We went in to town today with a short list of things to do. A small load of laundry with nothing but kids clothes and pajamas. Milk. A few gallons of diesel. Lunner. We also wanted to stop by the marina to see about going in and getting fuel. The marina and fuel dock are up a river entrance which always makes us nervous, and with a south swell pounding straight into it we thought we’d go right to the source for the scoop.
The marina is only a couple of years old so we expected it to be a bustling place. Instead we found one sailboat and one powerboat there, along with a few boats up on the hard. The buildings built to house restaurants and stores stood empty. We eventually found somebody who seemed to be in charge and asked him what conditions were like on the bar. He didn’t seem to know but asked a dock boy who basically told me it was bad. We could try to come in at low tide he said, but the look on his face didn’t instill a lot of confidence in me. We won’t be going in there. You know in the movies how there is always a haunted looking house in every neighborhood that the kids are all scared to go near? We walked away feeling like we’d just rung the doorbell. What a weird place.
Everything else we were able to get done within a couple blocks of the plaza. We like San Blas. It’s a Mexican tourist town, instead of a gringo tourist town. The main plaza was busy with vendors and kids, and restaurants were everywhere. We picked a small taco place and were heading that direction when Ouest suddenly jumped out of her pants with excitement. A donkey! Not a real donkey, but instead, the ubiquitous two peso mechanical donkey that she has come to know and love here in Mexico. We swear the girl can smell them. Neither of us saw it, and even after we did we could just barely see it’s head poking around the corner. I love this age, how a two peso, two minute, ride can fill her with such excitement. That and two peso rubber bouncing balls out of vending machines. Those things are rolling all over the boat.
The restaurant just had the one lady owner working at it and when she brought us our food she looked at me and held out her arms. She wanted Lowe. And I was more than happy to hand him over so I could dig in at the same time as Ali for a change. Lowe is the ultimate charmer and before long more ladies who had just been walking by were coming inside and he was being passed from one to another. “Ooooooh, hermoso niño,” they’d coo over and over into his ear. And then after passing him on they’d walk up to Ouest, who was watching all of this with what I sensed to be just a tiny hint of jealousy, and squeeze her cheek or tickle her chin while saying something sweet, and she would just beam. “Mama,” she’d say after they walked away, and when Ali looked she would smile and show her how they pinched her cheek. It was such an enjoyable meal and friendly atmosphere that we didn’t even wave away the mariachi’s that stopped and sang for us. Ouest was enthralled with them as well.
