Searching for Casa de las Conchas - not finding it in Guaymas

Yesterday remained cool and droopy – but we all piled in Willie and headed into Guaymas on the great “Casa de las Conchas” quest. I’ve read about the house of shells on a couple of web sites and managed to convince Bill that WE wanted to find it. First quest was finding parking downtown. Some of the streets are really narrow – the cars on the right and left are parked so all that’s left for traffic is the little space in the middle. Good thing Willies skinny.

And then there are the peopledestrians and the vendor carts. No he didn’t look just stepped out in front of us.

Lots and lots of vendors: food, clothes, Christmas decorations and toys seem to make up the majority of them this time of year.

Lots of nice looking produce. Notice the little shop selling women’s clothing.  Most of the shops are very narrow and deep into the building.

Got parked and set out walking. Bill asked me where the building was. I had no idea – just knew it was downtown somewhere. (Once when going from web page to web page researching Guaymas I saw an old picture of the building - but never could find that web page again.) Got rather a strange look from him, don’t want to know what he was thinking. So he asked the parking lot attendant. Near as I could figure out from hand signals it was over a couple of blocks and up one. ??  So off we started down the main street. I had hoped this building would be it. But it was the National Bank of Mexico at one time.

On the next corner is the remains of the Bank of Sonora. The building is empty. It was being restored when the hurricane hit in 2009 and did a lot of damage to it. So now……

It was/is a beautiful building. Building used to have so much character.

We stopped in a couple of stores – a farmacia and a house hold goods store - Coppel then lost track of our directions. Asked another person and found out the House of Shells didn’t exist any more. At least not as a house of shells. Okay.  So we changed directions and walked a block off the main street where we saw this neat building built in 1909 and well maintained. Still lots of water in the streets from the overnight rain.

A just a pretty door in a building that was being renovated.

The Municipal Palace is being decorated for the Christmas holidays

Of course I had to go inside of it and was surprised - this is the first Municipal Palace we've been in that didn't have any murals in the inner courtyard. But there were Christmas decorations waiting to be put up. Lots and lots of them. 

The Plaza of the Three Presidents – three of the presidents of Mexico were from here in Guaymas was also being decorated.

On the way back to the car I got a good picture of the side of this mural. It is on an office building. I posted a picture of the back of it a few days ago. Wish I knew the story of it - 

Leaving downtown we stopped at a Leys (supermarket) and saw this interesting Christmas tree. Look closely at the ornaments.

Bill bought the ingredients for crepes while there so that is how he spent his evening. YUM.

Dipping the batter into the pan – finished ones in the back ground

They have to be cooked just right – says it’s all in the wrist. 

He ate his with lingonberries and I ate mine with Dulce de Leche. Invited our friends over and they enjoyed his efforts too. 
While he was cooking I was hunting the web for the house of shells again AND  I found a good fairly recent 2009 picture of it and a more or less where it was/is near the 13th of July Plaza. I booked marked that site for sure. Now it really is a quest to find it. Open or not. Might have been damaged by hurricane in 2009 after picture was taken. 
Got cold last night - had the heater on this morning. But the sun is out so it should warm up to low 70s. No agenda for today yet.