Day 5 : Wednesday

This day involved an air-conditioned tour through the countryside. On this trip I met two families from Illinois so the entire tour was presented in english. First up was a visit to a local fruit planation. Now you've got to understand that anything over 2 acres is considered a plantation. So we were a little surprised to simply pull off the local highway into this little patch of farm land. Regardless of the size, we had a opportunity to see a large variety of local fruits, as you can see from the thumbnail images below.

Then it was on to the small town of Coacoyul. I bet you blinked and missed it. So did we.

Next up we went to a local tile "factory" to learn how they produce all those beautiful tiles most of wish we could afford to put on our homes. Here a 1000 tiles runs about $100 US with a typical home in the US needing somewhere around 4000 tiles that's cheap. Now the idea of this being a factory is hilarious. It's one man and his family hand making tiles. They claim that this guy that we visited can make somewhere around 700 tiles per hours. They literally dig the clay out of the ground where they are working, usually a local farmers land. As you can see, they use simple cover to keep themselves and the clay from drying out.

Then is was travel through very bumpy dirt roads to the fishing village of Barra de Potosi where we had lunch. The choices were fish, chicken, or quesadias. Unfortunately, they were out of chicken, so I tried the quesadias. They were nothing like the ones I'd had in Cabo San Lucas and in fact were pretty awful. Then it was back to the hotel.

For this evenings entertainment, I decidied to try out the Sheraton's Fiesta. There were lots foods to try and I actually met up with a couple I'd met horseback riding the other day. I also met some an amazing family from Peoria, Illinois. In fact they have a pretty interesting background. Lee was one of our early black baseball players, he even played against Lou Brock. Ruthie is high school principal. Tony tried out for the Dallas Cowboys and is now teaching. And Taunya was a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader (that's how Tony and Taunya met).

The entertainment for the evening was music and dance from eac of the various states within the mexican republic. It was quite entertaining, especially this 6 year old boy whose singing was exceptional. There was an open bar for the entire event so the booze was flowing. I decided to take it easy and avoided the alcohol this time around.