Etzatlan, Mexico (day 4)

Had a relaxing morning yesterday. Then Bonnie had said we could use her car to go visit some ruins, but she needed it again late afternoon so we said we would wait another day because we didn't want to rush or risk being late.

So she suggested we still take the car, but only go to the next town where there are a couple of guys who make the pottery that you see at many local markets. It was only 14 kms (8 miles) so we figured, why not? So we drove down there and parked near the central square. San Marcos is a much smaller town than Etzatlan, and also much quieter.

The road by the central plaza was under construction.

In the lobby of the municipal building, there was a display set up advertising these fancy solar water heaters.

We had to ask several people for directions to the place where they do the pottery. It turns out there are two different places, and we pretty much walked all over town to find them. Actually, when we finally found the first place, the guy there said the other guy is is friend and he sent a boy with us to show us where it was.

Pedro and Ruth talking about the pottery.

Pedro was a real friendly guy, and he explained all about how he makes and then paints the various ceremic containers. We didn't understand half of what he was saying, but it was interesting anyhow. He does all of the painting himself, and was in the process of painting when we showed up.

Some of Pedro's paint work.

I picked up one particular smaller container that caught my eye, and asked him how much it was. It was not a flowery one, but it had a fairly detailed design on it. He said 30 pesos ($2.34). He said the other ones were only 25 pesos, but he wanted another 5 pesos because the design was much more work! We only had about 15 pesos in change, and a 100 peso bill, but he insisted that the 15 pesos ($1.17) was enough!

Then, he had a local boy walk us over to the other place. We actually wanted to buy a little salsa bowl, but Pedro doesn't do those, so sent us to his friend. This guy wasn't very talkative though, and so we just took some pictures and bought a bowl for 10 pesos (78 cents)!

This guy makes lots of bowls!

Our two purchases.

Later in the afternoon, Bonnie was going into a different nearby town and asked if we wanted to come along for the ride. Of course, we like exploring! So we went into the town of Ahualulco where she had some work to do for an hour or so while we just wandered around town. Every Mexican town has a plaza or central square and some of them are very nicely done.  Certainly every one is a little bit different, but they all have lots of benches where you can just sit and watch the world go by. We make a point of doing this in every town we visit.

Ruth, sitting in the central plaza in Ahualulco.

Had a terrible sleep last night. We haven't been bothered by bugs at all this trip, but somehow a couple of little mosquitoes got inside and kept buzzing around our heads, we'd turn the light on to find them, and they would magically disappear. The rare invisible Mexican mosquito! Finally got them, but it was probably 2:00am by the time we got to sleep!