Dale came by this morning to ask if I wanted to go for a walk. She’s leaving soon (*sniff*) and wanted to make sure she has pictures of her favourite places on Isla. I was on the verge of heading out to get tortillas, cheese, and bacon, so her timing was perfect!

Before we left, she asked if I had any donations for the colonia people because she knew where to drop them off. I had two beautiful newish tops that just don’t fit right that I was happy to add to her donation pile.

Our first stop along the way was to climb one of the worst roads I have ever seen in my life. Some Americans (I think) built a house all the way at the top. It was one heck of a climb to get up there! I’m not even sure my truck could make it. But boy was the view worth it!

The house is made of cement, which makes me think that building in Mexico might be rather inexpensive.

The street, while in horrible shape, does have street lighting all the way up!

I fell in love with this cute house. Doesn’t it look like something I could model with my cabin back home?!

Next, we went to Feddy’s to drop off the donations and pick up dog food. Dale found it hard to keep stocked up on dog food when she got here, with her usual shopping place (Walmart) not easily accessible and big bags of dog food heavy to handle for the long trip home. So was delighted that Feddy has a giant bag of the food her dogs prefer from which she can fill a smaller bag and get a week or so’s worth at a time.

Here’s a good example of what I mean when I say that I couldn’t afford to eat like a Gringo in Mexico. This is a packet of turkey gravy mix that I would by for about 75 cents back home. Yes, it’s 38 pesos. OMG.

The panga dock was next and quite quiet at midday:

We doubled back to the City Deli and I went straight to the rear of the store to get my cheese and bacon. They sell a few kinds of cheese and I asked to see their ‘yellow cheese’, which was super cheap… and turned out to be sliced American cheese. PASS. 🙂 I bought a 33 peso hunk of Chihuahua and also 20 pesos worth of bacon. Their bacon is much better than what I’ve found at Ley and cheaper!

We then went next door so I could get five pesos worth of tortillas. Dale was amused that I tucked into them right away, but I was hungry! 🙂

After, Dale suggested that we go explore some of the streets that lead into the centre of the island and surround Stone Mountain. We found lots of dead ends.

This road reminded me of walking in residential neighbourhoods in Glasglow and Edinburgh, pedestrians only!

Looking down to Calle Principal (the paved road):

We passed a church:

I like the guardian on the roof! It’s a frog!

One lady asked what we were doing, rather aggressively, I might add (we were on a public road!) and I explained that we were just walking, have been living on Isla for three months, and that there were still places we hadn’t been to. Her attitude changed dramatically after that and she wished us a nice day.

We passed another lady, who said hi to us, reached a dead end, and decided it was time to go home, so we turned around. The same lady asked if we were lost and I repeated what I had said to the previous woman.

After, Dale mimed how she would have handled the conversation. She’s hilarious and her miming is really good! Her Spanish has really improved but people don’t understand her, which I find boggling. She was looking for a calendar at Waldo’s the other day and mimed ‘writing’ to a clerk, then said ‘fecha libro’ (date book) and listed a few days of the week and of the month. The clerk brought her to clothes pins! Whaaaat?!

It was almost 1:00 when we got in and I had been ready for lunch for an hour. I put together a salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, avocado, and bacon. I caught the veggie guy this morning if it’s not obvious. 🙂

I’m a lot less nervous about eating the produce now that I got sick on non-Mexican food. I hadn’t even realised that I was a little worried until I wasn’t anymore. This does not mean I am lackadaisical about food prep. My surfaces are all sanitized and all the produce gets washed thoroughly with potable water. I miss my salad spinner, by the way.

I’m not much of a fan of iceberg lettuce and consider it an excuse to each ranch-style dressing. I obviously didn’t have any in the fridge (it’s readily available in Mexico, but, of course, expensive), so I made my own alternative. I mixed about a quarter cup of crema with garlic salt and then thinned it down with the juice of two limes, giving me enough dressing for future salads. The half avocado and two slices of bacon made this salad reasonably substantial, but I did have two tortillas with honey for dessert. 🙂