Barb Voyage!

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Office time at Choco Banana with Debi, after a delectable chiliquiles breakfast, (with owner, Tracie, and friends, Bobbi and Mikie), lasted from noon to 6PM!  “Mas agua, por favor, con hielo” (more water please, with ice) was our mantra as we both tended to our emails and business, availing ourselves of Choco’s free WiFi.  Debi’s internet at her home has been out for a week, a first, after ten years of internet service.  

This productive Sunday ended with the same “gaggle” of gals meeting at Bicho’s Tacos for dinner at 6:45.  Scrumptious Tacos al Pastor, Pork, Beef, and Chicken are a mere 15 pesos each, accompanied by an “extras” bar of yummy white beans, salsa, creams, toppings, and limes.  One of these puppies was enough for me.  They have sodas, (Fanta is the most popular), but you can bring your drinks in to this place, as you sit at newly painted picnic tables under the canopy of tropical trees and twinkling lights.

I was intent on attending the 7PM Mass at the minuscule Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the colorful town square where Aztec wax art from Xochitl is crafted and sold.  I quickly gobbled my gigantic taco and ran toward the Church.  I sat on a bench just outside the door, waiting for others to arrive.  A woman opened the doors, lit the candles, looked outside, blew out the candles, closed the doors, and turned out the lights.  Mass was cancelled!  Had the Mass been in English, I’d have entered, but I am no way prepared to be the “sole congregant” answering prayers in Spanish.  Oh well, it was the thought that counted, mom!  I fled back to Bicho’s, surprising the girls, laughing all the way.

Later that night, the smell of boiling beans filled Debi’s house, as she prepared part of the chicken taco meal to be completed on the AllyCat sail in the morning.  Every night, she repeats this ritual, grateful for a thriving business and happy sailors.  I slept up in the open loft, and though the beans’ steam rose, the air conditioner provided a cool respite after a long hot day at “the office!”