road was dry all the way to about 60km from Kelowna.  That is the highest point of the whole trip, and it's always foggy or windy or something inclement.  This time it was blowing snow and the car thermometer read -12.  Needless to say, traffic slowed down.  Some people seemed to go as excessively slowly now as they had gone fast before.  It took time, but eventually  the road started to drop down to Lake Okanagan.  It became dry, and the temperature quickly rose to -1c. I settled back into life with Bert and Peg, activating my new Mastercard, going through mail Mela had forwarded, finding out I owed the Federal Government about $1300.00 in reassessed taxes, paying it and preparing to go to Mexico on Jan. 3, tomorrow.

On New Year's Eve, I talked on Skype to the gang at Dave and Connie's.  What a lot has changed since Jim and I were with them a year ago.  Sometimes I find it overwhelmingly sad, but life is a powerful force and it does move on, sometimes even laughing.  It was very thoughtful of Caroline and Albert to take their computer to the Martin's and call me.  It was  wonderful to see everyone's face, even if they were slightly warped at times on the computer screen, and to be able to wish them all a Happy New Year.  I went out to dinner later with Jim's dad and Carol and Bert and Peg.  We went back to Jules and Carol's for a drink and sweets and then Bert, Peg and I had a final drink at home and retired before midnight, a quiet eve, but good.

I got up at 6 this morning to talk with Jay on Skype.  He looked good, still in the black toque he was wearing when I last talked to him but this time with a new shirt that his girlfriend had brought him back from her Christmas at home in the Philippines.  His holiday skiing, hot springing and eating fish and seafood, raw and cooked, sounded like exotic fun.  Korea continues peaceful and cold.  I read the world temperature section in the 'Globe' yesterday; it was colder in Seoul than Kelowna.  I also finished a book on Korea by Simon Winchester.  He writes well and really likes Korea, so now I'm even more convinced than I was before that one day while Jay is there, I will visit.  For now, I will continue to pack and prepare to catch the plane for Vancouver tomorrow at 7:15a.m.  Bert and Peg have kindly offered to drive me to the Kelowna airport at around 5:40a.m.  If there are any winter worms around, we should catch them.

Happy 2011 to all.