Sights, Sounds and Smells of Mexico

El Fuerte Pueblo Magico…..It is so hard to describe the place. It’s more to do with your senses then anything else. Everything is so different and so much more vivid – sounds, smells, sights, tastes if you’re daring. From the time the roosters wake you up till the time the music stops and you go to bed there are sounds. The roosters are all over the city, and they crow all day long. Then from over the fence we could hear the donkey braying. Every once in a while something would really set him off. The little restaurant set up on the dirt shoulder of the street played music at the top of their volume control all day. Once you get into town there is music coming from every little store and passing car, the cars with the speakers are driving all over town hawking everything from pure water to mufflers for sale. And laughter – there is always a background of laughter. From the teenage girls walking in tight groups, the small children playing out front of their parents little store

and the cowboys standing around watching the teenage girls. Some one calling to a friend across the street or in a passing car. Horns blowing. Music coming from a group of good looking young men playing in the plaza.
Your nose is continually working to identify something that smells good. Where ever you go there is chicken, beef or pork being cooked on a grill. Or fried in a deep vat of grease. There is a food stand of some kind on every block in the town. Even if its just a grill and two chairs. The delicious smell of churros being fried then while still hot dipped in sugar and cinnamon.
That great smell of leather as you pass a shop that makes and sells saddles.
Tortillas cooking and from the produce stands the smell of fresh peppers, tomatoes and fruit.
Fresh fish for sale from the back of a pickup. See it hanging there.
As you walk down the sidewalk and pass homes and small businesses you can smell the soap used to clean everything. Mix all these with the ever present smoke from burning trash, motor exhaust and dust and you have a smell unique to Mexico.
We love to just walk the streets taking in all the sights. The children playing, the old people in their chairs in front of little stores. Most of the time they are asleep enjoying the sun.

The colorful piñatas for sale for Christmas.
A quick glimpse behind a door to the beautiful court yard of an old home. The colorful murals that are in unexpected places.
Peaking through the old door
or broken shutters of a newly painted building and seeing – nothing except a very old ceiling.
A cowboy riding his horse down the cobblestone street and then he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket.
A satellite dish on top of a building that hasn’t been painted in 100 years. The beautiful flowers that everywhere.
The school buildings painted with Disney characters. The children all in their school uniforms. Mary and Joseph and the Three Kings in a Christmas pageant.


And even ZORRO

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.More about our time in El Fuerte next time