Visitors In Town

Yesterday I was in the middle of cooking our lunch when the phone rang.  On the other end of the line was a lady, originally from Guaymas; but now living in California.  I knew that she and her husband were supposed to be in town this week.  Doug had commented on the blog several years ago and we had met them when they were visiting that year.  Last year we missed seeing them as we were in Canada when they were here.  We set up a time to meet and then sat down to eat our lunch.
Lunch yesterday was a green mixed salad with balsamic vinegar dressing, garlic toast and spaghetti with homemade tomato and mushroom sauce, along with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese to top it.
It was good.

After lunch we were off to centro to meet them at the Malecon.  We sat and chatted by the water while their daughter and grandson skate boarded on the malecon.  At this time of the day there are no places to buy a drink there so we wandered over to another park in front of the church and got a drink and some fresh fruit from my usual vendor on the corner.  Sat in the shade and chatted some more.  A nice afternoon.  They are only here for a few days more so I doubt that we will see them again this trip.  We were glad to have a few hours to visit with them in between their family visits.  Until next time guys.

Home again, we relaxed for a couple of hours before I went to my art class at the Casa de la Cultura.

Early Evening In Downtown

I was downtown this evening to go to an event and snapped a few photos of things while I was outside the event location.
Lovely evening.

A New Fountain

The other day when I was uptown, I noticed that the Iglesia de San Fernando (church in centro) was putting the finishing touches on a new water fountain in their yard. We had noticed it a week or so before; but I didn't have my camera with me. That day it was working and the water was cascading down both in front and behind of La Virgen. The day I took this picture the workmen were putting a finish on the rocks. It smelt like some type of varnish to me. I will have to take another look at it on Thursday when I am back up in that area, to see if they finished it and to see if it is running. It looks like they will be planting some plants around it and it should look nice when it is all done. This is the area where every Christmas they have the live animals in a Nativity scene. I asked my spanish teacher (she attends this church) where the animals would go this year, as they are a big draw for the children. She thought they would just move them to another area of the churchyard.

Water cascades down the rocks both in the front opening and the back opening.

Come With Me To Spanish Class

Yesterday when I left home to go to Spanish class it was 35 C.(95 F.) and the "feels like" was 44 C. (111 F.), so it was a little warm.
For a change I took my camera with me and thought that I would ask you if you would like to take a walk with me in the heat and humidity. Ah, come on, it's not that bad, you'll get used to it.
I walked a block over to my usual bus stop and waited a couple of minutes for my bus to come. I hopped on and began to perspire along with everyone else. The air conditioned buses of Tucson are only a distant memory now.
We arrive downtown and I stay on the bus past the usual stop where I get off when I want to go shopping. The next stop is the one I want today, it is closer to my Spanish teachers home.
The bus stops for me at the Plaza de Tres Presidentes.

Right across the street from the plaza is the municipal building.

I cross the main street Serdan and continue past the corner store to the Plaza 13 de Julio and enter the park.

I walk past the ladies feeding the pigeons.

Past the kiosk.

After the kiosk you can see the church, La Iglesia de San Fernando.

There on the corner is a fellow who sells sodas and snacks.

What do you mean you are hot? You want to stop and sit in the shade for a bit and have a nice cold soda? Ok, we'll stop and continue on to class in a bit. You think I should do what? Take a vacation from class until it cools off, nah, it's not that bad, after all you do get used to it. Yah, right!

Feria de Calamari-Calamari Fair

Feria de Calamari-Calamari Fair

This weekend they are holding the Festival or Fair of Calamari downtown at the Plaza de Pescador.

We decided to go down yesterday and check it out. We arrived around 1 PM, hoping that we would get to see some entertainment. It was set up/organised very well. At the beginning of the line of booths they had a table set up with all the food plates, listing what they were and at what booth you could get them. Very good idea. We wandered down the row of booths and tried some deditos of calamari, they were alright I guess if you like calamari. Personally it is not one of my favorite things. There didn't seem to be any entertainment going on and I read later that it was changed to the evening this year. Oh well.
I had read that they had restored the statue of the fisherman back to his original bronze so we went and had a look at him. He looks much better with the black paint all off of him and is very handsome now.

Before.

Now, restored to his former glory. Much better.

I took a few pictures and of course had to include one of the Iglesia de San Fernando. The smoke in the center of the picture is coming from the stack of a Pollo Feliz restaurant.

We walked over to the 13 de Julio Plaza that is right beside the church and sat and did some people watching. A wedding had just finished at the church and the little flowergirl was relaxing on a park bench with a snack. Isn't she just the cutest little thing?

Museum And The Doctor

Museum And The Doctor

This probably seems like a goofy title, and no, my doctor does not belong in a museum. It is hard to think up an appropriate title day in and day out. I usually try and put something up there that describes the day and sometimes it is goofy.
This morning we decided to go and try find the museum that Ciro has been telling us about. With his directions in hand we set out. We found it right away with no problems. After paying our $1.oo entry fee each, we began to look around.
This is one of the doors on the building that the museum is in. It is my favorite color of blue, so naturally had to take a photo of it.

This is a poor photo of a piece of a meteorite that landed close to Guaymas in the 1960's. This piece is very heavy and weighs over 200 kg.

There were many interesting displays. The paleontology specimens all (but 2) came from this region of Mexico. The oldest of the fossils were about 570 millions of years old. They also had a diorama of a Seri Indian cave and the paintings that they made, apparently similar paintings may be found in the Guaymas region. There was also a showcase with objects used by the Yaqui Indians. One historic fact that I found interesting, was that during the Mexican Revolution Guaymas had to print their own paper money for a time, as they were under seige from June 1913 - July 1914. They had several objects from the battles including a one meter projectile fired from the ship El Guerrero. Right at the doorway they have a large case featuring many, many beautiful shells. These shells are 1/3 of a collection of one lady, collected between 1920-1970, it is hard to find shells this size now because of over fishing the brochure says.
Part of the shell case.

It is not a large museum; but is laid out very well and also is looked after well.
From the museum we walked down the street on our way to the doctors office, where I needed to get my blood pressure checked. Ciro had told us about an old home (covering a block). He says that inside the doors, there is a courtyard with a fountain and the rooms are built around 3 sides of the courtyard. We found the house; but of course the doors were not open so we couldn't see into the courtyard.
Door to the huge home.

We also wandered by "Patios Leon", it is an area that you can rent for weddings, parties, etc.. I liked their doors/gates. The lions were cut out around somewhat like a stencil would be. On the right hand side lion you can see the light coming through the cut outs.

We continued on our way to the doctors office; but first had to stop and sit in the park by the Iglesia de San Fernando (San Fernando Church). The doors of the church were open, so we wandered in and I took some photos. It is a beautiful church.
A couple of the stained glass windows in the church.



When we arrived at the doctors office, it was nice to see that the only other person waiting was a salesman. The receptionist told us it would only be a little while, so we sat down to wait. You do not get rushed in and out here as in Canada, so I knew it would be a little wait. Two other people came in and the salesman decided to leave. I saw the doctor and we chatted about a couple of questions that I had for him and then we were ready to leave. We also stopped at the shop where I get my chocolate chips to see if she carries molasses. I want to make some gingersnap cookies, so need molasses. She didn't, so we continued on to catch our bus. Before going home we needed to stop at the grocery store about 3 blocks from us. This is the same street as the "shrimp taco lady", as we got close to the grocery store, we could hear the tacos calling us, so were forced to head there and have some tacos and a coke. While we were eating, I was reading the newspaper and noticed that there is supposed to be a Christmas Parade this afternoon at 5:30 PM (if I translated the paper correctly). So we may go to that. After eating we did go to the grocery store and then home.

If you are interested there are more photos from today in the album here:http://travel.webshots.com/album/556224469YzzOJQ?start=60 on pages 6,7,8 and 9.

Sunday In Centro

Sunday In Centro

When we arrived at the Plaza de Tres Presidentes to view the art exhibit there was nothing but wide open spaces. We continued on to the 13 de Julio park by the Iglesia de San Fernando to sit and relax and feed the pigeons. Here there were some stalls starting to set up with handmade crafts and also one exhibit of photos. According to what I had read the exhibit was to have been done by adult students at Conelep sponsered by DIF Guaymas (learning and making embroidered ribbon and painting work and other things). I am not sure if this was the same thing, just moved to another venue or if it was something else entirely. Whatever, there was some lovely things and we wandered around looking at everything. Most of it was Christmas decorations and yes, we do have snowmen in Guaymas--in fact there are whole families of them.

We stopped at chatted with one fellow who had photographs on display of Guaymas/Miramar/San Carlos. He had some nice evening shots and we chatted for quite awhile with him.

We walked around the churchyard and looked at their nativity scene, so far the only live animals in it are rabbits and chicks. Last year they had sheep and other things so I imagine they will this year as well. The nativity scene is lovely. We chuckled with a grandma with her two grandsons, she was trying to get them to pose nicely for her and they of course being boys, kept goofing around. There were more crafts in the churchyard, so we looked at them also.

Bunnies in the Nativity scene.

We then went and sat down on a park bench to feed the pigeons. I had taken a bag of dry bread/tortillas with us today (usually I forget or else we go when we are just uptown and I don't have anything with me). The birds seemed to be more nervous today than other days and we had to take our time to get them to eat out of our hands, none of them ever did perch on our hands or anywhere. The same grandma was there with the boys, so I gave one of them a bread crust; but he was more interested in feeding them his chips. His grandma came over for a second and said, "every Sunday it is the same thing", and we all laughed. They are definately energetic young fellows.

One of our feathery friends.

Birds in flight.

Palacio Municipal in its Christmas dressing.

We headed home and while Roy watched his NFL, I washed some clothes and washed off the patio. We were going to go back uptown for dinner; but we got lazy and ended up staying home and eating.