Typical start of day: first you sweep, then you wash it down.




 Got up this morning and went looking for an ATM and I needed to pick up my order of Avodart from the pharmacy. Thought there was an ATM next to the pharmacy (that's what the internet said). I didn't exactly remember where the pharmacy was; I thought it was on one road, but as I headed that way, I ran into it, halfway to where I thought it was, thankfully. The Avodart cost me $50 for 30 pills when I had insurance. Here I paid less than a $100 for 90. No ATM though, and I didn't have $1500 pesos (they use the $ symbol too), so I used my ATM card to pay (not everyone accepts cards - Latin America is a cash society, except at a few large businesses and in the big cities).  
 
 
 And lest you worry about the quality or authenticity of this drug, I purposely looked for a large chain (Farmacia Guadalajara in this case) and the packaging was the same and sealed (though neither of these can be a guaranty).  
I checked out two more ATMs, but neither of them would run a transaction for me. Went back to my room to drop off my drugs.  
 
 
 
 



 
Next on my agenda was to go to Ajijic, for two reasons: I only have three more nights here; and, as I've stated, this place isn't so hot. I originally wanted to start out in Ajijic, one of two main gringo towns (Chapala is the other), but what was available at the time was too expensive. Therefore - Jocotepec.  
 


 So, went to the bus depot (found it on my walks), got on the 9:30 bus, for 75 cents, and about 30 min and 10 stops later in about 11 mi I got off in what I judged to be the center of town. I only missed it by about two streets. I had several hotels in mind and strolled past each one, and some others along the way. Then I backtracked to the first one, checked out the room, and put a deposit for this weekend.  
 
My Modus of Operandi is to get to a town early enough to check out the available rooms. In most small towns, even if the inex-I don't seem to be able to do a strikethrough on this (Mac) keyboard; too bad, it'll ruin half my fun [can anybody help me?] cheap [shorter to type] places are full, even the most expensive places should be within my budget. Travel being what it is in these countries, I'll plan on 2 hours, and if it takes 4 hours I'll still be okay.  
 
I plan on being at Laguna (or Lago) de Chapala for about a month, moving around from time to time, for two reasons: I'm hitting gringo populated places first so that they might help me with my spanish, and then I hope to move on to small communities where I won't have the gringos to help me and be forced to rely only on what I've learned; and I want to explore as much of the lake as I can (I did tell you I was a lake buff).  
   
 
So I walked around Ajijic for a while, mainly looking for an ATM. Got a juice (55 cents), first 'meal ' of the day. I was tempted to try this 'smoothie' stand, but haven't got my courage up that far yet.
 
Found an ATM that would accept my transaction but charged twice the fee ($80, pesos mind you) that I'd paid before, and only allowed me to withdraw $2000 (at 17 to 1, you figure it out), where previously (at a different bank - HSBC) I drew $7000 (for $33).  

 


Across the road I saw this zigzag thing on the side of the mountain. After looking at it for a little bit, I noticed something crawling along one of the zags: it was a dump truck (thanks to the 30X lens on my camera). I couldn't tell what was at the top; it looked like a hut. See the house at the bottom right? I figure the guy who owns the house was making himself an escape route to the top for when his wife gets out of sorts!  




 
By now, it's 1:30pm, I'm tired; been hoofing it around since 10:00 am, time to catch a bus back. Lots of buses covering this stretch, so didn't have to wait long. But the bus was standing room only, and I was the last one on at this stop (polite guy that I am!)  
 
So here I am, hanging on to a safety rail right in front of the window. There was another safety rail closer to the driver coming off the engine cover, and this 10 year old boy sits down on the engine cover, between that rail and the driver's money box, and as other passengers get on he handles the money for the driver! I thought maybe he was a helper or a relative; neither, as it turns out: he got off a ways down the road, and then the only ones left were those going all the way in to Joco.  
That kid kept pretty busy (but he always opened his hand to show the driver what he was handling), because this bus turned out to be a local: stopping about every three blocks to pick up or drop off, lots of school kids but only a few at a time, and people headed home from work mostly.  
I stayed standing up front, rather than squeezing towards the back as people got on and off, and just let them squeeze by even though they eventually got seats. I didn't mind standing and had the best view. But did I tell you about the topes? (Yes I did) That was a lot of crazy bouncing around, but it's also the quick stops and starts when loading and unloading. That was fun. Got to the edge of Ajijic and finally there were empty seats. The kid got off a couple stops later.  
Still only took about 40 min to go 11 mi (as the crow flies). Was kind of tired after all that, so I rested up for a couple hours before going out in search of dinner.  

 
Dinner time! Went looking for this restaurant that has this sign out front saying they have the best goat and lamb in town. Beautiful outdoor setting (nothing indoors), but as it turns out, they serve exactly what everyone else is serving. The place is so much more upscale in its setting than all the other 'dives' that I expected different cuts of meat, full place setting, etc Guess you can tell I was pretty disappointed. There's this seafood place I want to try, but I wasn't up to walking that far. So I tried to find a different place. People just leave their doors open; sometimes it's a small eatery, or a cobbler, or whatever, sometimes it's a residence. Half the businesses have no signs (guess all the locals know what's there), so you have to peek inside doorways as you go by. Some of the doors open onto just a 3-foot wide hallway that might be 10 feet or more long, so that makes it even harder to tell if it's a business or residence. I feel uncomfortable looking in people's homes, especially when they're eating or changing a baby (actually saw one being changed on a dock ledge, right on the street). But without signs, you don't know if it's a business or not; actually saw some nice looking chairs like you would see in a nice restaurant, but couldn't really tell if it was open to the public (an open door is not necessarily an invite to come in).  
So I passed, rather than taking a chance at being shagged out of someone's home, or being shot at! Which brings up another point: of the three towns that I've seen so far, in Mexico, I've yet to see any sign of violence. In fact, I've seen a 7 yr old school girl walk down the length of a ratty backstreet all by herself, easy prey for the wrong kind of people. There were a few times that I walked by people just hanging around and felt a little trepidation going by them, but I think the looks I got had more to do with them worrying about me than the other way around. People are very polite, with everybody. Most of the streets are narrow, so they are one-way, and half the intersections have no stop signs. Sometimes people come barreling down these streets in their vehicles, slow down sharply as they look for any cross traffic, and stomp on the gas to go on down the street. In spite of these antics, I haven't seen a single fender bender (and believe me, if they had one they'd REALLY have a traffic jam). To top that off, two-wheelers don't stop for anything (most of the time); men, boys, girls (usually on scooters), with or without children aboard (and four on a vehicle) shuffle on by stopped vehicles and roll right through stop signs and red lights, right in front of the cops! Everyone is okay with this. Also, vehicles usually give pedestrians the right of way. Sidewalks are narrow, so people either sidle by each other or temporarily walk on the street 'til they get by. If a vehicle is coming and you're in the road, they'll usually slow down for you and not say a peep or toot at you. Sometimes they'll barrel right on by you, but that's because they know there's enough room. They probably come within 2-3 in of walls and barriers (another excitement I had being at the front of the bus; I actually cringed a couple of times, coming from a guy whose done his share of close calls - and I wasn't always so sure I'd make it - yeah I did some stupid things and was lucky to get away with them). Sometimes traffic gets backed up for one reason or another, and no one gets upset about it. Another thing: the two wheelers and four wheelers (other than cars,etc) aren't tagged. There are a lot of pieces of **** on the road, but you very (heck, extremely) rarely see one broken down on the side of the road (I guess you don't have to get them inspected). People take a lot of pride in their vehicles and even the old ones get washed regularly. The sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses are swept and mopped daily. I see even old ladies doing this all the time. And the men still do most of the work by hand (I don't know how it goes in the big cities, but even in Tonalá, a suburb of Guadalajara, street sewers were being dug by hand, and streets hand paved with tiles. Driveways and inside floors all done by hand, no cement mixers. Sorry I didn't get more pics; again,not feeling comfortable with just snapping at them while sweat their tails off.) And almost no one smokes. Only seen a few young people lighting up.  
 
   

 
Okay, so now we're back to finding dinner. I ended up where I went last night; thought I'd give them another chance. Ordered shrimp this time and it was really good. Don't know what the sauce was, but it was really tasty (sucked it up with a roll) and had a little heat to it. Salad had a ranch type dressing and slices of apple (those aren't cucumber slices). The Chardonnay was better than the Petite Sirah I had last night. Cost: $7.75 Wine, 4 oz: $3.50 Margarita, 5 oz: $3.45  

 
 

 
After dinner, went right to the ice cream stand (a different one each night - gotta spread the wealth) and had a cone (only one scoop! - don't look at me that way!)  
I hung around the plaza, eating my ice cream, and watched these (rich) kids riding around in their electric car. They even had a walkie-talkie that their parents communicated to them with!

 
Picked up an Arizona on the way home - for a nightcap while I worked on this blog.