Our first Mexican posada

As with past days here, yesterday morning wasted away without a problem. Then, we received an invite from Luis and Lorena to come over to their RV at another marina as they were having friends over for food that afternoon, and did we want to join them? Yes please!

So Ruth made a big salad to take for everybody and Luis said he would pick us up around 2:00pm.

We got a fun surprise we got when he arrived!

We expected him to come in his car...

Luis, Ruth, and Kevin.

Luis had come with his friend Luis (who took the photo above. Yes, they are both named Luis!) to take us back to their place.

What a fun little boat. An oversized jet ski really, but perfect for zipping around the lake.

Arriving at Luis and Lorena's spot.

Marisa and Lorena tending the grill.

The other Luis, and his wife Marina have a house on the other side of the lake but in the mountains. They moved to California four months ago and will now come back here only to visit a couple of times a year.

Just about everybody speaks quite good English which is not very good for our Spanish practice. However, we still manage to learn a little more each day.

This marina has quite a few RVs parked up, but Luis says most of them are stationary and hardly ever move. It looks a bit crowded in this shot, but there is room for temporary rigs that are just passing through. GPS co-ordinates of the front gate are 19.226018, -100.144631.

Fun get together.

Other friends showed up as well, and their kids. Fun to have lots of children running around...kids aged three to nine. They sure were having a good time!

We wanted to try to get to the posada, so by 6:30pm or so Luis took us back to Sherman, and then we put on a sweater and jacket and walked on over to the local church.

A few people starting to arrive.

We were the only gringos around, so we kind of stood out like a sore thumb. And our friend Chago and family were nowhere to be seen. But several people said good evening to us as they walked by. Eventually, the posada was ready to go and about 100 people walked out of the church following the leaders who were two children dressed as Mary and Joseph looking for accommodation.

We walked with the procession about a half a km up the road. Traffic was stopped for us, and we passed several fires along the road, with the houses at these locations made up with balloons and streamers.

Walking past one of the decorated houses.

Many people carried candles, and on the return trip we made four stops at houses where Mary and Joseph stopped to ask for lodging and of course were turned down. There was some kind of ceremony at each place but we were in the back and couldn't hear very well.

As we were walking, a young boy came up to us and asked if we were staying at the Las Olas del Valle marina. He has been working at the marina part time and recognized us. Jamie is about 13 or 14 years old, we think, and he's a bright and friendly young man. He stayed with us for the rest of the walk and we felt like we fit in a little better with him there. He wants to learn English and had lots of questions for us. Also he's very patient with our Spanish and corrects us when we make mistakes. We like that!

Then, it was back to the church.

Busy at the little church!

They do a pinata for the children, and everybody was given a loot bag...they even insisted that we each take one!

We each got a loot bag with this kind of stuff.

The posadas here last for nine nights, with a different route and different people along those routes taking part. They even had boards up listing who was to take part on each night. So while we weren't on any boards, and we kind of crashed the party, they certainly welcomed us to last night's gathering. Last night was the last posada, and tonight is the celebration of Christmas at the church. We will only go if Chago invites us to go with his family, so we'll see.

Another great day in Mexico!

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