Fun in Ajijic

And even another post for today – the 3rd. Do I post too many pictures?
One of the reasons we went to Ajijic was my cousin Jeff lives there and we wanted to visit with him some. So we had a couple of meals with him and visited with him a few times. He is looking good and seems to be enjoying life here. In fact we’ve only seen him a couple of times ‘cause he is so busy. Two nights a week he teaches an English class. He is taking part in a play and is going to rehearsals during the week. He goes to Karaoke on Monday nights. This past weekend he was directing traffic both days for the annual Chili Cook Off.

He also belongs to a Culinary Club and has old movie night one night a week for his friends. Busy, busy guy. And I think I’ve left a couple of things out. Jeff and Bill with friend at Cook Off.

Joined Jeff at Karaoke Monday night. What fun. Lots of people participating. Some with really good voices – some …. Okay. Jeff really gets into it and livens things up. Check out the short video at the end.
Ajijic is a neat little town. You hear mostly English spoken here. Thousands of both Canadians and Americans have settled here. The climate is very good and living (after you’ve bought a house) is much less expensive than north of the border. Houses are pretty expensive. Nice ones seem to range from at least US$250,000 and over. There are plenty of doctors, dentists and vets here. All speak English. We bought a couple of DVD movies for US$3.00 each - fairly new releases in English. At the Wal*Mart here I even found Salad Sprinkles – Wal*Mart is new since we were here three years ago. We bought beef filet for around US$3.50 per pound. Fish is very cheap. Cable and satellite TV is available with all US major channels. No we are not thinking of moving here.
I think I mentioned that there are lots of art/craft galleries here. We went into one and fell in love with an oil painting of a Mexican woman, she has her head turned and her braid is covered with colorful bows.

A beautiful piece – I want it! [Didn’t get it.] Lots of clothing stores and stores that sell handicrafts. Saw a corn husk doll paddling a carved wooden boat that was cute.
And a ceramic chicken with lots of little ceramic flowers all over him. Fun stuff for the tourists and the norteamericanos who live here.
Down by the lake is a pier with a restaurant at the end. Didn’t go in but really liked the door. An old boat standing on end the bottom turned into a door and colorfully decorated.

In the road in front of the water behind a multicolored display of blankets a woman sat on a piece of cardboard on the ground weaving material. Her loom tied around her waist and the other end to a big old tree.

Many of the buildings have murals on them. Some whimsical - this is a flower shop

some depicting the history of the area.

Others just pretty and interesting. Lots of buildings are decorated with stencils.
And tiles.

A few of the light posts are painted

and several of the street signs are tiles. Never know what we’ll see as we walk down the street or turn a corner.

The streets are very narrow – parking on one side and just barely enough room for a car to go by.

When we park The Driver pulls the roadside mirror in – just in case. We saw a propane truck stopped to service a second floor tank. He placed a ladder from the street up to the balcony and drug his hose up with him. All the while his truck was blocking traffic completely.
The plaza has the requisite gazebo and a very old small church. There are a number of wood carvings in this area. And an art gallery with a magnificent mural inside. Unfortunately it is in a very narrow hallway and I can’t get decent pictures of it. It is about the legend of the lake and the area.




About a block away there is another bigger church – it was started in 1821 and has been added to a number of times. You can see the additions by looking closely at the stone work.
I hah my hair cut here - 50 Pesos - notice the wiring running in front of the balcony.

Just a couple of typical street scenes here.


Lots of stuff for sale.
And I could go on and on – but won’t.

Hugo's Campground Ajijic

2nd post today - other one below this one.
Still trying to catch up - still last week.
Saturday - Well we’ve been in Ajijic for a few days now. The other motorhome (40 footer) that was here in the campground left early this a.m. Yesterday afternoon they moved it from where it was parked in the middle of the lawn to the driveway so they could get an early start this morning. It took quite a while and lots of maneuvering with lots of people giving the poor guy directions. But he made it and they are long gone now.
There are a lot of changes here at Hugo's, but some things stay the same. The electricity is holding up good. Big improvement. The pipes sticking up out of the ground that we thought were for the sewer turned out to be “pipes sticking up out of the ground” – connected to nothing. So what are we going to do for a sewer – well between the day we drove down here in the car and talked to Hugo and the day we got here in Jennie Hugo had his workers dig a “septic tank/hole” about 30’ away from where we parked. Then he had them lay a long 4” PVC pipe to a couple feet from us. It is on an angle down towards the hole. But not a very steep angle…. Not every one has a sewer connection dug and set up just for them.

[After note - we only dumped gray water into the new sewer - didn't think the other would be able to flow up hill through the hose and pipe.]
This is Jennie enjoying the scenery.
Notice the sitting area in the middle of the round about. It is supposed to be a fountain but the water wasn't running while we were there.

And we’ve discovered that the city turns off the towns electric water pump at night. This doesn’t bother the houses as their water is on their roofs in tanks – but we end up with no water pressure – have to turn on our water pump – so we have to remember that before we turn in for the night. If we don’t no water for flushing at night.
This place is really quite pretty. Lots of different plants and Hugo sculptures.


and over looking the lake. He collects junk then uses it to make really interesting "things." The gate into the place is on a remote so no one can come in. We have the company of several hens and chicks – but no rooster – One of the hens has lost all her tail feathers to the owner’s puppy – hen seems fine – just looks funny and there are feathers all over the yard.

Lots of pretty birds. One with a bright yellow breast

and another little red one. Had trouble getting a good picture of him, he wouldn't sit still.

And of course the garzas

and some white pelicans.

It really is a restful place to stay. Lots of plants: banana trees, papaya and peach trees, of course palms and lots of flowers.
Hugo’s house in the back ground. It is finished now and he and his three children live there.

There is another completed house (that is for rent) and yet another house being built in the campground area. They are up along the street. When we were here three years ago he was working on both his house and the rented one. The new one was just a gate house then.
There are people living below the campground wall – between it and the lake – they are called “paracaidistas” translated as paratroopers – ‘cause where ever they land they stay. Basically what we call squatters. Was watching the woman wash dishes in a big galvanized tub – earlier she had washed her clothes in the same tub. Don’t know where they get their water – hopefully from a hose and not the lake.

The man of the house was out in the lake fishing with a net today, usually he goes out in a small boat.
And there was a big brown cow with a limp wandering around down there. There is a small herd of cows (4 of them) that wander up and down the street out front. Have to stop and wait for them to get out of the way. The other post has a link to the first time we were at Hugo's - three years ago.

Finally made it to Tequila

It’s been a week since I posted – We were in Ajijic for one week without any Internet. Now we are back in Guadalajara for a while. We’ve been gone from home for 111 days! But to back track and catch up. I will probably post two or three different subjects today so read on.
Left Guadalajara around 10:15 Wednesday. Took the Periferico across the city then the road to Chapala. Shorter and easier than going through Jojotepec. Took a little over an hour to get to Hugo’s campground. There is one big rig (40')here – cannot figure out how they got in and/or how they will get it out. Want to watch that. This year there is supposedly 30amp electric in a solid post with breakers instead of wires coming up out of the ground like three years ago. For an account of that adventure click here - http://www.movingon1.com/jalisco.php#hugosthere might be pictures of the campground in the pictures too.
This is an Huichol we met in Tequila - check out his hat. It has lots and lots of feathers on the brim.


But back to Tequila. The first tour we took was to a small family owned distillery. Don’t even remember the name. Then later we took the Jose Cuervo tour. Both were very interesting and I will kind of combine them as I could take more pictures at the first tour. Cuervo restricted the use of cameras. So
Tequila is made only from the blue agave. It takes seven to ten years for a plant to mature. The only part used is the bulb or pineapple. The leaves are left in the fields to break down and act as natural nutrients. The plant is dug up with a special round sharp shovel type thing and then the leaves are sliced off using same tool. Then the bulbs are loaded into trucks and taken to the distillery. Now there are electronic scales to weigh each load. But they used to be paid for by the weight of the bulbs – a selection of the biggest and smallest were weighed then an average taken. That would determine the price of the load.
The biggest bulbs are split by hand by a certain group of workers. They all wear gloves and red bandanas on their heads. All they do is split the bulbs and load them into the ovens.
At JC the ovens are lined up behind the agave pineapples. The steam from the heat in the ovens comes out through the doors.

The agave cooks for many hours to bring the sugar out. (I can’t read my notes to tell you how many hours – I have written down “12 hrs first – 22 hrs flavor” and Bill says he remembers 72 hours.) So if you’re really curious look it up. During cooking the agave softens and turns a caramel color. It tastes pretty good if you don't mind ending up with a mouth full of fiber.

The oven doors are then opened from the rear and the cooked bubls are allowed to cool down.

Then another group of workers wearing boots and hard hats unload the cooked bulbs. Again by hand
They are put onto a conveyor belt that takes it through a crusher.
(This is the one at first factory - one at JC is in first picture.)
This extracts the sugar liquid from the fiber. The fibers can go through the crushers up to five times. The finer the tequila the fewer times it has been crushed. Next the liquid goes into big vats to ferment for four to seven days.
When the fermentation process is completed the liquid is 60-75% alcohol! Then the liquid is distilled. The first distillation leaves a murky, oily, debris filled liquid. The second distillation clears the liquid. The alcohol content is still pretty high – in fact it smells like what I imagine White Lightening smells like – very strong.
After the distillation is complete water is added to cut the alcohol content then the liquid is put in oak barrels to age. The oak barrels can be refilled many, many times and can be used for as many as 35 years.
The longer the tequila stays in the barrel the darker it gets. Clear tequila is bottled right away, never put in a barrel. Aging process is never more than seven years – after that the tequila starts to destroy the barrel. This is the golden colored tequila añejo.
It is aged in temperature controlled rooms called Caves
With time the barrels tend to warp some.

– the barrels have tags on them with the dates they were filled. And the fill hole has a seal over it that is put on by the government.
Fill date on this tag.

If the seal is broken it has to be destroyed - both the barrel and the tequila inside it.
They were both interesting tours – big difference in equipment between the smaller distillery and the large Jose Cuervo one. But it all does the same thing.
The fiber left from the plant after the sugar is extracted is used for lots of things. It is used as fertilizer mainly. It can be pounded down and made into paper. Filling a truck with the fiber.
But none of it goes to waste.
So any way the story is we finally made it to a Tequila Distillery only took 32 years. I'm glad we went.