Sand Blast

We went to San Blas on Thursday. It was a winding road and Dad probably averaged about 45 mph. San Blas is known for the jejenes, otherwise known to Alaskans as "no see ums" or "white socks". It is also known for it's surfing. The waves were breaking steeply though, so no surfing for Luke, just boogie boarding. There were a few pretty good mexican surfers w/ short boards. We ate pan de platanos (banana bread) and stayed at the Posada del Rey.
That evening, we went up to the fortress on the hill and had some great views of San Blas, the ocean, and the sunset. We even had a little fun with la policia, posing for photos! For dinner, tacos adobada, and ran into a guy with an interesting pet, a little racoon. The next morning we went on a boat tour and saw many different birds, cocodrillos, and a turtle. We didn't get any photos of the cocodrillos, because they are quick to go under water, but did see one large one, probably nearly 10 feet long. Our guide said that they can be up to 21 feet long there. (By the way Luke is now an avid "birder" and saw birds that could be categorized as seagull-like and several LBJs - little brown jobbies)!


On our way out of San Blas, we had to take care of some business with la policia again..... We had a traffic violacion...... Parking in a "no parking zone". They gave us a ticket, then they take your license plate so that you will come to the station and pay the fine. For a brief moment we thought we would have to call Cam or Luke's Dad for international legal advice. However, it was 120 pesos ($12). Luckily, no bribes.

We drove about 45 minutes to Santiago Ixcuintla. Ixcuintla is a type of hairless dog, I think we saw one in La Penita, it was quite ugly. We were the only gringos in town that night. We had a good dinner in the hotel (Hotel Casino) retaurant (shrimp) and finally some different vegetables other than tomato, onions, peppers and cilantro, (brocolli and cauliflower). For a treat we had cable TVs in the room and got to watch an american TV show, CSI, and a bits and pieces of american movies.


The next morning we got up early and drove towards Mexcaltitlan. We boarded a small boat to the ancient Aztec island, and wandered around for a few hours. There is alot of shrimp farming in the area and so they boil the shrimp and lay it out to dry in the streets. They also dry out other types of unknown fish on the side walks. It was quite interesting. Then we returned to Santiago Ixcuintla and stopped by the Huichol Centre, which is a place to promote the Huichol Indians culture. We bought some of their intricate beadwork bowls and looked at their other artwork. We wanted something different for dinner, so found a pizza joint. The pizza wasn't great, but it was at least mostly edible.....

On Sunday we drove to Jicote, northeast of San Blas. My parents have some Mexican friends who live there and we visited them for a bit and got some stuff they were storing there. Finally we drove back to Guayabitos, with a quick stop in San Blas for an expensive seafood dinner ($30 for all, expensive for Mexican standards I suppose) at the Jejenero. We had pescado (fish- but don't know what type) and camarones (large shrimp). We had to put on bug dope while we were eating, the restaurant certainly lived up to its name. Hasta luego....