We ride to El Tigre for lunch.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Yesterday Eric and I, Sam and Rita on the Harleys and four other couples headed out for a road trip.  We left around 9:30 am and went south through Mazatlan and then on to Villa Union.  Sam led us down a little mexican street and we all wound our way through town and then headed out to the beach for lunch.  This was the ride that went bad on New Years Day when Jean was hurt so Eric and Sam were interested in looking at the scene of the accident.  The ride to the coast was slow and beautiful with groves of coconuts underplanted with corn and then under that either tomatoes or peppers.  Companion planting at it's best.  Apparently 40% of the tomatoes imported to the U.S. come from this area. 

We did see the army and also state police as we travelled.  There has been a huge wave of killings in the Mazatlan area over the last week.  It has been dubbed red week and is the worst in many years.  All drug and gang related and I check the newspaper El Sol every day to see what areas should be avoided.  One of the areas called El Pilinque is near Villa Union so not an area you want to hang out in.  Also, downtown Mazatlan late at night is not an option for us even if we did go out at night.  Just common sense and we all know we could just as easily run into trouble in many areas of Vancouver. 

Blue in front of  El Tigre.

We arrived at the El Tigre palapa restaurant at about 11:30 and then had to choose our fish for lunch.  The owner was a very friendly guy who spoke reasonable english.  He said he spent a year working at Denny's in Arizona so that's where he learned to speak English.  A really nice guy.  We had some small (piquita) bottles of beer while we waited and wandered the very beautiful beach.

El Tigre palapa

Betsy and Marilyn on the beach.

Sandi found a great place to wait for lunch!

 Since the restaurants  big days for crowds are Sunday they had to fire up the charcoal grill to feed us.  When Sam, Eric and the others were there on New Years Day the place was so packed you couldn't get another person in.  The owner remembered Sam as he had also been out there on Christmas day.   Since the Mexicans love the Harleys they always point, wave and remember you.  Especially Blue because she is just so darn pretty!  We didn't eat until about 1pm but it was quiet and beautiful there and we were in good company.  The lunch was delicious but the salsa and chiles were burning hot so there were a few tears and some nose blowing! 

The gang waiting for lunch.

Of course Ramona came with us.

The trip continued towards Rosario and we made a brief stop where Jean had left the road.  The corner didn't look that bad unless you were going too fast.  Enough said. 

We had the unfortunate experience of following an old diesel bus into Rosario and it just about gassed us to death.  Too windy to pass him.  We all stopped at the church in Rosario and it is very beautiful.  We couldn't go inside as the caretaker said it is presently infested with rats that are chewing everything up so it is presently being "deratted."

The church in Rosario.

 From Rosario  a nice ride home on the highway except for the traffic in Villa Union and Mazatlan.  My knees were pretty stiff when we got home but I am really enjoying the riding here in Mexico. 

Today I am cooking up my chile for the cook off tomorrow and now we hear that Maria in the office put it in the local paper!  Yikes, I hope nobody reads the paper. 

Eric is outside tearing down the Harley as it is once again giving him grief with starter kick back.  Could be a number of different things.

In the end Eric decided he would rather ride than fix the bike so he just put it back together and we went to the beach. 

We presently have people from just outside Fernie " camped " next to us.  They are in a tent with rubbermaid totes full of stuff.  We find out their RV is in Ajo and they have been camping in Mexico since November.  When they got to the border to cross they discovered that the wife had forgotten the sticker for the trailer (ours is on the window of the trailer.)  The Mexicans considered giving them a new one but then they discovered that the original registration papers from Canada had an error that had not been discovered when the paperwork was done last year.  A real mess that may be hard to correct.  So, in the end they left the rig in Ajo and went to Mexico in a tent.  Gutsy, but the consensus among the woman here was that they would have stayed in Arizona rather than holidaying in a tent.  Each to their own I guess.

Tomorrows the chile cook off,  I hope it's fun.