Cruise Ships and Tourists

When we go out onto the upper deck of our house, we can always see when the cruise ship has arrived.  This happens roughly twice a week and I wondered what they actually see when they visit Progreso.   As I have mentioned before, this is not a resort town in the model of Cancun or Mazatlan, but a fishing town which just happens to have a stretch of beach that caters to the tourists when they arrive on the cruise ships.  So off I went to see first hand what the tourists see.
First of all, the pier where the ships dock is also the port for shipping of goods to and from the Yucatan.  The next major port on the east side of Mexico is in Veracruz.  Due to the wide, limestone shelf, the Progreso pier had to be built five miles into the Gulf to get to a water depth that would accommodate cruise ships and freighters.  Here's a shot from outer space:

I went out to the Progreso cruise terminal located at the end of the pier via Auto Progreso, the same bus company on which I used to commute when working in Merida.

By the way, this is the only way we locals can sneak out onto the pier.  It is pretty heavily guarded..

I wandered through the shopping plaza that is also in the arrival area, and there she was:  The Carnival Line's pride and joy, the "Behemoth of the Seven Seas"...

O.k., I know it says "Fantasy" on it, but it is big.

Now a look at the shopping plaza at the cruise terminal...

By the way, everything here is sold in dollars, not pesos.

I'm not sure what the "Summer Clearance" thing is all about as it is pretty much summer all the time here.

I imagine this is as far as some of these folks go, buying a souvenir and then back on to the safety of the  boat.

So, onto the bus and into town where the shopping is more interesting. 

The main plaza in town converts to a bazaar selling the usual trash and trinkets when the ship is in....like pipes for your smoking pleasure...

And jewelry...

There's even a clown selling balloon animals...or hats...or something....I wonder what this discussion is all about...also, he should watch his placement of the lower balloon...

One thing you're sure to run into is the Cuban cigar salesmen hawking very nice wood and glass boxes of Cuban cigars.  However, these are fakes, made in Honduras.  The Cubans are very selective about who they let sell their cigars.

For us locals, the people watching is great sport.  Here's a good looking group...

I pray she just sat in something wet.  Nice sombrero, though...

One thing I've always wanted to do was ride the touribus that scoots through town while a guide gives valuable information such as who founded the town, when the lighthouse was built and so forth.  So for a mere 20 pesos I decided to take a ride.  The funny part was when the tour guide, Julio, looked at me and said. "But you live here.  Why do you want to go on the bus?"  I explained that I was freelancing for National Geographic, blah, blah.  He just laughed.  I just told him it was for this dog and pony show called my blog, so he wrote down the website so he could see it later.

This is Julio..

The bus...

Julio was right.  There wasn't much new to learn on this trip.  Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day.  Here we are on the malecon or main beach boardwalk..

Passing the "wedding cake" house...

Cool ride.
So, what did I learn?  Not much except that this commerce is necessary to supplement the economy here.  Fishing and tourism each by themselves cannot sustain this town.  Together, they can, but it's still economically touch and go most of the time.

I had a nice conversation with a young man from Atlanta who, when asked what he thought of Progreso replied, "Not much going on here."  "Exactly", I smiled.

More later,

Larry

The Birthday Party

This has a small back-story. Our friend, neighbor and cleaning woman, Debora, always brings her daughter Kimberly with her when she cleans the house. Indra has grown quite fond of Kimberly and last year she was invited to the little girl's birthday party. It was held in a tiny house and it was very crowded. This year, Indra volunteered this house for the festivities.

Thursday night was set as the date, and that day Debra started delivering the party supplies first thing in the morning.

Including Snow White, the pinata...

Later, Kimberly arrived to help decorate and set things up. Indra swung into action.

Let the decorating begin!

We didn't really know how many to expect, but when a pickup truck arrived and dropped off 50 folding chairs and two gigantic steel tables, we had an idea that this fiesta was going to be big.

It's not like in the U.S. where you drop off your child and come back later to pick them up. These children arrived with their moms, dads, siblings, aunts, grandmas, babies, everyone turns out.

We had everything set up in the back, but as it got darker the consensus was to move everything into the front yard where we have better outdoor lighting.

We figured there had to be 40 kids and about as many adults.

Of course there was food. The main dish was a huge pot of spaghetti and a lot of small sandwiches. And a cake!

The last official act of the evening was the Snow White pinata....Here she is posing with the birthday girl, 11 years old.

I was under the impression that the kids would be blindfolded, given a big stick, and start taking whacks at it. Instead, each was given a turn to pummel poor Snow with their fists. This proved to be ineffective and eventually Snow was ripped open and, to the shouts of "Aqui! Aqui!", the candy was thrown to the little ones.

As you can imagine, there was quite a bit of wreckage left over after people headed home. No problem as Debra and her crew took over and picked up everything. And the next day she came over and cleaned the downstairs. A fun and interesting evening.

More later,

Larry

The Morning Walk

Sometimes it's fun to take a camera along on one of our morning walks just to see what pops up.  That's what I did today.  We walked to where the marina opens into the Gulf...

We sat down to watch the fish jumping out of the water, and the fishermen heading out to make a living.  We enjoyed the fact that these boats carried two smaller boats on them...

And all the while we were observing, we were being observed....

These are the dreaded Giant Brain Sucking Lizards of the Yucatan and are quite harmless during the day.  In fact, when approached, they disappear into the rocks.  But at night, if one should find you sleeping, they silently creep up and....o.k., I'm making this part up.  They're harmless.

As are the pelicans.  We found this handsome fellow taking in the sun....

At the end of the road we were offered this nice look at the new Progreso-Chelem bridge which was built to cut the drive time between the two towns by about  30 minutes.

A nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

More later,

Larry

It's The Cops!

"Larry, the police are outside and their guns are drawn."  Thus, Indra ended what was starting to be a pleasant afternoon siesta yesterday.  After performing a mental checklist of my past transgressions, I ruled out the possibility of said guns being aimed at me, and we went out on the upper deck to check it out.
What we found was a common site here, although not on our street:  the drug and guns checkpoint.

These stops can be quite unnerving at first until you get used to them, even when you know you don't have any guns or drugs even though you might want some.

As you can see, even the people on the lowly mopeds are not immune from searches.  I used to be searched when on the bus from Progreso to Merida going or coming home from work.  In fact, I was usually the only person on the bus being searched as I was the only Norte Americano.  I just smiled and went along with it because...

...well, you get the idea.  After 2 1/2 years here, they don't even bother to stop our car anymore as it is well known as the only Subaru in Progreso.

So, we watched the action for about five minutes with Indra cautioning that if the lead started flying, we were to duck for cover.  When we checked about five minutes after that, they had vanished.  We don't know if they set up this roadblock for anyone in particular or what the deal was.  Just part of life south of the border.

More later,

Larry

The Bank Token

This is one of those things that sort of grabs you as another, "this is so different" moment.  When you open a bank account in Mexico, at least at Banorte, and you want internet access to your account, one of the things you are given is a "token".  Take a look:

Cute, huh?  What you are seeing is a personal electronic device that is getting a signal from a satellite.  Every 60 seconds that 6-digit code automatically and randomly changes.  If you look carefully on the left hand side of the display you can see a series of lines that act as a countdown to the numbers changing again.  Each token has a serial number and when you go on line to set-up your internet banking, the system wants that serial number, your user name and your password.  Once activated, this is what you need to log on with the most current "token" number being displayed, so it's different every time.  They say that this will operate for 5 years before the battery runs out and there is no extra charge for it.  Unless you lose it.

I tell ya, these third world countries...!

More later,

Larry