Sugar Cane

On Christmas day we went to Playa Naranja, located 5 miles north of La Penita. It is a beautiful beach with large breaking waves populated with only a few palapa restaurants. However we heard that there is a large hotel development planned by the Mexican government soon and that the palapas have been given notice to scram. It took about 15 minutes on a pretty rough road to get there. Generally it is usually pretty deserted but today there were a few more people due to the holidays. Luke did some boogie boarding while we were there; the waves were really big and seemed dangerous, but he had some really good rides.

The tour buses should be rolling into Guayabitos soon and there are many more cars pulling in to the hotels for the holiday week. Tomorrow Dad will go to Puerto Vallarta to pick up his cousin Sharon, who is staying for a week. We will leave on Thursday, because it is time for us to move on and it will be too crowded at Emily's folks place. We plan to first go to Morelia, Michuacan and then the Mariposa (butterfly) sanctuary to break up the journey to Mexico City.

Today Luke prepared sugar cane (instead of candy cane). Manuel, a friend of Emily's parents who is staying here too, taught Luke how to properly prepare it. First you cut into interior sections and then peel of the skin off. Finally, you cut into bitesize pieces and then douse with chile, lime, and salt if you want. The bite sized pieces are then chewed to get the juice out and the fibers are spit out.