New Year's Day
Breakfast: We had decided to start the new year by going out for brunch or at least a late breakfast. The question was “Who would be open after celebrating all night?” We settled for Margarita's, a restaurant which Art used to patronise regularly when they were in centro near the laundry. A year or so ago they moved to the Playa Madera area and we had yet to visit their new location.
Margarita's appeared to be open, at least the door was partially open. We pushed through. Inside, not a sound, the kitchen vacant, not a single person in the dining area. Almost spooky—like something out of The Twilight Zone!
Back out in the parking lot a bystander said something about a big party last night!
Hungry and disappointed we drove on into centro to see who might be open. We chose Los Braseros, another restaurant that we are familiar with, also one that features traditional Mexican dishes as well as the standard eggs, pancakes etc. and started 2012 with an enjoyable Mexican breakfast; huevos a la mexicana, chiliquilies, fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee.
Wednesday we invited our friends Jorge and Lulu to join us in drive south to the village of La Maciel de Soledad, also called El Chole for some reason.
For decades the locals have been finding bits of pottery, tools and other signs of ancient habitation and all knew that under some of the hills were pyramids and the ruins of an old settlement. Several of the locals had small collections of items found while farming their land. Most of the good stuff had gone to the museums in Mexico City but the officials there seemed rather uninterested in this archeological site except for erecting a small sign: Zona Arcologia. 7 or 8 years ago we toured the area with Adan, one of these young locals who had a small museum in his house to display the items that had been found.
A few years ago The Powers That Be finally decided to invest a little time and money and to begin a proper excavation. Unfortunately the self-taught locals were more or less ignored and their private collections were confiscated.
This website shows much of this early museum. http://soledaddemaciel.com/index.htm
A new museum has been built and several of the locals now acting as unofficial guides around the ruins, excavations and reconstruction areas.
Unfortunately the museum was closed during the time Jorge and Lulu were here but we did get the opportunity to have a good look around the site. Perhaps we'll manage a trip back when the museum is open.
Friday the 6th we took a few more pictures around and in the estuary alongside El Manglar; A couple of guanas and a tortuga.
The rest of the first half of January was taken up with relaxing, visiting old friends and checking out old and new restaurants. We did finally get to eat at Margarita's; we took our friend Lynda and her two kids out to lunch there one afternoon.
Monday the 16th we decided it would be pizza night—home made pizza on the Baby Weber BBQ.
Gillian mixed the dough using the breadmaker, saved half in the freezer for another day, rolled the remaining half out and constructed the pizza--Chicken, red and green peppers, onion and mushroom. Art was tasked with babysitting the BBQ. It turned out perfectly.
And over the next few days he managed to get a few good shots of local birds in their natural habitat.
and a couple of nice sunsets. 
The last week or so of the month the twice weekly organizational meetings for the upcoming SailFest began. SailFest is an annual fund raiser for the Por Los Ninos organization which helps build schools for the very poor areas and provides English language and other scholarships to these children.
We also attended a fund raiser wine and cheese at the Catalina hotel, to raise money to help support chronically ill and handicapped children and their families. Here we were successful bidder in the silent auction for a three course dinner for two at the Zi Restaurant in the local Club InterWest. We'll report on that when we try it.
On the 30th Gillian attended a cooking class where she learned to make chili rellenos. This looks promising!
And to finish the month we attended the first fundraiser for SailFest, where the band M.Docs played at Paccalo's restaurant and donated all their tips to Por Los Ninos. In spite of their amplifier failing after 40 minutes they raised over 800 dollars, finishing their evening by going table to table to perform!
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