Semana Santa in San Blas

Like millions of Mexicans all around the country, I too decided to head towards the beach for semana santa (government offices were closed on Thursday and Friday). This beach trip sent me to Amy's house (another vol who's photo will not appear per request) which is in San Blas, Nayarit. It's about a 13 hour bus ride from Puebla to Tepic (capital of Nayarit) and then another 1.5 - 2 hrs to San Blas.
Blas is a cute little town. There is an old church and a good view of the town perched on a near-by hill. Obviously there is the beach. Another big attraction is the mangroves and their crocodiles.





Because it was Holy Week, there was no shortage of processions or masses. These picts are from the Good Friday procession where Jesus carried the cross through the center of town.





There is a peninsula that can be reached by boat that has non-crowded beaches, but is also a sacred site for some of the indigenous groups that live in and around San Blas. Some of these pictures show riutal offerings left by the Cora people.




Amy has a dog, Scooby, who I fell in love with (I have been wanting a hot dog of my own for a while now). here's Scooby....

Iguana tracks in the sand

Borrego beach (the main beach in San Blas, as seen from the much less crowded beach)

These picts are from the boat ride in the mangroves......



No better way to keep a baby happy on a boat than to give her Corona bottles
Finally memories of my days with Scooby.......

Sea Turtles

This weekend I returned to the little beach town on Tecolutla, Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. The beaches there are home to 3 different kinds of sea turtles and now is the season when the turtles come on shore and lay their eggs. There is an NGO that was created on the beach to collect the turtle’s eggs after they have been laid and protect them during the incubation period. Then, they release the baby sea turtles back to the sea and hope that at least some of them survive and return to the same beach to lay their eggs. This summer they are estimating that 14,000 babies will come from the beaches in Tecolutla. As part of a fundraiser for the NGO, during the breeding season, you can help release the baby sea turtles. So on Sunday morning I got to hold and them put in the Gulf, 3 little baby Kemp's ridley sea turtles. Here are the pictures of my 3 turtles…..

The video of one of my turtles......




For dinner one night we decided to try what was said to be the resturant's specialty, a stuffed pineapple. Little did we know that the stuffed pineapple (filled with seafood and who know's what else), also came complete with face.

Sunday, after releasing turtles, we decided to take a short boat trip into the mangroves just off the Tecolutla River. Saw a bunch of birds, crabs, turtles, and even a pet iguana lounging on the front of an ice cream boat (think ice cream truck, but in a boad instead).