What would summer be with out frequent trips to the local swimming pool??

bring the kids, bring your friends, make sure to bring lunch

A. did not want her picture taken

so E. decided she did not want her picture taken either

makes it hard for the blogger

I kept trying

look at the lovely smile

Arlo loved it

not sure who was more excited when he caught it, him or us!

he seemed pretty happy though

sun, water, kids, ball

great combination

great summer

passion vine up-date

I have been home long enough now to have posted all the photos of the trip,

caught up on my sleep and almost caught up on my yard work

this is not a great time to work in the yard here

many afternoons it clouds up and we have thundershowers and rain

then there is the heat

the heat is not so bad, but the mosquitoes are

the vines are filling in nicely

one of my favorite ones opening on the side of the arbor

most of the blooms have been with the front runner on the fence

 I am so proud of that flower....

the right side filled in on the inside of the fence

and the outside

we also have a surprise watermelon plant

we have already eaten one watermelon - it was wonderful

the plant is taking over the flower bed

I know what I am going to plant lots of next year

watermelon!

after an all night bus ride from Mexico City to Colima

with a stop in Tecoman

 we were home -

Cuyutlan!!

after Ana Rosa did her magic - our house shown!

Beth had done an awesome job with paint and furniture

so it was not long before it was a comfy place again

that is Sabina's art on the wall, too bad it did not show up better

it makes that end of the room

I love the colors Beth painted

I kept the fridge in the bedroom and set up  small kitchen next to it

I was only there a couple weeks

I did not drag the washer out either

and after a few loads at Javier's mom's place

I washed by hand

first day in Cuyutlan was lunch at Dago's of course,

shrimp tostadas, I love 'em

the day before we arrived a huge storm had hit Cuyutlan

the water came up over the malacon, huge trees had been uprooted

everyone was out cleaning up

the beach was way closer to the malacon than in the winter

there was not much room for chairs or umbrellas

needless to say there was not much business either

well I said we tried not to wear our Vallarta dresses on the same day

but it was so hot that is all we wanted to wear!

like I said, there was no one in Cuyutlan

I have never been there when it was so quiet

Betsy's last morning

she is happy to be leaving the heat!!
at 3 am we woke up, had to lie in the little pool to cool off and went back to bed

thank you for the hammock Beth, it is the only way I made it for the next week

after dark I would lie in it with the fan right in front of me

by about 1 am the bedroom had cooled down....
we have never stayed there in the summer
the room needs a vent near the ceiling to let the hot air out

there was one really bad night when about midnight in the middle of a huge electrical storm
the electricty went out in the whole town
it was cool so have it dark, I like dark
but it meant no fan.....

 

I had a great time with Luly, Ken and Carol at their ex-maids wedding

until it started raining

we left when it started pouring, before the birria

ex-maid, now that she is getting married she does not have to work....

I love what Beth did with the outside shower

it was made out of creosote posts and heavy black plastic walls

it had a roof

now you can look up and see the bougainvillea over head

and at night, the stars

it is not quite finished it needs a coat of stucco to make it look sharp

it is hard to see in the photo but there is a guy at the top of this palm

cutting down the coconuts

we had 2 palms that needed their coconuts harvested

that was from one palm!

Dago arranged for them to be cut and we gave them to him for his puesto

this is the day before I am leaving, giving the keys to Ken

getting a ride to Tecoman from Jacquie and Eduardo

thank you, thank you

I was meeting Eduardo and Jacquie for lunch one day in Tecoman

when I got there I was so hot I suggested a restaurant that was air conditioned

we went around the corner of their house to the restaurant at the Hotel Real

wow, it was beautiful

I did not know such a wonderful hotel even existed in Tecoman

I decided right then to come and spend my last night in Mexico at the hotel

it was a great idea

instead of working all morning to pack up the house and then driving to the airport,

I went to Tecoman and luxuriated in the huge pool and air conditioned room

did some shopping in the morning easy with a taxi -

I needed 2 princess dresses

and still made it to the airport in plenty of time

we were so worried about the weather and getting out of the Manzanillo airport

as it had been storming for days

the weather turned out not to be the problem -

it was that my passport had expired 4 days before!!

WHAT??

I could not believe it

it took over an hour for the Alaska Airline people to decide to allow me to board

and in Houston, they never mentioned it!!

I was so lucky

or I would still be in Mexico,

waiting at the counter of the consulate in Guadalajara.....

I have been wanting to see the murals of Diego Rivera's in the National Palace

in Mexico City like forever

they did not disappoint

in fact they were more wonderful and amazing than I had imagined!!

the building, the Palacio Nacional, in itself was amazing

most of the mural is on this giant stairway

the scope is huge, hard to get a photo of the shear size of it

so I included this photo from the internet that gives you some idea

the mural wrapped around both sides of the stairway

Diego painted these murals between 1929 and 1935

the panels on the stairway reveal his vision of Mexican history

chronologically right to left

on the walls of the second story corridor
he painted 8 more panels between 1941 and 1952
he died in 1957

showing imagined life in pre-Hispanic Mexico

amazing detail

beautiful colors

  

this is where Frida Kahlo met Diego

the story goes that he was up on a scaffolding and she yelled up to him

and caught his attention

this very stairway!!

she would be shocked at how Frida mania has taken over Mexico

if her image or one of the ones she created

can be put on something - it is

bags, shirts, jewelry, magnets, cards, notebooks, pottery

reproductions of her work are everywhere

it just goes to show you, in her time, he was the great and famous artist

people said, all she paints is herself, she answered - that is what I know

Diego himself is reported to have said

that he thought she was the better artist
she died in 1954

I was so happy to finally be on that stairway

a funny thing happened on the way out....

first, on the way in, you go through security, this is the national palace

and the home of the president, thought he usually lives in Los Pinos in the Bosque de Chapuletepec

there were armed guards all over the place

when Betsy went through security, they made her throw her cigarettes and lighter away

when we came out she wanted to go back through and get her smokes

I am like, are you crazy, they are never going to let you go through the garbage

well, they did!

the smokes were not there though, imagine that...

another interesting fact is that the National Palace was once the house of Hernan Cortes

he left it to his son, Martin Cortes

who sold it to the Spanish Crown in 1562

early real estate

 the Zocalo, the heart of Mexico City

the Palacio Nacional is the long building on the right

the Cathedral on the left

 on our last day in the city, la ultima dia, I did get to see some paintings of Mr. Rivera's

but did not get to see any of Frida's

the museum that had Diego's and said that they had Frida's actually did not have any..

there were some interesting statues there though

this is for you Eduardo

 and this one is for you Willie

Next stop - Cuyutlan!

Teotihuacan

just north of Mexico City is one of Mexico's most famous ruins

no one knows who the people who lived there were

or what language they spoke

the city was abandoned hundreds of years before the Aztec came

I was awed by the scale, it was huge

that's the Pyramid of the Moon

located at the end of the Avenue of the Dead

that's obviously not what the people who built it and lived there called it....

it was steep!

going up was way easier than going down

we got up to the top - yeah!!

going to the edge to come back down was like going over a cliff

had a great view down the Avenue from the top

well half way up the top was as far as you could go

to the left is the other large pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun

it is even bigger than the Pyramid of the Moon

and just as tricky going down

had to go side step

great photo Jacquie, with the sun, cool, thanks!

when we first got there, there was almost no one else there

it was wonderful to experience the energy of the place by ourselves

at one point, Betsy and I left the main avenue

found some shade trees off to the right there to have a smoke

we started looking around and found several potsheds, some with dull red paint

and some with curved lips like in bowls

we thought we had found diamonds, well they were to us

by the time we left the place was packed, vendors and hawkers, crowds

up and down the streets and the pyramids

it was Sunday, and on Sunday it was free for Mexicans

and it was also Father's Day

I would be so proud to be of Mexican heritage

when my grandchildren are older - I am bringing them here

to Teotihuacan

Betsy was there

I was there

who ever the builders were, they were very interesting and creative

this one makes me smile

next - 2nd main reason to come to Mexico City - Diego Rivera's murals