Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Manzanillo, Mexico January 17-24, 2014

We arrived at the Barcelo Karmina Resort about 3:30 pm our time. That's 4:30 Mexico time. It's lovely and warm! The resort looks nice.  We are in room 3015 ... It's way at the end of the hallway. We will get some exercise walking to the buffet restaurant which is on the opposite side of the resort property.  Our room is on lobby level, which is on the third level... the first night is always confusing too tired so it takes a bit to figure out location of things.
Wifi is available free in the lobby ..reception area. In the room it's $13 for 24 hrs and she said it's more reliable in lobby and free there. Tomorrow at 9:30 am we have our orientation meeting..
On Saturday morning we went to the meeting.  The lady originally from Quebec City is the Transat rep. She gave us lots of good information, and recommended we take the city tour in the afternoon. It leaves the hotel at 2:15 pm. The bus was really an open air truck, it worked well for taking pictures out the side, no windows. This included a pick up at the Las Hadas resort and then stops at a strip mall and the flea market which is in a big field which is only open on Saturdays. We were late getting back to the bus so the tour guide had to come find us.  Luckily he remembered what we looked like. We also walked the Malecon in the city of Manzanillo and visited the shops in the area. On the way back the driver stopped at the Iguana Sanctuary where there were so many Iguanas all over the trees.  Kinda creepy looking.
In the mornings it is a bit cool, until about 9:00 when it starts to warm up. By noon it's 28-29C. Three times we walked to the plaza mall, and two times to Walmart .. There is also a local flea market beside Walmart ..it's nicer than the one the bus took us to on Saturday.   It's about a 30 minute walk each way. The road from the hotel to the main street is long, a bit up hill and quite warm walking into the sun when you return.
Oh ya..one night when we came back to our room from dinner, we were surprised to find a little lizard in our room. It took two phone calls to the desk to be understood what the problem was. Then a maintenance man came and rescued the poor little creature from the mirror ... in the corner high up by the light bulbs.
  
Tuesday's bus tour was awesome. Really interesting. It was another sunny day so we had a good view of the volcano. It was smoking today..lava was running down the side. Driver told us the lava runs into a canyon so it doesn't come on the town. 

There were only four couples on this tour, and we had the same guy as city tour, Poncho. But this time we had a real bus, well smaller bus..big van.  Driving up into mountains reminded me of BC. 

We went to a hacienda, an artist named Alajanero?, who died in 2000, was a famous painter in Colima.  We saw artifacts, ceramics which were carbon dated to 500BC. Two kinds of dogs, one kind they fattened up on corn and then cooked and ate. None of that breed exists todays.. all figures were hollow rather than solid clay. He bought these ceramics to preserve them so they wouldn't go out of Mexico.  He also designed furniture, cupboards, chairs, tables.. Etc. he painted pictures, sculpted in metal, he even made the lights.   
We also walked around in his gardens.  Flowers, trees, lots of bamboo trees, cocoa trees, vanilla, banana trees. There were also two gift shops there.
Then we drove to Comala, a smaller town were we had lunch.  Before that we stopped to take pictures of the volcano and drive on the magnetic hill.
The typical tapas lunch included, quesadillas, tomaloes, enchiladas .. and just for me, ponagranate juice with moonshine in it...hahaha! It was very mild! We asked if they had coke, it came in glass bottles! How cool! Then we had time to shop for a half hour .. it wasn't long enough.  Got back to our hotel at 5:15 pm..now it's almost time for our supper hour..which is from 6:30 ...

Malecon at Manzanillo

Iguana Sanctuary

Highway to Colima

Map of State of Colima

Agriculture - not sure if these were watermelons or something else

Our open-air bus/truck

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