Sierra Madre Adventure-March 13, 2009

We explored the southern area of Banderas Bay in the Sierra Mountain range through Vallarta Adventures. Our friends on Endless Summer, Frank and Stefanie, joined us for the day. Their home town is also Ventura.


Mexico is about Family, Tradition, and Religion. Our first stop was El Tuito a small town discovered in 1525. It means sacred place. We visited the cemetery, church, and town. The first stop was the cemetery, so different from our current cemeteries in the States. The Day of the Dead or Day of the Skeleton is celebrated Nov. 2. The Day of the Little Angels is celebrated Nov. 1. On these days the whole family comes to the cemetery bringing favorites foods of the deceased loved one. The grave sites are decorated. The mariachis play, and favorite songs of the loved ones are played. It was told to us that the party last at the cemetery for 2 days. The culture believes they are not dead, that they are going to eternal life.


The biggest holiday in Mexico is the Day of Guadalupe, Mother of Mexico. The second biggest holiday is Mother's Day. The church in the town was Our Lady of Guadalupe. 89% of the people in Mexico are Catholic.


We toured the botanical gardens, which is considered a tropical deciduous forest. 60% of the trees loose their leaves during the dry season. We learned many random things such as plants cannot produce fruit, trees can only produce fruit. The tallest grass is bamboo, the tallest plant is a palm. The fiber of banana plants makes rope, shoes, baskets. Paper is made from banana leaves. We also cut into a gum tree. We collected the sap, added water, and we had gum. It chewed like gum, however, it was tasteless. Vanilla beans are an orchid. Vanilla is the most labor intensive product made.


Our last stop was the Tequila factory. This factory had more updated equipment than what we had previously experienced in Mazatlan. We tasted the agave plant after it was baked. It tasted similar to a sweet potato or yam, very fibrous, and it was very sweet. We have enjoyed these sight seeing tours as it has given us insight into the culture we have been living in these past months.


We had a first today. Underneath our bimini were thousands of bees. Now what do you do with bees on your boat and Wally is allergic to bees? One boater suggested the fire extinguisher. So Wally got out the extinguishers and I sprayed 4 bottles on the hive. The bees went everywhere, however, they were not dead. So then we got the water hose to squirt them. Oops, I got stung. Then the marina maintenance showed up to help and they took out the fire hose. They sprayed the fire hose for over an hour along with throwing buckets of soapy water on our canvas. Now our question is, what would we do at anchorage if we were to get a bee hive on our boat?


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