Visit to El Quelite

Hum…wondered why it wasn’t quite so cool in here this morning then I saw that sometime during the night Bill had dug out the little heater and turned it on. Feels good.

Busy day yesterday – left early to take George out to El Quelite for breakfast at our favorite restaurant out there. But before we get to that…..

The mechanic came with bad news. He cannot order the parts that Willie needs. Well he can order them BUT do we need 2, 3 or 4 sensors – that is the question. To order them we have to pay for all of them and then get a refund for the ones we don’t need. Well that’s okay, makes sense BUT mechanic cannot guarantee when they will get here to Mazatlan. Might be a week might be a month. Or not at all. So we are going to try with the Jeep dealer again this morning. Have an appointment at 8:30 BUT the problem is….Willie’s problem doesn’t show up until after he has been driven 20 or 30 miles and warms up. Then he stops shifting and the engine light comes on. Just driving from here to the dealer will not cause the problem to start. So we’ll see what happens.

But back to yesterdays adventures in El Quelite. As you know we go there quite often and know half the people in the pretty little town. So we love to take friends there who haven’t been there. It is about 25 miles inland from Mazatlan not far off the free road. A few years ago the owner of the big restaurant there had a raffle to raise money to buy bougainvillea to plant along the road from the main road into town. They are now getting big enough to bloom. Another year or so and it will be amazing.

First we took George to meet the ladies who spend all day in the warehouse sorting the rocks and debris out of the white beans.

Some of the debris and misshapen beans that has been removed.

Just nice clean beans that are ready for cooking.

Then we went to the restaurant El Meson d Los Laureanos to have breakfast. These bougainvilleas have been trimmed back since we were here last.

Going into the area where we eat we passed this wall display – it was making noise. Then I realized one of the chickens was real. And she was making a growling groaning noise. Bill said she was laying an egg. I’ve never been around a chicken when it was laying an egg. But it sounded like she was serious about something. Bill warned us not to get too close to her

Later I went back and sure enough here are three eggs. Dora one of the waitresses told us she is a prolific layer. In the last 20 days she had produced 60 eggs – three a day! Dora told us we had eaten some of her eggs for breakfast. Oh my.

As always Lola the parrot was squawking her head off. She got down off her perch and waddled up the aisle and into the kitchen.

And this time we saw that she has some companions but they are in cages. The only one who would stay still long enough to take her/his picture. I think it was giving me the evil eye. 

We all ordered breakfast. Along with whatever we ordered we got – totopos, two kinds of salsa, a bowl of fresh fruit, fresh oj, chunks of cheese (made in the town) and a couple of small bowls of different creamy pudding like stuff. Then you get your meal. Never go away hungry.

The restaurant is very pretty – we sat in the outside area under big trees – with iguanas in them - but that is another story – we sat under umbrellas. The whole restaurant is decorated with imagination.

A new room and patio has been built on the back of the original restaurant it is really pretty. A look at just part of the patio – the eating area is under the roof.

George and I in front of a great painting on the wall of the patio.

Outside the side door waited this burro – he is cute but none of us wanted a ride on him.

Then we took a ride up to the rooster farm. One of the beauties there.

I’ve written about El Quelite many many times. It is a really beautiful and tranquil town. Just enter the name in the search feature for more information about it. We’ve visited the cheese factory and the little bakery there and of course there was the incident with the iguanas.

On the way back to Mazatlan on the free road we got behind these trucks. I guess the one was in a hurry – solid yellow line means go around me if you can and are brave enough.

After dropping George off we went to the Jeep dealer, got groceries and stopped at the used book store then home again.

I swore at the NASCAR web site and tried to find out about yesterdays races – Yes – finally – Kyle won one of them. Then last night fixed chicken for dinner – more out of the freezer – less for the US border guards to confiscate.

And so ended our 120^th day on the road this winter.