Sandy's travels

On Saturday, Joanne and I went into San Felipe for the Samana Santa -Easter Celebration held every year. we heard 45,000 passed through the Malecon on that day. Saturday evening is the Religious parade but we didn't stay for that. People begin to arrive early in the week to claim. their tent space along the beach in front of the Malecon (which roughly means ocean front walkway). It was a real festival atmosphere! People of all ages, bands playing, rock music blasting out Spanish rock music, police presence everywhere and people just generally having fun. A very large group of motorcyclists also showed up and were 'kicking tires' while visiting and admiring their bikes! Although there doesn't look like a lot of people milling about, there was, I just got photos for the most part zeroing in on my target shots! The streets are lined with vendors selling everything from juice, to Mexican fast foods, hats, clothing, pottery, toys, sunglasses and on and on. Walkin

Joanne and I have visited two Saturday markets here in the park. Mexican and resident vendors set up their wares under canopies, or from the back of their trucks or even just open ground. Some interesting things on offer from painted roof tiles, pictures, rocking round stone and metal birds and other animals as well as fruit and vegetable vendors, clothing and textiles and swarms of silver jewellery sellers. So far I have bought one necklace and earrings and four rings! We've learned how to tell the difference between silver plated to silver jewellery. All a lot of fun. I'm not hooked on the bartering system, but it too can be entertaining to see the pained look on the vendors faces. At one stall I wanted to buy a colorful table runner. The young Mexican man said, these patterns were from his grandmother, who is gone now and he sounded so sad, but I think it's all part of the game to get you to feel badly for him and buy his grandmothers weavings. The Mexican

Wood as we know it is in very short supply around here. Sand and clay are the main building materials, but Tracy and Joanne took me to see some houses made from tires! As far as insulation purposes they make excellent walls! They are filled with sand and anchored with rebar and then covered with a plaster like material. Adobe bricks are very popular as well as cement. The red house is owned by a lady who incorporated tires not only in her house, but also in her fence around the property. She is a metal artist and we could see some of the things she has made in her yard. The second photo up is a cactus garden behind a fence in another persons yard, and lastly, a pink house with some designs painted on the side. All very creative. One thing I've noticed is that all the secondary roads, and lane ways are sand/dirt. They do compact down very nicely and I suppose due to the nature of the sand grains, there is little to no dust. And....no real potholes, probably because

Thought I'd post some photos of the beach here. The tides are sometimes very extreme and the day we went down it was way out but not as low as it can drop. It depends on the phases of the moon. We walked down to the waters edge, for what seemed like miles, and I took some photos looking back up to the white sand and then out to the water. It reminded me very much of Parksville on our Island, or the west coast near Tofino. just no logging trash on the top of the beach!

So we pulled up to the Casa yesterday and were greeted by three lizards of which genus I am not familiar! Anyway, two appear bigger than the third, so maybe one is baby to the other two. Who knows. We were sad to leave Bert and Ernie and pals behind on the big island, and I hope they don't starve now that we are gone! So, meet Lizzy, Izzy and baby tizzy! The property manager said they like raisins. We did not buy any so we might have to break them in on smoothies and see if they like them instead. These are way bigger than the geckos so we will see how it goes. Tracy drove me down to a bank machine (I was very much reminded of bank machines in Lisbon) and it actually gave me some money so we did something right!!! Then we went back down to look at the beach which goes on for miles and has very high and very low tides because it is so flat in the Sea of Cortez. My posts may be sporadic as I was unable to buy a SIM card for my iPad here. Therefore, we are at the offi

We took up residence in our Casa yesterday and it is really nice. The weather here in San Filipe is not as warm as Hawaii, its cooler, cloudy today and windy, but at least no humidity that was quite prevalent in Hawaii. We have done some grocery shopping and bought water so we are good for the next little while at least. This Casa has one main level with kitchen on one wing, living room in middle area and two bedrooms, two bathrooms at the other wing. Closed garage to park the car and a rooftop sitting area (last photo is view from that area). We are basically in a desert area with lots of cactus, sand and more sand. I can only post five photos at a time so will go to another post to show you some new friends.