Fiesta days in Chacala Las Varas

I am in Las Varas at the moment, at the newer, and perhaps only, at the moment, internet place in Las Varas. It's a couple of store fronts south of the bank on the main street. Today traffic on the main street is totally blocked off by booths related to the fiesta days here. Which I think is related to Guadalupe, but I am not sure.

I rode to La Penita with a friend of mine who is camping up abut three blocks up the beach from me. A couple of other people rode with up, and we all went our separate ways once we arrived. We were in La Penita for the Thursday street market, the tsangiu (?spelling). This time of year is is jam packed with US and Canadian tourists, and it's kind of overwhelming. And this year the powers that be have moved all the tourist oriented booths up in the plaza, which is very nice and mostly shady. I bought a mirror for 10 pesos (90 cents or so), two dozen colored plastic clothes pins for ten pesos, four small cantalupes for 90 cents, a loaf of whole wheat bread, (home baked) and a miniature apple tart, which was delicious.

I like all the pottery and stuff in the booths, but it's way out of my price range, and pretty unnecessary in my life style. But it's fun to look at. They also have alot of used clothes booths but I am okay for clothes at the moment. I went on the main market street for about three blocks, looking for peanuts in the shell, but didn't find any. The main street is full of stuff that Mexican families who live in the area need, and it's fun to look at everything. The only thing I meant to get and didn't get was elastic to replace the elastic in my shorts.

Then we headed down the road a couple of miles to Guayabitos, looking for some nice folks from Corvallis who weren't home. As we walked up the beach to their hotel I got a nice handful of shells. Guayabitos is much nicer than I imagined. It was my first visit there, and I had a nice time. We ate at the Cafe at the Hotel Jacqueline, right on the beach, and it was very pleasant. Our friends hadn't come home by the time we finished, so we headed to Las Varas, where I got dropped off so I could go to the cash machine and the internet place. I am going to look at the fiesta booths on the way home, but probably won't buy anything. Except maybe elastic.

The night for the Chacala parade or procession is apparently Saturday night, although some people say it's Friday night. I have gone a couple times now, mainly for the bumper cars and watching the procession, but I probably will stay home this year. We didn't gt home until about 2am last year, and that's too late for me.

The second bike riding group came to Chacala yesterday, and camped at Esparanza's last night. Second group I have seen here, and it was only two young men. I had the impression they weren't interested in visiting with me, so I don't have any details about their ride and how it was going. The restaurant and whatever the American is building on the beach is looking uglier by the day. Maybe it will look better when it's painted, but at the moment it looks like a fortress.

The owners of Casa Azul have been (re)
moving (?) palms, etc, in preparation for building more rental units between the old building the the beach cliff. I can't imagine how it will look back there when it's done. Most of the construction project around town seem to be on hold for the winter. However, Juan, of the Joker tienda is building a small house up the hill from the store, and he is interested in finding a long term renter.

Las Brisas is now completing it's ninth rental unit, upside on the street end. I think the rentals are between $45 and $65 depending on the number of people and other variables. Actually that price is pesos, 450 to 650 pesos.

Posada Guadaloupe, three units on the beach road, away from the beach, now seems to have live-in maintenance family. If you speak Spanish, the phone number is 327 219 4011. The units look small and uninviting, but the insides might be nicer than the outside.

The addition to the Kinder (gaten), a new, larger classroom, is being worked on . I think the Omaha and Shawnee Rotary groups are coming down in the few weeks to do some more work there.

Koko Bongo's internet seems to be working all the time. One of the daughters from Koko Bpmgo's is now running a hot dog and video game arcade on the beach road across from the motor home parking.

People are starting to gear up for Semana Santa, which is the business time of the year here. I am hoping that the powers that be here in Chacala will discourage the late night and extremely loud music and microphone late at night if it is anything like last year. Which was terrible and went on until 2 or 3am.

The weather is perfect, warm enough for shorts at 6:30am and until bedtime. Sunny and nice. The water is lovely, and the waves are very varied, from pretty wild to calm and peaceful. There aren{t alot of tourists in town, and less motor homes than a few weeks ago. Maybe 15 , all together.

The creek that is the water source for Chacala seems to be dried up at the moment and people are having nice clean water trucked in. That's it for now.