Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Jungle Heat, Tropical Eats



South of Banderas Bay, they said we'd have light winds. But we expected it would still be from the north, the same as the prevailing winds in the Sea of Cortez, not from the south, the direction we are heading,which is what we found to begin with. Anyway, we anchored at Chemala Bay, about 50 miles south, for four days with about 12 other boats. This four mile bay was surrounded by a nice beach that is frequented by locals on the weekends. Then, we headed into the wind and went south 30 miles to Tenacatita Bay. More gorgeous beach with beachfront palapa cafes. It all looks great, but with humidity in the 90 percent range, it is always hazy and quite a change from dry Baja. At least the temperatures are in the 70s. I can't imagine this place in summer.

At Chemala, we had great pina coladas at one of the palapas and ordered shrimp cocktail. It arrived in a parfait glass, hot, with shrimp (camarrones), octopus (pulpo)), scallops, and carolones (sea snail). Steve said, "don't look at it; just eat it." Then, we went to the market.

This involved a walk down the beach and then up a block or two to the road and shopette. It's a typical Mexican mini-market, but they had no meat so we asked if there was a carniceria close by where we could buy chicken. The lady said, "can you wait 20 minutes?" Yes, so we sat outside and Steve conversed with the two locals about boats, fishing, etc. Their dog enjoyed the ice cream I dropped on the ground and the sausage Steve bought and fed to him. He didn't have a name, just "Perro." About an hour later, a chicken arrived, warm, right out of someone's backyard, but thankfully, dead, defeathered, and cleaned. When we cooked and ate it later, we discovered it was a rooster And with our preparation, "coc au vin" it was not. It was more like chewing calamari with chicken flavor.