Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Tales From a Typical Tuesday


     Many dreams caught this week in Sayulita. We seem to have settled into the "Sayulita Life" quite easily. Lazy days that go something like this: awake to roosters at 5:00 AM, along with the morning firecrackers for the Festival de la Virgen de Guadaloupe, but hopefully snooze a bit more until a walk down the hill into town for cafe con leche. The mornings are spent on the balcony, reading, crosswording, and generally listening to and watching the village awaken. We see the man with the basket on his head carrying rolls, calling "Bonillos!" or the car playing mariachi horns declaring "Hay gaz!" selling propane.

      It took us a few days until we figured out what who was carrying and selling what. Then, of course, a lazy afternoon on the beach. What else do you do when it 80 degrees and sunny? The water is super warm and this is just perfect for me. I can go years at the Jersey shore and never even venture into the water.

My favorite street- love the colors!

   
     Andy is proud of his new jams and is convinced he has lost some weight. I am insanely mad about this because, really? How do you lose weight eating fish tacos and drinking Pacificos and Margaritas?  Maybe it's the longish walk down and back up the hill every day?


     So, this is quite the surfing town, and the waves are perfect for learning. The surf schools are plentiful on the beach, and you just walk up for a lesson. Andy worked up the nerve today, and ventured out with Eric (who showed us a picture of him surfing doing a headstand), and I have pictures to prove that yes, he did stand up! More than once!

   
     Oh, yes, more on the firecrackers at dawn. During the festival of the virgin of Guadaloupe the town elders, by all accounts well intoxicated, set off large explosives as Andy mentioned in our last post. The first morning, we could not imagine what the explosions were about in the dark right before dawn- but there were at least 10 earsplitting explosions- followed each time by complete silence.

     We learned the next day that this will happen every morning before dawn until the 12th...part of the festivities, don'tcha know? Try getting a permit for that in Bergen County, NJ! And the festivities dont stop there. Every evening there is a procession from a different part of town, a float, followed by candle carrying townspeople of all ages, singing as they walk, that ends in the modest church on the town plaza. Its really quite beautiful to behold. We think there may be some sort of competition for best float, but this is just a gringo's speculation on our part.

     So, as I write this another day is ending in Sayulita. The kids are out on the dirt street kicking around a soccer ball, the dogs are barking, I hear meals being readied in the open air kitchens, and I hear music playing from somewhere. Life. We love it! -LuAnn

7 comments:

  1. The way you describe everything, it's like I'm right there in the moment!

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  2. Trish took our daughter of a cowboy expo yesterday and some people were yelling out to have people try their products. She said to Trish "this reminds me of Mexico."

    Sounds like you guys are getting into the groove. Isn't retirement great? :)

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  3. I can picture a painting coming out of that street photo. So beautiful!

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  4. Looks great. I remember that beach from when I was there with Nick. Even though I was just in PR I'm jealous. Keep up the posts.

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  5. You should definitely write a book about your adventure. I think it would be such an interesting book for those who have wanderlust in their heart.

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  6. Wow youguys! What a great job you're doing with this blog. It is so in the moment and vivid...thank you for sharing it with us, it is (almost!) the next best thing to being there. Really looks amazing. LuAnn, can't wait to see the paintings that come from all this color. xo

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