San Jose de Guaymas

San Jose de Guaymas

This morning we decided to go to San Jose de Guaymas. Instead of taking the bus we took the car in case we decided to buy some fruit at one of the orchards. I had mentioned a couple of days ago that I wanted to see the old church in San Jose. We arrived in the small town quickly as it is only about 10 miles out of Guaymas. It is a quiet, pretty town with lots of plants and big, old trees in the yards. The streets are of course, sand, we are after all in the desert.

We stopped and looked at the church; but there is no marker or anything saying what year it was constructed. The church was closed so we couldn't go inside. We walked around the outside and noticed that the "stained glass" windows are different from the usual, they are more of a mosaic. There is a huge square in front of the church with just a few trees growing around the perimeter.
Right beside the church is a large building, kind of like a community hall where events would be held.





Some of the vegetation in town.

We drove around the streets, admiring some of the yards and then headed back towards home. We did find one of the orchards where we had been with Ciro and Irene and we bought a bag of oranges and one of grapefruit. The bags would be about 10 pounds each and were 20 pesos a bag (about $2.00).

When we returned home I made a jug of orange juice and a tall, cold glass of grapefruit juice. The grapefruit are the red ones and are very sweet and good.

Now I need to get busy and do my spanish homework before class tomorrow.

Plant Updates

Plant Updates

I haven't written much about my plants lately because there hasn't been much to say. A couple of months ago the bouganvillea became infested with insects. I am not sure whether it was the bugs or the homemade spray that I used; but it lost all of its leaves. I continued to baby it and it has regrown its leaves and is beginning to bloom again. The desert rose is getting some new leaves and is growing very slowly. The huge plumeria slips that I was given, (links to where I wrote about them here: http://brendandroygoingtomexico.blogspot.com/2006/10/my-expanding-garden.html#links and here: http://brendandroygoingtomexico.blogspot.com/2006/10/walk-down-street.html#links ). Well, they just sat there all winter, they were still sappy when I scratched them, so I knew that there was life there. The ones I have noticed around town lose all their leaves in the winter, leaving kind of a strange/homely looking skeleton, (the flowers in summer make up for this), so I wasn't expecting much to happen until spring. The other day I noticed that one of the slips is growing leaves, the other is still dormant; but I am hoping it will also start one of these days.

New leaves starting on one of the plumeria slips.

I like the jamaica plant, it has smaller, white, hibiscus like blooms, which when they are finished turn into these bright red seed pods, (for lack of a better word). I think that it is these that are used for the juice that is sold here everywhere. It is pretty.
Jamaica plant after the flowers.

The agave type plant is the one that is growing the most and I like it as long as I don't get too close and get poked by its sharp points! It just keeps getting one new leaf after another.

The petunias, geranium and hibiscus are blooming very nicely, the roses are slow- I don't think they liked the winter winds.