Cruising Is More Than Sailing
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2010
1
10
33
Trip End
Ongoing
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Nayarit, Mexico
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The people we meet are incredible: families stop us on the street to inquire about our dogs, then they tell us about themselves in a language of sounds and gestures; leaving us with warm hand shakes and offers to come to their homes. The school-aged children wear uniforms; boys in long trousers and crested polo shirts; and girls in pleated dresses and bobby socks. The heat of the day sends everybody into shady homes, cabanas and bungalows for the afternoon siesta, but as the sun sets the streets and plazas fill with people: children running and laughing, teenagers walking behind their parents while talking on cell phones, and adults (or almost adults) holding babies with big smiles for everyone they meet; people in Mexico are very colorful.
The food here is also incredible: our favorite restaurants are small store fronts with tables on the sidewalk or in a sandy lot next door. Tacos are anything piled on corn tortillas and come with a table full of sauces. Quesadillas are tacos on flower tortillas served with cheese. We have eaten these with all manner of seafood, meat from a cow's head, and pork turned on a vertical skewer with a pineapple on top – turning golden as the caramelized juices baste the smoky meat. And did you know they have a chocolate sauce that they put on almost anything? It’s called Mole (say moe-lay) Sauce. Lauri tries to order it everywhere we go. Eating in small Mexican towns is very colorful.
We have spent the last three weeks in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle near Puerto Vallarta in the Nayarit region in Banderas Bay. It is just about time for us to leave again but we are having difficulty making the decision. This crazy weather year has prompted us to chicken out of the three thousand mile journey to the Marquises Islands. We thought we might head for Panama to wait out the hurricane season and then explore the Caribbean, but we are late in the season and would have to hurry. So our new plan is to sail north up into the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos. There we will store the boat on dry land while we return to the States to retrieve our windsurfing gear. We’ll re-launch in December and continue to Panama at a more leisurely pace.
We just love what we are doing and although it might seem too leisurely for some, or to chaotic for others, we have found that the best part of our adventure is not being too scheduled. In this way each day has become an adventure. Each day we decide on what to do according to our mood and the weather. We also decide where and when to leave according to the same criteria. This process has yielded us the most unexpected benefits of our trip: living in the moment. We’ve heard of the concept, but actually living it is profound and satisfying beyond our expectations. Living this way allows time to stop and really talk to people we meet on the street, try new things to eat, gaze at lazy lizards, and enjoy the beautiful colors that surround us. We wish you were here.
