5C's Que Pasa

Feb 20, 2020

Sunday was another active day

I love theatre as much as Colin loves music. I was involved in producing a few plays way back when, both in Edmonton and with the Banff school of Fine Arts. Sadly by being here in Mazatlan for the winter I miss about ninety percent of the theatre products back home. Here there is a group that puts on play readings at El Recreo, a film and theatre group created by expats. You can read about it here. Click on the “About Us ” and “Play Readings” link along the top. Under the last link you can read about the two plays that we have seen this month. They only do three per season but there are some neat photos of how realistic a play reading is.

Sunday we saw “A Perfect Ganesh” written by Terrence McNally. The setting takes place mostly in India with references to all the places we have visited there ( before we had our two sets of girls ) including the Place on Wheels. We could easily visualize the Air India flight, the crowds along the streets, the poverty, Varanasi and the Ganges with the funeral pyres.

As you can see they are reading from a script but most of the time the lines have been memorized and eventually you no longer notice the pages.

Ganesh is an elephant-headed Hindu god of beginnings. Like a rat and like an elephant, Ganesh is a remover of obstacles.

The story line revolved around many emotional issues and was excellently presented. I didn’t want the play to end. Fortunately it went just over 2.5 hours. I am so sad that we are going to miss is last play reading on March 20 & 22nd. We decided to walk over the the Plazuela Machado for dinner but we did not have reservations. I remembered that there was music at 7PM at Pedro and Lolas.

Mandy and Tom had a table that had room for us to have our dinner before we headed home. That is Benito sitting to my right in this photo. He does the Santana shows both here and in the San Diego area. He did sit in for a few numbers after we left.

We ended up staying for first set before we headed back to the Isla. That is Tom on the left and Mitch on right who also sat in for a few numbers in the second set. Just a few wandering guitarists in the background.

Colin did this panorama of the group playing on what is called “The happiest corner on earth”.

It was a long ride back to the Isla as it was cool and windy. Interesting how our Sunday ended up with two different activities.

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Feb 18, 2020

Saturday – part two

Both Friday and Saturday were Mardi Gras party nights at the Shrimp Bucket. Tickets were 690MXN/49.30 CAD/37.10USD each and that included the cover charge, a meal and all the wine, beer or margaritas that you could drink plus dancing of course. We arrived about 70 minutes late because of the generator problems and our delay in getting back to the RV park.

We were last to arrive so we were sitting at the end of the table which really wasn’t a bad thing as we had a direct view of the band. Dancing was to right of our table.

We had a choice between a chicken dish and shrimp paella. The shrimp dish was much better than I could have hoped with lots of shrimp plus it had three lovely prawns on top. All perfectly cooked and delicious. The margaritas were like dish water but the wine was wonderful and poured out of bottles so we saw what we were getting. The same wine that I order at Gaia or La Bohemia. A few at our table indulged in tequila shooters and I do mean indulged.

Mandy and Tom are great dancers. That is Mitch on the keyboard.

Certainly a fun party.

I think this is a mix of tequila and orange juice. Our waiter was on the right. What a special guy. Because I could not dance he crouched beside me and we chair danced together. Each time I came back from the washroom he was there to hold my chair. Plus he kept our glasses full. We often had to tell him to stop!! Yes he was well tipped, at least by us.

Rick Reed.

As I could not dance and the Dixieland band sounds were swirling Colin took to dancing with a few of the ladies at our table. That is him and Mandy in the centre of the photo, both wearing fedoras.

Nacho and Omar on the drums.

Rob on the second keyboard.

We did one ( maybe two ) stand in place dances.

But mostly I sat with my leg up.

After that party ended we somehow ended up at Pedro and Lolas for a nightcap. Mitch Woods, Colin and Rob Lamonica discussing the evening.

For the first time ever we caught the very last lancha at midnight back to the Isla. We have taken the after midnight boat a few times over the years but this was a first. The service ends at midnight but there is a boat on call 24 hours a day.

It was great to get back to the RV. Now that was a very long day indeed.

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Feb 16, 2020

Saturday was a long day

It started with us taking the RV to have the repaired generator installed. Of course lots of putting things away and unhooking us was part of the pre prep before we even backed out of our site. Saw these street performers.

They were very good.

We were very pleased to find that when we arrived at the ‘shop’ that there was an open space for the RV and Erik had already set up the ramps. We were up on them and parked by 9:58AM which we took as a good omen for how the day was going to proceed.

Figuring out how they were going to move the 500 pound generator.

Brute strength.

Lots of grimaces.

Finally they got it close to the RV.

Putting it onto boards to slide it closer yet.

A very involved method to raise it into position.

By driving up onto the small ramps it gave Erik just enough space to sit on the ground under the RV.

There are three guys sitting under the RV. You can see how small the ramp is but it is the best we could get here.

While we waited I did a few things that I could do while being stuck inside with no wifi. I had fun watching this wee guy working alongside his father and brothers doing whatever he could to help.

As well as watching this creature who was most interested in what we were all doing. He was high up on top of a wall.

He is a big boy and ever so pretty.

By exactly 12:00 noon the generator was installed and bolted in. Yeah, we were anticipating leaving within thirty minutes and having time to do what needed to be done once we got back to Tres Amigos.

However it would not start 😯 Seriously it would not start. What the heck. Long story short Erik tried everything that he could and it would not work. Finally he admitted that he had not tested it after repairing it 😥 We think that Erik being the only RV tech around has over extended himself and is worn out. We could see that he was very tired. So finally he gave up and had to take the generator out again. He thinks that the problem has something to so with the generator starter motor.

Meanwhile while all of this drama was going on, the old school bus beside us was being painted. It was a concern to Colin that the paint would overspray onto our RV. But what could we do? They said that it would not but as he got closer to us Colin went out to keep an eye on things.

So there she sits, our generator, once again sitting on the sideline.

It took two hours to put the generator in and four and one half hours to try and get it running and to finally pull it out again. Then we had to wait until the bus that was parked behind us was able to move. Whatever they were doing, the air brakes / tanks were not functioning and needed to be reconnected to move that bus so that we could get out of the shop 🙁

We left here at 8:45AM and got back to our site at 5:30PM. What a waste of the day. However it was a good thing that Colin insisted on getting the generator reinstalled sooner than later as now we can have it repaired yet again and hopefully have a functioning generator before we leave. Remember that a new one costs around $10,000.00 USD, so it is certainly worth the efforts that we are going through.

However the generator was just a part of our day. By the time we got connected to power, the slides pushed out and a few essentials put back together we were running late. Very very late. We were to have left the Isla again by 4:45PM. We finally left about 6:20PM. More on what that was all about in the next post.

I am trying to keep as current as possible so I am sending this out to you without proofing. This is a crazy busy week what with activities everyday plus my seemingly constant exercises. Why do all the good things have to happen at the same time?

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Feb 15, 2020

A quiet Valentines Day

Colin waxed the roof and I did my rehab exercises and basically rested. Octavio came and said that my ligament ( I initially thought it was a tendon ) was less inflamed. I am to continue my exercises but without weights. Still no beach walking, maybe next week.

My Valentines Day flowers.

Someone was burning brush and garbage just across the road from us. It was not a pleasant smell.

The sun used to set in the middle of those two hills. Now it is setting to the right of El Faro on the right, just under that small grey cloud to the left of the palm branch.

Heading home.

I hope that you all had a nice day yesterday. I had one RVer give me two chocolates and another gave us two heart lollipops. Sweet. Somehow the day got away from us and we didn’t get to eat dinner until just after 10PM.

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Feb 14, 2020

Wednesday was both colourful and eventful

We left about 8:45AM and once we were across the shipping channel we hired an Uber. I had a 10 AM appointment. We drove along the malecon and saw many of the new Carnaval statues. This one represents the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador.

The Carnaval theme this year is Somos America – we are America, passion, joy and hope. America refers to all the Americas. This one is Chile.

This one is the Dominican Republic.

Our first stop was the very busy Gaby’s Beauty Salon where I got my roots coloured and highlights added. Colin had breakfast by the ocean and then went and did some errands for us as he waited.

From there we Ubered back to the Plazuela Machado. We were walking towards Gaia for a light lunch when we heard our names being called. Mitch and his wife Jan were already there. So we ate and visited for a bit before we headed off in different directions. We had reservation for a 3PM travel presentation on the Middle East at El Recreo. Most interesting.

Shortly after 5PM we were sitting on the patio at La Bohemia. I am now trying mango margaritas, so far okay but better than the other. We shared a shrimp Caesar salad as an appetizer.

Us as well as several RVers were there along with many other music lovers to enjoy Mitch Woods.

Longtime friend Carol and her husband Bill ( they had been RVers here 12 years ago, a year before we arrived ) came by to say hola. So nice to see them. They are Canadians now living here full-time.