El Quelite Again

Monday dawned a beautiful day so a joint decision was made to go to El Quelite for breakfast. John and Jackie will be leaving later this week so this will be their last time to enjoy the little town until next winter. 
The El Quelite river has some water in it this year. Usually by now it is pretty dry. A bunch of birds enjoying it. There is one spoonbill right in the middle. They were a long way away so hard to get a good picture even though Bill stopped on the bridge so I could take it. 

 The bougainvilleas are just beautiful this year. All along the road into town 

I like the salmon colored ones. We have one in our garden and it is the only one not doing well.

 And the valley is still pretty green. Lots of young crops growing. 

 No description needed.

Oh, Oh! Looks like this turkey made someone mad. He had a whole tail last time we were here. Wonder how took a bite out of him. 

I love this purple flowering bush. No idea what it is. 

Finally a decent shot of the new mural in the front part of the restaurant. By the stairs leading up to the new addition. 

Duck wandering down past our table. He and one of the roosters got into a dust up a little later. Rooster ran him out.

Just one of the decorating items in the restaurant. Also a small view of the new upstairs dining area.

More decorations. Some one has a good eye for decorating this restaurant. That's an old sewing machine base under the trunk.

Jackie and I went upstairs to look around. The new entrance to the restaurant and looking out over the street. 

Looking down at Bill and John patiently waiting for us.

Looking at the new entrance from the street. I imagine it will be painted in the near future. 

I love the colors in this town. No retouching on this photo at all.

I wonder if this bench would fit in the back of the Jeep. It would look good on our patio.

Being my usual snarky self I had to buy this. We have one at home that says "Mi Casa es Tu Casa" - my house is your house.  The one says My House is My House. 

Some one has taken the time to paint all the trash cans along the street in El Quelite. Just a couple of them.

A wasp nest? on the stained glass window of the church. Some how the netting has come down. Actually all three windows had various sizes of these nests on them.

I guess this means he is ready to go home. 

 But first a quick stop at the beach in Cerritos. This little boat had just come in. 

 Bring part of the catch up to sell to wholesaler. They've got a whole crate full.

 Cleaning up the boat and nets so it will be ready for next time. 

 Now that's a good sized fish. 

 Bill and I decided to try La Hamburgueria for dinner. It is just up around the corner from us. Heard good things about it. And they were right. Very good hamburgers. We just had a regular cheeseburger but they have a huge selection of different burgers. 

I like their lights. 

 And their sign. I took pictures of everything but the burgers. The meat was much bigger than the buns. And very good. Cooked perfect. They use ground rib eye. Two burgers, two cokes  US$16.00 Will be going back there again. 

 Then home for the night. We sent part of this morning in the Golden Zone. 

Encuentro Artesans - Gathering of Artists

Saturday morning I got a late start to feeding  the birds, when I opened the door I found one bird on patio looking at the door and another sitting on the table waiting for me. I didn't get all the bread on the tree before a couple were there on the branches.

Breakfast is ready. 

Our banana plants have a couple new leaves, one on the big one and one on the small one. 

The salmon colored bougainvillea lost most of its pretty colors from the transplant and the strong winds. I'm glad to see it is getting new one. The colors are not flowers they are the leaves of the plant. 

Back to Friday and a bit of Sunday. This big tent is in the parking lot of the Soriana Supermercado where we grocery shop. 

It will be here for a couple of weeks. Lots and lots of vendors inside. From clothing, jewelry, food and decorations etc. Vendors are from all over Mexico and some from other countries in Latin America and Asia.

The inside. Rows of vendors. On the right are alcoholic drinks. Flavors, pineapple, mocha, pistachio and coconut. The  mocha is delicious, when we go back intend to get a bottle. 20% alcohol. on the left jewelry.

Colorful dresses and blouse. It used to be all the blouses like this were hand embroidered. Now most of them are machine embroidered. But still made in the Puebla and Oaxaca areas. 

A wall of wooden crosses. 

Leather items from the Leon area. Bill is checking out some wallets. He ended up buying two. 200 pesos each about 11US dollars each.

Some copper pots and copper jewelry. Don't remember where from. 

Bill liked these big, about 2 1/2 foot - parrots. Very colorful. 300 pesos

Pottery. Dishes and casserole pots, tea pots.

As we walked past here we had to stop! Smelled so good. Bread from San Miguel Allende area. Years ago we had bought a round loaf fresh from the oven. Before we got back to the RV I'd eaten most of it. So we had to get some. Got one loaf, walked to next booth and half the loaf was gone, turned around and bought another one. One for each of us. YUM!

In fact when we took John and Jackie there on Sunday we all bought a couple of loaves. 

This is the size of a loaf. It is a sweet bread and just amazing. 

Beaded jewelry and lotions. 

These lamps were amazing. From Turkey. And expensive the one on the right was 40,000 pesos $2000 US. Made from glass and glass beads. 

He is making jewelry with peoples names. Making the name part with a saw. 

A lace umbrella - US $35.

Just a colorful oil painting I saw, no idea how much or where from. 

Colorful yarn tassels. 

These were amazing. All hand embroidered. Table cloths and runners and place mats. 

Little figures made out of coconuts. 

On Sunday it was really busy in here.

These shoes are made in Columbia. Kind of different. 

More embroidery, wallets, purses and pillow covers. 
I bought this blouse, all hand embroidered. Really nice light weight material. It ties as neck but I left it untied. US $35. If we go back going to look for more. Looks black but it is navy blue. 

After leaving the fair we drove down the Malecon. The painting of the bike path continues. 

 We went up to El Mirador - there used to be a restaurant there, but it is now closed. There still is an amazing view of Mazatlan, Stone Island and the ocean. This old canon is up there. 

 Looking out towards the harbor, the Baja Ferry in port.

 Looking at Stone Island.

Mazatlan

Sunday we spent at Las Labradas - the wonderful archaeological site with the carvings on the rocks. Took many, many pictures so need to sort through them. Will write about it another day. Today, Monday we went to breakfast in El Quelite with John and Jackie. Tomorrows blog content. I'm getting behind again, but eventually will catch up.