The bear went over the mountain....

In somewhat typical fashion, the concrete pour scheduled for last Friday did not eventuate. The general assessment was that the concrete company had received a bigger order and needed our truck for the job. So of course, the big order took priority. We understood. So many times, expats down here do not understand aspects of the local reality and jump to understandable but totally inaccurate assessments of events. One of those events is the concept of time, either the issue of being late, or not not showing up of many other variations of the above. And here is my advice on this subject. No matter which permutation of the above you are experiencing, there is always a reason!  You may never figure out what that reason was, but given a lot of time, experience and mental reflection, your ability to "read" situations grows. And our ability said, "What the heck. They got a better job. Good for them!" and we re-scheduled the pour for today. Hopefully it was happen. But too soon to tell.

After losing our schedule entirely, we were in a quandary over what to do with our free weekend. We decided to "go over the mountain to see what we could see". For a number of years, we have been aware of the existence of another village over our mountain, right behind us. That village is on the south side, on the edge of an extremely shallow salt lake. We see it from the cuota (toll road) when we go down to the coast. But to access it is not an easy task. However, we woke up Saturday morning in a mood to investigate the possibilities. The Mexican road map told us that if we took our highway 15 back out to the end of the mountain range (about 15 miles) to the intersection with the cuota, with a little jiggling we could get onto the free road that paralleled the cuota south. After a couple of miles on the cuota, the map showed another road that turned left and crossed the cuota and ended up in the village we were looking for, the village of San Marcos. This was essentially a very large circle route. For an added extra, we would also pass through another village on the way called Los Pozos.  But first, we had a leisurely breakfast on the winter terrace, enjoying the fruits of our own papaya tree.

The trip was highly enjoyable. We crossed the cuota here. The mountain in the background is the backside of our mountain.

The road into the two villages was very quiet. Part of it was paved, part of it was cobbled and part of it was dirt and it dead-ended at Los Marcos, so there was very little traffic and what there was of it, often had either 2 legs or four:

The approach into the villages, was also different from our highway 15 on the other side of the mountain. This side was the hot dry side of the mountain and it was covered with forests of cactus, but the valley floor was growing sugar cane (not cattle as on our side) and looked relatively lush. I wondered from whence came their source of water:

Across the road, were the remnants of lago San Marcos and its salt flats:

The villages themselves also had a different feel from ours on our side. These are ejidal (communal) villages, quite poor even by Mexican standards, but neat as a pin. Instead of being built adjoining and right on the sidewalk, the houses were frequently free standing with tiny but attractive gardens in the space between the sidewalk and the house. The houses were decorated with all sorts of Christmas decorations. Who would see them, I wondered, if not just their neighbours and the gas man or other service deliverer? We were the only strangers in the village on a Saturday at noon!

The two villages differed, one from the other, as well. Los Pozos had the only visible store, and school:

And it had very friendly inhabitants!  We passed by a street closed off and being decorated for Christmas by some of the ladies of the town. They asked us (with enormous smiles) to take their photo:

 

The other thing Los Pozos had, was the grandest house:

Now an astute reader might well ask themselves, is there ANYTHING left for poor San Marcos, the last village on the road, squished up against the mountain? Is there anything possible it might have to compare with its neighbour up the road???

Well, here it is!