I've been finding lots of ideas about Mexican Christmas. Lorena says it's the 24th when they eat pozole and open presents. I'm looking forward to the pozole. One knowledgeable site even suggested they eat a Rosca de Reyes but I thought that was only for Three Kings Day in January. I'm going to check in town later today and see if anyone is selling them.
On the 24th or “La Nochebuena” many families attend Misa de Gallo or midnight Mass, and enjoy the last day of “Las Posadas” and “Las Pastorelas.” On Christmas Eve, the families gather to eat “La cena de Nochebuena” and to share in the opening of the presents.
Coming back from the airport yesterday Danny and Linda wanted to stop at the bank in Cihua. We found ourselves in the middle of the Virgen de Guadalupe festival. I parked up by the church and Lorena took the camera and the kids to get a closer look. Boom, boom boom was the dancing music and the very large and loud church bells started to compete. My ears were ringing sitting right next to the church. This is Mexico.
The fly is just a good sized ugly fly. Everyone said the eggs are transferred by mosquitoes but I see no reason why the fly itself couldn't inject the egg. I got mine in Belize and hear they drive all the grazing animals crazy. I don't doubt it at all as I went through the 6-8 week growth period with one in my scalp.
Went to one doctor in Seattle and he said it's just a little red. Went back and he said it's just a little bump. Went back again and my doctor had moved to another clinic. Another doctor and we started over. Neither had any idea and didn't ask about my travels. When the larvae get bigger they feel like someone is sticking pins in your skin .... usually at night making it hard to sleep. After 2 days with a hot towel it finally popped out. I took it to Swedish hospital emergency and they had no clue. Mine was gray and not brown like above. That experience was unpleasant enough to make me hesitate to return to southern Mexico.
Botflies are obligate parasites of vertebrates: their larvae must undergo development inside a warm-blooded host. Epidemiology and Ecology: The distribution of Dermatobia hominis botfly includes Mexico, Central and South America. In the U.S., cases usually occur in travelers who have visited endemic areas
Voting assistance for Service members, their families, and overseas citizens
Some people are complaining about how complicated using this site is but they just passed me off to Washington State and it seemed pretty simple. I got my submission received email within 20 minutes. They give you the option to receive your ballot via Email so I'm not sure what a voter registration card will be for
WA Online Voter Registration System
Your voter registration information has been submitted to your county for processing. You’ll receive your voter registration card in the mail and will be able to see your registration information at www.myvote.wa.gov when processing is complete.
Warm temperatures to extremely hot predicted over much of the country: SMN
COLIMA National Weather Service (SMN) predicts warm to extremely hot over much of the country's environment, and south and southeast wind gusting to 50 kilometers per hour. For Colima maximum temperature of 33 ° C is expected, with mostly clear sky.
This is a beautiful area and the most beautiful are not real easy to access. I've seen a very little bit from the Colima side and considerably more from the Jalisco side. Cuzalapa (the coffee town) is part of it as well as the 3-4 little towns on the way to Durazno. There is a road that goes from the Jalisco side over the top and down into Colima but I don't have the car to try it in. The biological station, sponsored by UNAM I think, is accessed further up highway 80.
Did you know? The Biosphere Reserve Sierra de Manantlán is included in the International Network of Biosphere Reserves UNESCO MAB program. It is an important bird conservation site and is one of the priority mountains for Conservation in Mexico.
Yare (in Secondaria) comes over for her Internet homework a few times a week and she can do everything herself including searching, cut-n-paste into Word, setup the printer ... and close it all down. A few months ago she brought over a neighbor who is in our local Primary school .... and three more classmates.
Problem is the Primary school girl needs my help with all of it. It's OK with me because she always comes over with interesting projects and is not quite ready for computer lessons. We spent over a half hour yesterday trying to find the best search phrase ...... and finally found what we wanted with "palabras de cancion de lengua indigenous mexico". The site had side-by-side words with a Spanish translation. Neither of the girls can read it but the Spanish next to each phrase is perfect.
Le' sti nñia'
Hralidxi nñia' napa ti le'
hra hruzee ne hruchuugu' guie'
guirá siado'
Hruuya' hriguni lu xpido'
hrunduuba' shixhe' ndani' yoo'
ñuladxi' piou
Ne ma biza'ya' ti bizé
pa gusibaa pa gusiguie
de shuga dxaa
Not exactly 40 but the original plans sat quiet for 30 years until about 2008. A friend and I went up there a few times and the first time only the spillway was started and nothing on the dam. We got a tour of the spillway and power generating section from an engineer. Security was very loose back then but they won't let you near it now. When hurricane Jova came through all the work they had done was washed down river. Another time they had a cement base about half way across the valley. Just found this article from late last year and they have made progress.
Colima, Mexico, Advanced (18-12-2015) .- For over forty years, farmers in the region of Manzanillo and Cihuatlán have expected a reality of the promise of building a dam on the banks of the River Marabasco, but after countless obstacles, setbacks and unfulfilled government commitments, currently the work has not even reached 50 percent of its construction.
The first project, called El Naranjo, was drafted in 1971 but remained stagnant over thirty years.
In 2003, the theme was taken up by the federal deputy Roberto Preciado Cuevas under the name El Naranjo II, and a year later was adopted by Governor Gustavo Vazquez Montes, but both died in February 2005 when the state government plane crashed in Michoacan, while returning from Mexico city.
Don't think I've seen a map before, only verbal descriptions
Found the map on TimeTemperature.com while looking for Daylight Savings info. Can't ever remember the dates. It turns out it's not the same day every year and is different than the US. Mexico changes the last Sunday of October and the US changes the the first Sunday of November.
Sonora and Quintana Roo don't observe Daylight Savings Time and the first 20 KM's of border states change their clocks at the same time as the US. Sonora doesn't because Arizona doesn't. Quintana Roo dropped out when it changed Time Zones this year.
I've seen it around before but didn't think much of it until Lorena pointed one out as a medicinal herb and also one for cooking. My neighbor across the street has some and it tasted a little like mint to me and neighbors think it tastes like Vicks Vapor Rub (Va-pa-roo) which is eucalyptus.
For some reason all the neighbors know it as Palo Santo so my Internet searches turned up empty until today. There is an amazing amount of recipe pages, fotos and videos for it's many uses. Mostly wraps for cooking but but just cut up for flavoring as well. Not sure if I can take cuttings or if it spreads in the roots. I will go to a vivero (plant nursery) if I have to. Don't know what is in that wrap below but it sure looks good.
The video is the only one I found in English (many in Spanish) ... and the info below is from Wikipedia to fill in a bit.
Hoja santa (Piper auritum) is an aromatic herb with a heart-shaped, velvety leaf which grows in tropic Mesoamerica. The name hoja santa means "sacred leaf" in Spanish. It is also known as yerba santa, hierba santa, Mexican pepperleaf, acuyo, tlanepa, anisillo, root beer plant, and sacred pepper.
The leaves can reach up to 30 centimeters (12 in) or more in size. The complex flavor of hoja santa is not so easily described; it has been compared to eucalyptus, licorice, sassafras, anise, nutmeg, mint, tarragon, and black pepper. The flavor is stronger in the young stems and veins.
It is native to the Americas, from northern South America to Mexico, and is also cultivated in southeast Florida.
It is often used in Mexican cuisine for tamales, the fish or meat wrapped in fragrant leaves for cooking, and as an essential ingredient in mole verde, the green sauce originated in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. It is also chopped to flavor soups, such as pozole, and eggs. In Central Mexico, it is used to flavor chocolate drinks. In southeastern Mexico, a green liquor called Verdín is made from hoja santa. It is also used for tea. American cheesemaker Paula Lambert created "Hoja santa cheese", goat cheese wrapped with the hoja santa leaves and imbued with its flavor. While typically used fresh, it is also used in dried form, although drying removes much of the flavor and makes the leaf too brittle to be used as a wrapper.
The essential oils within the leaf are rich in safrole, a substance also found in sassafras, which has been shown to be carcinogenic in animals. In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned sassafras bark along with sassafras oil and safrole as flavoring agents because of their carcinogenic properties and the Council of Europe imposed the same ban in 1974, although toxicological studies show that humans do not process safrole into its carcinogenic metabolite.
We're surrounded by mango orchards and lots of people working in them. Many tractors pulling trailers over to the packing houses in Jaluco. A few large trucks sitting around waiting to be filled before they take off for another part of Mexico. They pick them very green for transport so there are not a lot of ripe ones around yet. The mango below is on the tree next door and I could pick it but it's not ready. Our gancho (mango picker) broke and I was going to buy a new one but the trees next door don't have much fruit this year.
Next door from my roof
Mangoes going by from my roof
Not mango related but I picked it yesterday and it's very sweet
According to this map there was only a primitive road as far north as Chamela and nothing south from Vallarta. I'm sure Tomatlan and El Tuito were there but possibly very difficult to get to. I found this interactive map (link at bottom) years ago on a site that lets you store lots of data free. I snagged the graphics and the web page (HTML) that makes it work thinking the site may go away ... which it did.
This old Pemex map reminds me when Texaco and other gas stations in the US would give away maps free. We always needed them about 1950 as we cruised around eastern Oregon and northern California in the old 1949 Studebaker.
It's raining north and south of us but only partly cloudy here with no sign of precipitation. Humidity is really creeping up
Al mismo tiempo, funcionarios de la Comisión Nacional del Agua (Conagua), dieron a conocer que este año se espera una temporada de huracanes muy intensa, por arriba del promedio histórico en el Océano Pacífico por lo prevén mucha lluvia para esta región.
La Conagua en su primer cálculo de la temporada de ciclones para este año, pronostica 19 ciclones para el Pacífico, de los cuales, 8 serán tormentas tropicales, 11 huracanes moderados y 4 intensos, por lo que las autoridades ya están tomando las precauciones del caso por tanta actividad ciclónica en las costas del Pacífico Mexicano.
Can't say I really appreciate their choice of music
but it's a cool story
Three heavy metal loving sisters have been tipped for musical super-stardom after signing their first ever record deal - and their bass player is just 10-years-old.
Consisting of Daniela Villarreal (Dany), 16, Paulina (Pau), 13, and Alejandra (Ale), 10, The Warning caught the eye of talent scouts with their online videos.
With Dany on lead guitar and vocals, Pau on drums and Ale on bass, the girls uploaded covers of Metallica, AC/DC and Guns 'N' Roses to YouTube.
After signing their first deal, the siblings, from Monterrey, a city in northeast Mexico, have just released their debut EP, Escape The Mind.
I took my neighbors Danny and Linda to the airport Wednesday and Jimmy and Sandy hopped a bus to Vallarta yesterday. All headed back to Canada, BC. Glen is driving back to Victoria and he has a little less than two weeks before he leaves.
We learned a whole lot more about each other this year and relationships expanded and contracted as conditions presented themselves. It was an interesting and eye opening year.
Diana who I'd not heard from for a year or two came back in November all "lovey dovey" and liberated from a divorce wanting a ride from the airport. She rapidly fell into a "get lost" scenario of moving from one place to another and new "friends" from who knows where. She married a very unhappy guy and has not figured out how to escape.
No idea what happened to Red Neck Steve and Buzzard West. Their nice houses in Barra look abandoned and overgrown. Life changes here and everywhere it seems. Actually I think Buzzard West just got too fat and died.
In 2007, Slow Food International, which currently represents thousands of projects in over 160 countries, held its fifth international conference in the city of Puebla, where, along with a variety of other traditional food and drink, pulque, with its deep roots and its ingredients sourced locally, was the star of the event. The pulque is slow food par excellence of Mexico. Its unique and delicate process of fermentation, through which a very active team of native bacteria transform the sweet mead and freshly harvested (agave nectar) transform in complex and frothy drink that is easy to take and has a variety of benefits . Nutrition (also produce light joy) These beneficial bacteria limit the transport distance of pulque, since it has a lifespan of 24 hours; in other words, should be drunk very near where manufactured. Scientists and fans fermented foods and their nutritional benefits identified it as a dietary supplement, especially for the elderly and those suffering from kidney conditions. The nutritional analysis indicates that the fermentation process increases their vitamin content of 5 to 29 mg of thiamine, niacin 515mg 54 and 18 to 33mg riboflavin. It also has large amounts of vitamin C, B complex, D, E, amino acids and minerals such as iron and phosphorus.
One&Only Santa Maria de Xala will be part of a new 1200-hectare development located approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Puerto Vallarta’s international airport. The authentic hacienda resort will command 8km (5mi) of impressive beach front, a connection to traditions past yet offering the latest in ultra-luxury. The resort will offer approximately 75 luxury villas and suites with private pools, providing the perfect accommodation for both couples and families. The development will also include a prestigious One&Only residential component.
The region’s heritage will be woven throughout the resort, utilizing natural elements, to inform the design of both the public and private spaces of the resort. True to the brand’s heritage, One&Only Santa Maria de Xala will offer a variety of world-class cuisines, showcasing regional specialties in restaurants overseen by internationally-acclaimed chefs. All culinary experiences will showcase the incredible local and seasonal offerings. The resort will also house an indulgent One&Only Spa, honouring the region’s heritage by utilising ancient Mexican traditions and holistic practices fused with modern spa therapies, as well as a Fitness Centre offering the latest technology and innovation. In addition, event and meeting space will be available for bespoke gatherings, whether for business or personal pleasure. One&Only Xala is planned to break ground in 2016.
The projects led by Kerzner International, in agreement with BK Parners, boasts about the announcement, “The locations truly showcase the best Mexico has to offer, each with a distinctive experience, and I am very confident that One&Only will continue to define ultra-luxury in the region.”
I swear if all development plans went through and the dead projects brought back to life the whole Jalisco coast would be one solid resort. Maybe that's where they got the phrase "The New Cancun" for coastline near Tomatlan. These KaraKara people will take your money even though they haven't yet found a location. How crazy is that?
Phase 1 of the development: We are identifying location and will announce shortly
Some of their nonsense ....
TreaZureZ is a master planned, multi-phased, sustainable development that fuses the rich culture and architecture of old Mexico with today’s earth-friendly water, waste and power technologies.
Phase 1 of the development: We are identifying location and will announce shortly.
Development in this area will include an Eco-Resort containing 24 yurts, a boutique hotel with beach club, residential condominiums, private residential homes, condominium hotel product, a commercial center and a golf course with clubhouse.
Become part of the exciting developments of TreaZureZ by becoming a Private Membership Club Member!
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Experience the “Luxury of Nature” at KaraKara.
KaraKara Eco Resort is located on a spectacular uninhabited 10 km section of beach and private bays on the remarkable Pacific Coast of Costalegre, located between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, Jalisco, Mexico.
The name "Costalegre", which literally translates as "Coast of Joy", is known as "The Virgin Coast" of Mexico. It remains one of the last unspoiled coastal areas of Mexico.
Do not miss the opportunity to be part of this unique project in Mexico!
I was watering my lime trees and was amazed to see hundreds of new blossoms for the first time in almost a year. I suddenly realized limones like sunshine. Two weeks ago we cut down the huge Neem tree that was shading most of that back corner. Also cut down a large flowering bush that shaded them a bit.
I told Lorena about them and she said that I need to tie a Listón Rojo around a branch so that in an eclipse the flowers won't fall and the fruit will mature. We stopped at the papeleria and bought a meter of red ribbon for one peso. I don't know when the next eclipse will happen but she also mentioned a strong moon .... so lets be safe.
Literally hundreds of blossoms
I thought I had a before and after ... but now they have sun (back left)
"A custom widespread in Mexico is that when it is announced that there will be an eclipse, people put red ribbons or any metal object in the fruit trees in order to prevent the fruit from falling or not maturing".
The construction of the house finished in April 2011 and I'm pretty much settled in. As of March 2014 I'm in preparation for rain mode for this coming summer. That includes sealing and painting things and dealing with drainage issues from last year.
