Looking Back on Winter 2024 - Soccer in Playa del Carmen

What's that sound??  

Toby and I spent a couple of days in Playa del Carmen before heading home.  We got a condo on calle 34 north, just off the famous 5th avenue pedestrian mall.  We were resting after walking about 1 km with our suitcases in the mid day heat.  Then, this loud honking sound.  What???

We went to the balcony to see what we could see.  Turns out the sound was a vuvuzela.  The long loud horns fans use during soccer games to express their enthusiasm for the beautiful game :)  

Turns out, the soccer stadium was right across the street!  And we could watch the game, with partial view from our balcony, or with a great aerial view from the rooftop patio.  How fun!  

Especially fun and fortuitous since a friend went to a soccer game at the same stadium a couple of weeks before.  When she told me about it, I decided it was something I'd like to do too, if possible.  And, it was the only game scheduled for the time we were in Playa del Carmen.

Pictures 

1. The view of the soccer field from our rooftop patio
2. Toby and Dave being very serious about the soccer game
3. Toby and me
4. Our rooftop pool.  Although our condo was fairly close to the beach, we enjoyed lounging and swimming in this area.
5. 
   The Chedraui grocery store 1 block from our condo was well stocked with pastries, wine, and most anything else we could want.  They even had a kitchen and counter service that cooked and served foods you could buy there.  Tasty! And a prety good deal
6. There were several cool murals in our part of Playa del Carmen
7. It's possible to walk for about an hour down the beach.  This was an especially pretty part of it
8. 
   Toby left Playa del Carmen about 2 days before me, to go to Gibsons BC to help his cousin with house projects.  While I was alone, I went to the beach early enough to do sunrise yoga and knitting.  Delightful
9. I was fine being alone in Playa after Toby left.  But when I did feel a little sad, this "Vache qui Rit" cheese that Toby left for me made me smile

Looking back on Winter 2024 - Dinner on the Beauport

A new ish addition to Cozumel is the opportunity to dine aboard a luxury cruise ship, the Beauport.  So a bunch of us ladies did!

The Beauport has an interesting history. It was built in 1960 in Lauzon, Quebec and served as a Canadian Coast Guard ice beaker in the St Lawrence river for about 30 years.  In 1993, she was refitted as a luxury yacht, sold privately, and used for exploration by the Jacques Cousteau foundation. In 2019, the Beauport Foundation was created and the ship was again restored. The Beauport now has a private American owner.  It operates under a Panamanian flag, but calls Cozumel home. 

The dinner experience included a short ride between shore and The Beauport in a small motor boat.  And a tour of the Beauport's passenger sleeping cabins, the captains quarters, pilot house, and even a peek into the kitchen.  Before we were seated at a beautiful table on an outside deck.  The main course and dessert were crazy delicious. And the service very attentive.  All wonderful!  

The only not so wonderful part was my seasickness.  Which started during the tour.  Likely because it was hot in the rooms, and i could not / did not keep my eyes on the horizon.  Poopy!!

Despite this, it was a lovely evening, and I'm glad I went.  

Thank you Pat, for organizing us :)

Pictures

1. Pat and me, in the shuttle boat on our way to the Beauport
2. 
   Our beautiful dinner table
3. Appetizer, dinner, and dessert.  All presented beautifully and crazy delicious
4. The pilot house.  The actual functional equipment is modern, but they left this beautiful wheel in place
5. The captains quarters
6. One of the passenger cabins.  All compact but comfortable looking
7. A lounge in the Beauport

A Guided Tour at Charco Del Ingenio

I learned so many things from our lovely guide, David Tarrant, during a 2 hour tour at Charco Del Ingenio!

Charco Del Ingenio is a botanical garden and nature reserve.  (See Looking back on 2023, Charco del Ingenio) David is a volunteer there, who is 82 years old, and very good at teaching people.

Pictures

1) This is the nopales cactus, also called prickly pear. The wide, flat cactus pads (nopales) are used in many Mexican dishes and as a medicinal plant.  The prickly pear fruit, called "atun" (tuna) in Spanish, is very sweet and can be eaten raw, right off the plant. Unlike other fruits, a green prickly pear does not mean that it's unripe.The fruit is at its best when it's very plump, rotund, heavy for its size, with a perfectly smooth skin. In this picture, David is showing us how you can use leaves as a glove, to pick the fruit and rub off the prickly part.

2) As the nopales cactus ages, earlier growth becomes woody in appearance, this is called lignification. It is the fixation of lignin (wood) in plant cells.  This substance acts as cement, providing it with a hard, rigid consistency giving it greater volume and resistance to things such as fungi.  According to our guide David, the faint parallel lines in the lignified "trunk" are old pads (nopales) that have fused together.  Each parallel line indicates 10 years of growth.

3&4) The scalloped v shape pattern on these agave leaves are created when the leaves are new and tightly packed.  The inside of the leaves are fibrous.  These fibres, called sisal, can be used for all sorts of things, like rope, carpets, and paper.  If you keep the very pointy end of the leaf attached to a fibre, it can be used like a needle and thread! 

5) The white dot on this prickly pear cactus pad is the wax coating of a red soft shelled  insect called cochineal, from which a natural red dye called carmine can be made. The insects produce the carminic acid to deter predators.  Humans can make the dye by brushing the insect off the cactus,  drying them, and adding aluminium or calcium salts.   In the 16th century, during the colonial period, this dye was an important export good, used an a pigment for fabric, paint and food.  Today, carmine is primarily used as a colorant in food and in lipstick (E120 or Natural Red 4).

6) The pale v shaped lime on these cacti indicate one year of growth

7) These are desert ferns.  They look dry / dead likes this in the dry season. A few hours after rain begins, they open up into lush green ferns

8) This section of the canyon creates a natural amphitheatre. One the first weekend of spring, musicians climb down to the flat area in the rocks to perform.  Past performances have included a grand piano! 

9) Coyote poop!  They seem to really like pooping on the narrow stone walls built in the garden.  The poop is full of seeds!  Turns out coyotes are omnivores and will eat cactus fruits, mesquite beans, flowers, insects, rodents, lizards, rabbits, birds, and snakes, depending on the season and what's available.

10 & 11) Once the yellow flowers on this barrel cactus wilt, the tart fruit can be eaten and birds use the fluff, which is attached to the seeds. 

Marigolds and Monarchs

Marigolds and monarch butterflies have been associated with the Day of the Dead for a long time.  

Monarch butterflies begin to arrive in Mexico around the Day of the Dead, after their long migrations from Canada and the United States.  Legend says that their wings carry the souls of the dead. Marigolds, bright orange fragrant flowers, are used to decorate the ofrendas (altars) and show the souls the way to the ofrendas, so they can return to their families.  Beautiful.

Marigolds also have other meanings in Mexican folklore.   

In one story, two Aztec children, Huitzilin and Xochitl, grew up together and explored a nearby mountaintop. While there, they offered flowers to the Sun God, who, in return would “smile from the sky with warm rays”.  As adults, they fell in love and swore eternal love to each other. Sadly, Huitzilin died in a war. Devastated, Xóchitl returned to the mountaintop and prayed to the Sun God to be reunited with her love. Then, a ray of sunshine kissed her cheek and transformed her into a flower as bright as the sun.  Suddenly, a hummingbird touched the flower, and the flowers' petals opened. According to the story, their love will remain as long as marigolds and hummingbirds remain on earth. 

Another legend states that a marigold grows where each innocent victim of the Spanish conquest fell.  

Cempasúchil is the Spanish word for marigold.  It comes from the Aztec language, the Nahuatl, and means twenty petals flower. 

Pictures

1) I went on a group day trip to a small town called Comonfort about 30 minutes away from SMS.  There, we visited a large field where they grow marigolds, and a few other flowers for the Day of the Dead. This is me, and Moishes, a retired cowboy who came on the trip.  

2) One of the men cutting the flowers for customers.  At the end of several of the rows of flowers had a stake and name on it.  Yep, these people had pre-bought that row.

3) Me and Barbara in the field

4) a local lady selling the flowers by the roadside

5-10)  As the day of the Dead got closer, more and more businesses and parts of the city were decorated with marigolds.  It really was very pretty

La Catrina

One of the most iconic symbols of the Day of the Dead is La Catrina.  But she's a modern addition, with her first appearance happening in 1910!  At the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

The Mexican artist and political satirist who created her, Jose Guadalupe Posada, had been using pictures with skeletons to satirize politicians and public figures of the time.

His "La Calavera Catrina" depicted a female skeleton wearing a French hat decorated with ostrich feathers, but no clothes.

His goal was to poke fun at the Mexican president, Porfirio Diaz, who wore European clothes and makeup to make his skin look white, and at Mexico's poor street vendors who tried to deny their indigenous roots and look European by wearing European clothes and selling garbanzo beans instead of their traditional corn.

In 1947, Diego Rivera (Frida Khalo's husband) further popularized La Catrina in his mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central,” which depicts himself as a boy, Frida Kahlo, Posada, La Catrina, and hundreds of characters from 400 years of Mexican history.  The image is a political commentary on the confrontation between Indigenous people and the new European authorities. 

Today, La Catrina is seen in many different forms, including colourful sugar and papier mache skulls for decorations, women and men in Day of the Dead parades, and statues in plazas and store fronts.

Pictures

1-3 ) There were La Catrinas decorating stores, restaurants, and houses

4, 6, 7) People dressed up us La Catrina throughout the Day of the Dead celebrations.

5) There were all sorts of places where people could get their make-up done