Day of Traveling up the mountian to Ajijic, Lago de Chapala + Day by the Lake

  
Early on the trip, the road narrowed to a detour of one lane that was just gravel ---here is a jiggly shot from my front window  --
 
Lots of mountains and a variety of ecosystems, rather dry here in one of the valleys --

 
Cobblestone, bumpy roads throughout the town of Mascota ------- 

 And tricky to follow the signs, and good thing my iphone has great maps and I can follow the little blue dot --warned about the poor signage used an old fashioned paper map from AAA and my Iphone maps which had pretty good service on my way! 

 

Not a lot of scenic pull offs, so I just stopped and took a photo of the mountains and valley ahead. 

 

Curious about this red peeling tree I noticed along with way  -

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When I arrived at Walmart , I was hungry and my amigo Victor in Ajijic took me for Indian comida in mid afternoon around 3 PM - he joked about Topexico is a name for the topas, the speed bump driving hazards in  the country and gets a smile from the locals when he uses that word  -----One of the plants, trees that intrigued me was the red peeling bark of trees I had seen along with way, Victor said the locals call them gringo trees, as they are red all the time and peel!  Here is what  I found on line    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bursera_simaruba

"Bursera simaruba, commonly known as gumbo-limbo, copperwood, chaca, and turpentine tree, is a tree species in the family Burseraceae, native to tropical regions of the Americas from the southeasternmost United States (southern Florida) south through Mexico and the Caribbean to Brazil, Jinotega and Venezuela.^[1] Bursera simaruba are prevalent in the Petenes mangroves ecoregion of the Yucatán, where it is a subdominant plant species to mangroves.[  The gumbo-limbo is comically referred to as the tourist tree because the tree's bark is red and peeling, like the skin of sunburnt tourists, who are a common sight in the plant's range.^[5]"

Saturday morning, I slept in to 7:30 AM, seems like the locals stay up late, and get up late,  had coffee at Victor's on Hildalgo Street and we piled into his car, stored in a nearby garage to take in breakfast at a Fonda, on the main hiway I took to get into town Friday  ----he likes a traditional breakfast,   

-->huevos motulenos, that has fried plaintain, peas, ham pieces which I had as well with the big  glass of orange juice with the obligatory straw, soon after we sat down, a family came in escorting a 99 yr old grandma whose birthday is Feb 3, and then the Mariachi Band, very loud, with brass and stringed instruments played and sang  --> Las Manyanita, which is another traditional song  ---I did try to record on my iphone and well, a real local tradition --

 

Victor at breakfast sharing traditional food with the birthday group behind  

 Mariachi band playing birthday song, for breakfast






 
Bringing Linda to the HU Sing at the Center for Spiritual Living in Ajijic, in the AM after breakfast  - Love the colors!

 
The dog with a Gandhi like mantra -----

 

Red flowers above the yellow walls 

  
Many flowers in the center of spiritual Living where we did the HU sing, where I met Tim Schubert briefly ---

More flowers and trees inside the center 

After driving Linda back to her nursing home, I encouraged Victor to drive us over to Chapala to find the disc golf course at Christina Park I found on line  ---

Here I am at the first basket we found  -- there was no map on line, and the Christina Park location on the lake, was dominated by a lot of activity around large venues, setting up in the town of Chapala for the celebration of Carnival and the Christian celebration of this season  - for me, very noisy and not much in touch with the ecology and environment --------I had planned to give these discs away, and we were the only people on the course -----
 
These kinds of sings were all over to bring the dominant culture of Mexico's view of life  --lots of loud music  ----in my view --- this is on the fence we had to walk by to find the course  ---
 
Victor as we went on our "Walk in the Park" pointing to hole #1, on the north side of the park, as a large performance venue was being built ---note the green color to the far left ---

 
  One of the few riparian, shore line areas that I found to be more of more natural along the lake, here in the park  ---note the white pelicans and shore birds here -----
 
A panorama of Lake Chapala found the cove area by hole #1, that Victor found, as we walked down the lake, finding baskets, #3, #2 and #1, so we could play 4 holes  ---the number on top of #9 had been removed and was sitting on the top of #2 --not much maintenance of a course here ---