Yesterday was not entirely fruitful. The idea was to go for a swim with the man who introduced us to the concept of cold water swimming for pleasure and good health. It was sunny at high tide, the water was pretty flat (and cold) so after we eventually got up and crawled out of bed we took the plunge. Gradually that is to say.
Not heroism on a grand scale but it feels good to have found the strength to swim in temperatures cooler than bath water. Florida: get thee behind me! Warm bath water? Who needs that? With the puritanical immersion behind us we took cold solar showers thanks to the sudden absence of sunshine and set our beady little minds on a fish lunch in town.
There is some grotesquely malformed bureaucrat in the upper reaches of Mexico’s Department of Transportation who thinks it’s a really smart idea to build paved roads in rural areas but to stop the asphalt at urban limits leaving village residents to wallow in streets of mud and sand. Such perversion baffles me.
Barras de Piaxtla is a funny little town, dusty and quiet in the off season, as you can see, a collection of homes and shuttered businesses. And yet desirable. The sign above says the family owns the wreck and they aren’t selling or renting so stop asking! Mazatlan’s wealth is 40 miles away by Cuota (fast toll road) and Barras is a sought after weekend destination. Ron found this out by asking.
The restaurant opens Friday for lunch, and its weekends only in winter so all will close by Sunday evening. Well bugger, that's not brilliant news when you show up hungry and ready for fish on Thursday!
Our back up plan was Layne’s possibly famous tortilla sandwiches with turkey and cheese on spicy mayo at Café Gannet but first the lady at Richard’s Seafood advised us to check Giant Tacos (“Tacones”) on Main Street. Time to back the elephant up. Where’s Rusty? All aboard.
Our ridiculously large suburban cruiser happily has front wheel drive and a narrow turning circle consequently it’s pretty easy to maneuver in tight Mexican villages and we made our way back whence we had come.
One gets the feeling Barras de Piaxtla is not an easy drive in rainy season, a feeling confirmed when you see building materials used to fill in mud holes on the main drag. Further along the street our middle class sensibilities were stirred by these rather attractive units being built on cement pilings with parking spaces underneath. Barras is a middle class destination for some weekenders:
Or this if you have a hankering to live in a tiny Mexican fishing village:
Our second attempt at lunch fell flat:
Ron from Iowa was salivating at the thought of Ostiones (oysters) and he laughed good naturedly at my description of snot in a shell. Neither that delicious dish nor my fried fish delicacy was to be. All closed. Even the resident guardian failed to notice Rusty. 
Rusty hops out at each stop delighted to see and smell what’s what. Mexico is an endless adventure for him.
We stopped on the way out of town for the vital lunch ingredients, corn tortillas and drove back to our spot for a bite to eat at Cafe Gannet.
It was a gray sunless afternoon by then and all promise of summer sunshine was gone. So we each wiled away the hours in our respective vans out of the cold damp sea breeze. Ron has friends in Puerto Vallarta and after we seek out lunch a second time on Friday, he will be off south. We are heading to a campground 40 minutes north to spend the weekend doing laundry, cleaning the van, swimming in the pool and taking walks on the beach. That is the fantasy. The reality? Who knows as this is Mexico.
A footnote: my apologies for the rather scattered editing and posting times lately. The culprit is not the intemperate drunkeness you might suspect on my part; rather it has been curiously indecisive internet service. It came, it went, it appeared to be back but wasn't and stuff got lost. I fear that some days this will happen as we wander hither and yon and I hope you will bear with me as I shall edit and post as efficiently as I can.
