Hit the
Ground Running
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After a week on the beach, my
guests, Don and Denise, and I, boarded the Primera Plus Autobus in Mazatlan, and
climbed across the Sierras to my home in Etzatlan.
In a country where not everyone has
acquired a car and where some persons with cars chose to take advantage of the
excellent public transportation, I’ve got to tell you, my friends, we are
impressed.
We used to have pretty decent public
transit in our country too, until every family “needed” two cars in the garage,
and added to that number when each child passed the driver’s test. Public
transportation sort of faded out of existence about forty years ago.
These days it seems one cranks up the family car to buzz
around the corner and down the block to the store for a bottle. . . Of milk,
I’m saying, of milk, a bottle of milk.
Dear me, I never intended to rant,
and after such an excellent week too. So I won’t do more than mention that air
transportation has achieved a similar status to our old northern Montana bus-lines
of the 1950’s. Given a choice of five hours in an airplane or five hours on our
posh, first-class bus, Primera Plus wins.
For tickets of approximately $32.00,
we sank back into comfortable seats and enjoyed the view. Had we driven, we
would have had the same five hour drive, $50.00 in tolls, plus gasoline, wear
and tear on machine and driver. Enough said.
We no more than settled into
Etzatlan than friends swarmed over to help us arrange our week. I’m grateful.
One day Jim took us to Teuchitlan to the Guachimontones site where an ancient
civilization flourished for about 900 years. We spent most of a day in the
Museum and walking around the restored pyramids—and eating.
Kathy and Richard loaded us in their
vehicle for a day in Tonola at the tianguis, the artisans’ street fair. What a
fun day, exploring various booths, tiendas on the side streets, poking into
this and that, marveling at kitsch and authentic treasures, side by side. And
eating.
Making plans in Mexico never has
worked for me. I’ve learned to define “plan” as a loose idea of what might
happen. So on our designated “day of rest and relax” we climbed up, over and
around an active dig in Oconahua, a small town about eight kilometers from
Etzatlan, which had a completely different “pyramid” culture from the one in
Teuchitlan. Ate out again, this time in San Marcos.
The Friday Tianguis in Etzatlan is
comparable to a huge Farmer’s Market with the addition of every kind of kitchen
product, apparel, plant, tool, music and internet type items; anything and
everything imaginable for everyday life. Uh huh, we ate out.
On top of all that, we managed to
pack in a day in which five of us drove up into the mountains above Ahualulco
to the Piedras Las Bolas site, where the magma from Volcan de Tequila formed
into huge balls of rock. Delicious meal afterwards in Ahualulco.
Oh, and did I mention the tour of
Etzatlan, including the Museo at the Casa de Cultura, with reproductions of the
shaft tombs found at Santa Rosalia near Etzatlan, with Leo, the man who knows
the history of every family who lives here. I cooked. I can cook too.
Does that sound like our week of
adventure hardly left us time to pack for the trip back? It’s the truth. But,
what a good time; what fun we had together.
Imagine us back on the bus, the
wheels rolling us once more to Mazatlan to finish our dental work. Plus, we
have a list of “plans” before Don and Denise cram aboard the plane back to
Oregon and I enjoy another bus ride home.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
January 25,
2018
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