November 17th - The wind is here!, the wind is here!

Well, maybe.

Well, it's a month yesterday since we hit the road, and we've been in La Peñita RV Park for two weeks.  In the two weeks that we've been here, the maximum wind has been 2 - 4 Km/hr., and most of the time there's been zero wind.  Nada.  It's spooky how calm it has been.  We were going to head out to the beach field north of here to fly the big Radian this morning, but the neighbours came up with a plan to go check out the Alta Vista petroglyphs .  It involves a fair amount of hiking, so Nancy went, and Kirk and I stayed home.  I warned her to beware of Throat-slitters.

Kirk and I went for a cruise through La Peñita and Rincon, just puttering about, enjoying the morning.  I checked the ATM's, since we're building cash to pay next months rent, but sure enough, in the wake of the long weekend, they were all out of cash.

Back to the Bigfoot for some reading.  I've been working my way through the sci-fi Culture series by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks (highly recommended).  I finished "Excession" today, the fourth book in the series, if you don't count an interim, only partially relevant, book of short stories. The books are getting better and better as the series progresses; I will be sad to complete the series.

About 11:00 a.m., something weird happened.  The wind came up.  At first, laying there with the iPad in the recliner, I didn't get what was happening.  Then as the Bigfoot awning started to flap in the NW wind, I figured it out and cranked the awning in, with the Neighbour's assistance.  They went from unattended (people were out for the day) RV to RV, taking down tarps, awnings, and generally anchoring things down.  I couldn't figure out why they were so happy with all this.  "It's the Santa Ana winds!, probably." was the reply.  Autumn and winter sees the Santa Ana winds blow down from the north, dropping the humidity and temperature (which has been running a humidex of 40 - 42 the last few days).  Sure enough, we have a cloudy day, lovely north breeze, and temperature of only 28 and a humidex of 29!!  Let's hope this is the start of a trend...

Last night our neighbour had a large turtle come up to his door, maybe that was a sign.

A few of us (3) went to find the Altavista  petroglyph complex today.   First we visited the village of Alta Vista perched on a mountainside.  We followed a paved road then a narrow dirt road then a rutted, sometimes cobbled even narrower road at an increasingly sharp angle.  We finally stopped at a cerveza store (yes its true go figure) at a fork in this road where through our broken Spanish and hand signals we were assured by 3 guys that we were headed in the right direction for town.  One guy even offered to hop on his quad and lead us there.  He also managed to get across to us that we had missed the dirt road to the petroglyphs on the way up.  We continued up to the town fist.

Corn drying on a rooftop in Alta Vista

Houses were built on hillsides as we climbed higher into town

This vaquero stopped his horse when he saw we were taking a church photo

Then he continued on

Note the chiweeny dog barking from the rooftop

This fine figure of a rooster looked down upon us 

MACHO!

The streets were always going up and sometimes cobbled

We walked through town.  I didn't photograph people sitting and socializing on the plastic lawn chairs in front of what seemed to be way too many small stores in the village because I didn't want to offend.  They smiled, said Hola, and we also caught up to the vaquero who had joined them.  We were the only tourists we saw all day.  We told an english speaking delivery truck driver that we couldn't believe he had made it up there and he said "I can't believe it either".  We went back to find the turn to the petroglyphs.  Another vaquero (cowboy) sitting along the road gave us further directions, once again no English but luckily our understanding is getting better.  We could ask in Spanish- Left, right, how far, where, etc.  He wanted to make sure we understood that our CRV was not going to make it all the way in there!

Road into petroglyphs

Alta Vista in the distance

We left the car eventually and continued on foot

We came across orchards and a guy loading wood, then a guy digging post holes then a guy cutting brush all of whom cheerily tried to help us find our way.  "Yo no hablo ingles" but they tried anyway.

The road ended here with a cow path leading into the jungle.

We walked for hours along a stream towards the side of the Copo volcano.  It turns out we should have bushwhacked another 30 minutes on the path and we would have made it.  We had left our machete at home and felt ill prepared so we turned homeward.  On the way back our helpers seemed concerned that we had not succeeded so we told them we would return (volveremos).  This seemed to make them happy.  Not once did I ever have a care for our safety today.  The highlight of the walk was 2 new birds - a Citreoline Trogon and a White throated Magpie Jay.  Back at the RV park we are told as the tourist season comes on someone will clear the trail.

In light of my experience today, I can't help but think of the broad brush concerns raised about travelling in Mexico.  I find that people aren't all one thing.  I think we wish they were for simplicity sake, but the truth is that people are good and bad, simple and complicated, happy and sad, frightened and courageous.  A mix.  We learn to take in everything about a person or a country as disparate parts to the whole, and its the whole that we decide upon, even at moments when the other isn't who we wish her/him or it to be.  We are beginning to see parts of the whole.  The contrasts of barbed wire fences in La Penita and barred gates, poverty, and machine gun wielding constabulary mixed with the smiling, helpful, welcoming faces of the people in the streets, shops and rural areas going about the motions of everyday living.   This doesn't mean we are not taking precautions or wandering about the streets at night.   (We may yet experience some of the bad.)  Just like we would do in Winnipeg.