Moving my Blog

Hi everyone! I'm moving my Blog to my own host. I hope you continue to read my musings on life in La Manzanilla. Here is the the feed address http://feeds.feedburner.com/Visitlamanzanillacom

and here is the site address
http://www.visitlamanzanilla.com/blog/

Sunday street soccer game

Lyle and his friends spend a lot of time playing outside together. Sometimes its skateboarding in our carport (because the street isn’t paved), trying to capture iguanas living in the trees, looking for bugs, chasing chickens, all that fun boy stuff. Most weekends our neighbor’s grandkids are over and at some point there is always a soccer game, unless the ball is flat and no one can find a pump... The game can last for 15 mins to 2 hours depending on how many kids there are and how everyone feels! Short clip of what kids in La Manzanilla do when they have a ball and some time to kill.

Good neighbors

Our neighbor Maria is the matriarch of a very large family, eight living children, 6 of which live here and all have children of their own. She is the best neighbor I’ve ever had. When the fruit truck comes around she makes sure that the guy doesn’t sell me the shlock product, when someone tried to steal our truck she sent her daughter to find the “town law”, when the lady comes around selling the baked candied pumpkin she makes sure to send her over to my house so I don’t miss out, and if I’m not home she buys me a piece!

She is also very generous with her family’s food, we've been treated to posole, tamales, ceviche, enchiladas and other delights. If never fails that when Rick, my husband, leaves for a few days to go to the States, Maria is at my door with a plate of food.

He hasn’t been gone for 24 hours and she marched over with a plate of sopitas and tomatillo salsa. And not just 2, one for Lyle and one for me…no the plate had 6 of the tasty little treats. I scarffed down 3 right away, Lyle wasn’t hungry so I saved his 3 for later…I ended up eating them as well.

She’s a gem, we are very lucky to have her and her family as neighbors and friends!

Holiday vacation with a bang

I have to laugh because we'd probably be thrown in jail if we lived in the US.

Christmas, New Years and really, any other holiday is an excuse for fireworks in Mexico. Not to generalize the whole country but I can tell you from me experience the Mexicans who live and visit La Manzanilla have a thing for fireworks.

We got into the swing of it buy purchasing Lyle various little bags of fireworks with names like, cebollitas- "little onion", busca pies-"looks for feet", chifladors-not sure what this one means but they were loud so we promptly took them away. (Here comes the jail part) And furthermore, we gave Lyle a lighter and let him light them himself. He was in heaven. On Christmas eve the kids started lighting them around 1:00 and it continued until 10:00 that night.

I noticed both the boys and girls like the fireworks but the boys were like crack addicts and couldn't get enough of them!

We limited Lyle to small fireworks that throw off sparks or make a small popping sound...but the other kids had what I would compare to M80's, boys, fire, fireworks- now that is a recipe for disaster.

Luckily all ended well and everyone still has all there fingers, toes and eyes!

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

Tried to go to the beach here in La Manzanilla the other day but alas…there were 2 crocodiles in the bay. Rick and I were having a beer, Lyle runs into the water and 5 secs later a fireman is running toward him waving his arms yelling, “get out of the water,” a little unnerving to say the least. Images of Jaws flashed in my mind as I catapulted out of my chair and ran toward the water screaming “Lyle get out of the water.” He couldn’t hear me but he must have been able to tell by my face that something was wrong and he quickly scurried out. The crocodiles were nowhere near our location, but so much better safe than…well you know.

The rains have filled the lagoon and it’s spilling into the bay with an occasional croc going as well. The locals say it happens most summers and when the water goes back down in the lagoon so do the crocs. If one of the crocs gets to be a nuisance then the fishermen take a boat out, lasso the beast and drag him back into the lagoon.

There is a viewing platform at the end of town where you can view the crocs and if you want buy fish and toss it to them. Locals swear the only bad human/croc encounter happened when a tourists was feeding the crocs some fish, got too close and lost his hand. Because the crocodiles here are protected there are a lot of them, probably close to 300, I sure hope as the numbers of crocs as well as the number of humans increases our luck holds and nothing tragic happens...but I think it’s just wishful thinking.

We're Back in La Manzanilla!

We arrived in La Manzanilla Saturday the 4th at 5:00 PM to cloudy skies and drizzle. Around midnight it stared really raining and thundering and lightening. At 6:30 we had water seeping into our bedroom from the lot next door and a river running down the street that nearly as wide as the street. The river ran for 24 hours.



After the initial shock dealing with the seeping water and worrying about the chance of the water jumping our sandbags and really flooding the house we joined in the fun of the river! In the afternoon the kids built dams and played in the pools of cool, clear water. Video was shot in the late afternoon on Sunday, the flow was about 1/4 of that in morning.

Monday morning the river was dry but the street and those streets around us look like a war zone with huge crevices, some as much as 7 feet deep. We can’t get our truck out of the car port and even if we could it’s doubtful we could make it off our block without falling into a crevice. So, we walked Lyle to and from his first day of school in the rain, walked to Juan’s to buy tamales for dinner and were happy we still have electricity and internet! It’s the little things after all….

Carnitas- no wonder its so delicious

On Sundays you can get Carnitas in La Manzanilla and only on Sundays. On the main road paralleling the beach you'll find aborrotes Chona. During the week it's a humble food store and meat market but on Sunday the street in front is lined with tables and chairs and people waiting in line to snag one.

I was curious how one would go about making carnitas so I checked out a wiki site and this is what I found.

“The traditional way to cook carnitas is in a copper pot which disperses the heat evenly (one may use any thick bottomed pot to get the same result). Lard is used to cover the dish in proportion to the amount of meat being cooked. Once the lard has melted, pork and flavorings are added (usually salt, oregano, marjoram, thyme, bay leaf, crushed garlic cloves). Traditional carnitas is then made by process of simmering the meat until tender over a very low heat. Once appropriate tenderness is achieved, the heat is turned up and the outside of the pork begins to crisp. The carnitas can then be cooled and shredded.”

At 8 pesos (.67 cents) it's a fattening treat I indulge in almost every Sunday! They do handmade tortillas and a very spicy pico de gallo that just adds to the culinary delight.

Next time you come for a visit to La Manzanilla be sure you stay the weekend so you don't miss out.