February 5

February 5:

This morning Patti and I decided to have a late breakfast with her sister Sue and Sue’s husband, Phil, in the dining room of our hotel, El Pescador. It is a pleasant room wit lots of tile, some marble, and a lot of plastered concrete and brickwork. It is open on one side to an ocean view. You can eat inside or out on the patio. We chose inside as the pigeons tend to land on your table as you are eating while on the patio.

We were seated and waiting for our large cups of café americano to arrive when a pigeon landed on the3 table Patti and I were sharing. It strutted a bit, cocked its head and looked at us with its beady eyes, and promptly shat upon our linen tablecloth. So much for elegant dining.

A bemused staff promptly replaced the cloth and our silverware. After a good chuckle with our waiter we ordered our breakfasts just as the coffee arrived. I chose Huevos  Divorciados – Divorced eggs – which consisted of thwo fried eggs resting on a large corn tortilla which in turn rests on a layer of ham. One egg is covered with a green sauce and the other one is covered in a red sauce. To one side of the plate are frijoles with some trortilla chips stuck in them and on the other side of the eggs is a pile of chilaquiles with some cheese sprinkled on top. All this comes with 4 small slices of toasted pan (bread), some mantequilla (butter) and some mermelada de fresa (strawberry jam) and a bottomless cup of coffee! It was delicious.

After breakfast I headed down the Malecon.

It was fairly quiet today and when I got to the Banco Banorte and entered I found only 2 customers ahead of me in the line unlike the 64 of 2 days ago. I traded in my 4 $500 peso notes for bills of smaller denominations and for some coins. As I moseyed back I paused to watch the Danza de los Voladores who were performing.

You can barely make them out in the middle of the picture. As I neared the end of the Malecon, a local character was begging. No, it wasn’t a person but a large pelican.

The afternoon was spent around the pool with Patti. I was alternately reading and swimming. At about 4 p.m. I went back to the room and cut several slices of a loaf of artisan bread which I had bought at Ley’s but was not tasty enough for us to want to eat much of it. Then I headed out to the beach. I found a semi-secluded spot and then I began to shred some of the bread into tiny pieces and then to toss them onto the sand. I was soon surrounded by a pack of sea gulls, pigeons, and blackbirds.

As I kept tossing out more bread the pigeons got braver because I hadn’t made any sudden moves at them. Soon they were on my sandals, than on my legs and arms, and one landed on my shoulder. I felt a lot like the pigeon lady in Central Park in Home Alone 2 – New York! Suddenly for no apparent reason they would take off in a flurry of wings almost knocking my cap off.

When I would spread out some bread crumbs they would be back and cluster on me. Some would eat right out of my hands. 

 But they only stayed until my bread ran out. Then I was yesterday’s news and they deserted me. Only a few were left to pick through some crumbs that the others had missed.

For supper we joined Sue and Phil on their balcony. We shared chicken, Mexican potatoes, Spanish rice, frijoles, salsa, soft corn tortillas, several kinds of pork and beef stir fries, various salsas of varying heat, and some fried plantain. We had bought the food at Ley’s and at a chicken rotisserie shop. Clean up was easy.

We then headed for Park Hidalgo about 5 short blocks away and for over an hour we watched a version of Ballet Folklorico. I took many pictures, a lot of them on the QT of Mexicans sitting and interacting around me.

Then home to bed after another fulfilling day.