Revisiting Santiago Ixcuintla's Mural and the Central Market

Tuesday morning already
When we got up Sunday morning there wasn’t any whale on the beach so hopefully he is okay and back with his family. But there were lots of people on the beach. Vendors, trucks and cars, lots of laughing kids and music. So we decided to take a road trip to Santiago Ixcuintla.

In one little town we ended up behind this humongous piece of farm machinery.

I don’t know how he managed to make it through town. He had to keep dodging cars and trees and going over topes and around people on bicycles. The street was narrow for us. But guess he was used to it.
We went through lots of tobacco fields. Some with the tobacco hanging on ropes to dry.

Lots of tobacco fields

Just before reaching Santiago Ixcuintla we started seeing some of the Indian men and women walking along the road. Always with the man leading and the woman a couple of steps behind him.

The outfits of the men are works of art.

Once in town we parked and walked along the two block long mural again. See last years trip for more pictures of it. There are a lot of pictures of the mural here  Link 
We stopped and talked to a very knowledgeable gentlemen and learned that the information we’d had about this being a large population of Huichol Indians was wrong. Actually there are more Cora Indian families there now. They are known for their embroidery work.
We also learned more about the Mural. One side of the street represents the history of the state of Nayarit. The other side the history of Mexico. This is just part of the side reflecting Mexico’s history.


History goes from right to left

On the far left of this section of the mural is the only figure that doesn’t represent the history of Mexico. It is the black round circle. When they were building the Mural in 1991 they were to this part of it when on July 11 in the morning there was a complete solar eclipse – so they included it in the mural.

Solar Eclipse

Supposedly next week they are supposed to start some much need repair work on it. I hope so it would be a shame if it was let got to ruin.
We walked around the plaza some. Looking at some of the beaded Huichol jewelry and the gazebo and church

Main Plaza  church in background

Walked around plaza

The imagination of the people here never ceases to amaze me. These are light bulbs hanging from the trees – got to be pretty at night.


Tree lighting

 Across the street is an old concrete building with lots of arches. Can’t really see them but the ceilings are painted a light peach color.

We continued on to the Central Market. I stopped at this houseware section – first because of the colorful display and then noticed the morteros – the stone bowls with the grinding stone and next to them the silver tortilla presses.

A little further down the aisle we saw this box of adorable baby chicks. Again a few of them are colored with food color. The lady selling them really tried to get us to buy a couple. Could you see them running around in Jennie?

So cute

As we got into the grocery section this caught my eye – have never seen anything like it before in all the markets we’ve been in. Even the regular shoppers were looking at it askance. One little girl held her nose as she passed it.

no comment

Leaving there we headed back towards the car. Passed the government palace and I had to go in in search of a mural. At first I thought they didn’t have one! But then I saw it at the top of these tiled stairs.

The mural wasn’t too big but was still impressive. The Indian, the Spanish Conquistadors and the Padres – not sure about the naked women –

Looking up the rest of the stairs to the second floor. Interesting ceiling.

Back outside heading towards the car we passed these interesting families .

Keeping baby close

 As we pulled in to Jennie we noticed Ms Tioga parked down the beach from us.

Ms Tiogo on the playa

And just a few minutes later we had a knock on the door and George had come to visit. Spent an interesting hour or so talking with him.
Just out for a ride.

The beach was still full of families enjoying the surf, sand and sun until the sun went down. A vendor cart heading home in front of the sunset

The end of another fun and interesting day in Mexico. 

Trying to Save a Whale

More Monday a.m.  The Whale Tale
Sometime after we left for Tepic and before we got back to the beach a small whale managed to beach itself.



Boat and People in the water

 As we pulled down on the beach we could see a commotion in the water. There was a fishing boat close to shore and a whole lot of people out in the water. Some were running back and forth between the crowd and the boat.

When we parked Bill asked what was going on. He was told that a whale was stuck in the sand. So of course I had to pull my shoes off, grab my trusty camera and head out there.



Keeping the whale wet and out to sea

 As I got closer I could see that the people were trying to push the whale to deeper water (the tide was coming in) but with no success. The ones at the boat brought a big rope to the whale – tied it to him and the boat tried to pull him out as people pushed. The rope broke.



The rope broke

 I got a little closer trying to keep my clothes dry but a bigger wave came in so….any way this is about as close as I got. You can see the whales back and dorsal fin.

And here you can see his tail.

In the mean time everyone around him was trying to keep him wet and as far from shore as possible.
Eventually another smaller boat came and between the two of them they managed to pull the whale out into deeper water and get the ropes off him.


The two boats working together

 Haven’t seen him since.
I hope he is swimming happy with his friends and remembers the people of Playa Mantanchen who cared so much about him.

The beach at Playa Matanchen, Tepic and Save the Whale

Monday a.m.
Saturday morning I got up in time to see the full moon before it set. Nice sight.

Full moon setting

 Watched a fisherman come in and unload his catch into his pickup on the beach. Then he used the pickup to relocate the boat up out of the high tide line. And the beach in front of us is used as a highway – all kinds of traffic in the mornings.

The vendors are out early on weekend mornings too. Getting set up for the day.

Truck going to work and an early vendor

 As you can see we are just a small wall away from the beach.

Bill, Willie and Jennie on the beach

A video of the sounds of the beach – the waves and birds. Turn your speakers on.

Looking down the beach towards Aticama

Looking up the beach towards San Blas.

Looking towards San Blas

Because the beach will be crowded with weekenders and noisy we decided to take a trip into Tepic about 40 miles away inland and up the mountain. The road is a good newly paved two lane road. The only problem is it is very curvy – I don’t think there is one 100 foot stretch of it without a curve. The vegetation is very lush. In places the trees grow together to form tree tunnels.

Tree tunnel

There are zillions of mango trees all over the mountains. i can't imagine how they harvest the mangos as the trees grow on the sides of steep mountains. The only thing I can think of is they shake the trees when the mangos are ripe and they all fall off and roll to the bottom of the mountain and then they can be picked up.

Mango and banana trees

And trees with beautiful flowers on them. White ones, yellow one, red ones and these gorgeous pink ones.

And trees with a real reddish colored bark don’t know what it is but it is pretty.

Red barked tree

Banana trees with the little bananas on them.

There are a couple of little towns to go through – this one has a bright yellow church.

Just before Tepic we passed the ladies that sell all kinds of fruit. Stopped to buy some lemons – yes real yellow lemons. their fruit stands look like works of art. so many colors and so well displayed.

Like a still life work of art

And we bought a whole bunch which The Driver juiced with his handy dandy little juice machine when we got back to jennie.

Once into downtown Tepic we noticed that all the road construction has finally been finished and the main street is now paved with dark shiny square pavers. Looks like driving on a very expensive black marble. Quite impressive.

Nice new street

We parked right across from the main plaza

Looking at Plaza from church

Which is right across from the Cathedral. We saw this same view a little over 32 years ago. Link

Looking at church from other end of plaza

Then walked around some. Of course stopping to check out the small street where the Huichol Indians make and sell their jewelry. One of the women beading – I got one of the dolls. Fell in love with them.

Got the doll on the right

Another lady in her elaborately embroidered blouse also beading.

Some of the bead work.

Beautiful woven bead work

As we walked by one of the older buildings I noticed this information sign in Braille. At one time I could write Braille but have forgotten so much all I could read was the number 2010 – (the first four letters on the second line – first the sign designating the following letters are numbers (the backward looking L) then the numbers 2 0 1 0 Wow.

Another addition to downtowns beauty are the fake trees that line the main street.

They are very pretty – the trunks and branches are a thick dark brown cord of some type and the flowers of the trees are plastic with tiny lights in them. Must be really pretty at night.

After picking up the car we went to WalMart – of course – managed to get behind this loaded cane truck. There is a big sugar plant between downtown and WalMart. These trucks leave deposits of cane everywhere. Especially at topes.

Back on the curvy road home. That is the road next to us after a hairpin turn.

And just one of the curves.

I’m going to try to use YouTube to post a video of the ride but it is kind of long so may not work. I was only going to film until we got to a straight part of the road. Finally just had to stop. Deceided to post it separately. It will be either before or after this posting. It will take a while to watch but its interesting.
Just wanted you to notice the guard rails – oh that’s right there are no guard rails. And the mountain is straight down.

You thought I was kidding – this is just a small part of the GPS route.

Once at the bottom of the hills and on our way back to the RV park we saw these beautiful Birds of Paradise – they were bright red. All red no orange or blue.

Then these fence posts that have taken root and started to grow. .

From Aticama The Driver made the decision not to go the long way around the hill to the RV park but to go the short way over a dirt road and across the beach. Much much shorter distance.

Beach shortcut - Jennie is the small white dot in the center

In the distance by Jennie we could see a commotion in the water. A fishing boat was close to shore and a lot of people were out in the water. What the heck?  Check next post for answer.
I sure hope someone is reading these.