Touch logo above to return to the home page. Last journal entry. Next journal entry.

2/16/01 3 PM Hotel de la Soledad, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico

We chaperones took a guided tour of the city yesterday at 3 pm to 7 pm. The guide spoke great English and was well versed in the history of Morelia. We will have him again Saturday for the butterfly trip with the kids. I will get his name to recommend to anyone who comes here.

Since my roommate Flavio took off on business to another town for a few days, the Bilingual Mamas and I all went to my room last night to polish off the wine we brought with us. Since I now had the most room space I was the host. Once again, I was the sole male. It's very interesting to be in a group of drinking women. They are beginning to lose their inhibitions about having a man in the room. At least I hope there's still a man in the room. I haven't been converted yet. As the wine was consumed the conversation moved from our kids here in Mexico to our kids back home, to spouses, to sex (nothing graphic or gross), to (Yikes!)- Farts! I had to get up to visit the bathroom at that point. When I returned they were still on the flatulence theme. At least they weren't actually practicing the art. Women can be really nasty when they get together! They can be as bad as, well, men. I'm sure I'm just getting the tip of the iceberg here. When I leave the room I'll bet it gets pretty ugly. It can make a drunken sailor blush. I guess I've blown my cover now that this is distributed. They'll clam up when I'm around and start talking about shopping for doilies or some such foolishness just to get me to leave. Then they'll get back to their nastiness. What a revelation.

Ok, what do you think of this - “Design-a-Shrine”. It's a software package where you design your own roadside shrine using drag-and-drop religious and other iconography. After you design your shrine it is printed to be affixed to the back of your driver's license. In case you slip these mortal coils while tooling around in the Mexican countryside, emergency personnel can quickly notify the appropriate agency in charge of shrine placement of your exact pre-determined shrine specs. Don't leave YOUR eternal “X” marking the spot of your demise to chance! I think the price point is about 500 pesos per copy. Perhaps we could even work a deal with Costco (yes, they have Costco here) where families could buy shrine components in bulk. “Works with the Design-a-Shrine software!”. We could clean up.

What brought that on? Well, we chaperones took another drive out of town today. We saw many road shrines but once again, I was unable to get pictures. I may have to rent a motor scooter and go on a shrine photo mission. Anyway, our destination was the town of Tiripetio. It has another - guess what - that's right, old church, but this one is old indeed. It was built in the mid 1500s. Wow. Columbus was just hitting the Caribbean in the late 1400's. The church is pretty big with flying buttresses on the outside and everything. This, in the interior of the country in mountainous terrain only a few years after the Spaniards got here.

Next to the church is a museum of indigenous peoples. It has many displays of pottery, basketry and other crafts as well as manekins dressed in the native attire of all the regions of Mexico. It was interesting enough; I just wish I understood more Spanish to read all the placards.

The best part for me was when we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant. It featured roasted lamb rolled in fresh tortillas. The lamb was cooked in an elevated masonry ring, EXACTLY the way I cook the pig at my annual Pork n' Paddle party. A large fire is burned in the center of the masonry ring. The ring makes a pit in the center about 3-1/2 feet deep. After the fire has burned down and the pit is heated and the wood turned to coals, large majave fronds from the plant used to make tequila are laid down, then the meat is placed on the fronds, then more fronds, then the whole mess is buried in about 2 feet of dirt. The meat then slowly cooks this way for about 9 hours. It comes out ridiculously tender and delicious. I took one look at the pile of meat they had in a bowl when we drove up and just knew how they cooked it. I have found that Owens Pink fiberglass works better than dirt and is easier to deal with. First, I put the pig in the pit, put a sheet of Wonderboard over the pit, then a few rolls of the fiberglass. I tried to explain this to the guy running the 3 pits using Miguel as translator but I don't think they are going to switch. When I move down here I'll set up a competitive business using my more efficient methods. That's if Design-a-Shrine doesn't catch on.

We're going to see the kids tonight for the first time since Monday morning. We are all going to a show at 5 pm. I will report on this later, I want to get this to the Internet. The camera stuff still has not arrived so no pictures yet. I will scan some film pictures and send them on Saturday or Sunday if I don't get the stuff I need today since I imagine that weekend delivery is completely out of the question.

--Bill Tomkovic